THE REAL LOLITA

This book is very well written and I would have given it four stars but the title is misleading. There is only a couple of chapters devoted to the subject of Sally Horner. The rest is devoted either to Lolita, or the author of Lolita: Vladimir Nobobov. Having decided to read this before reading Lolita to get the true crime it was loosely based on or which according to Weinman without evidence inspired the ending I didn't feel it either ruined the plot of Lolita or taught me anything about Delores Haze, Lolita's true fictional name. When it starts to get interesting it meanders off onto for instance: the detective's date of birth, where a description of where he was born, his childhood, background, where he grew up etc. I feel this is because, as Weinman tells the reader there are little documents or records about Sally. So what she does is say "this could be why this happened" or "perhaps she was thinking/feeling" or "according to similar cases." Due to the lack of facts I had to wonder what on earth possessed a publisher to approve this title in the first place? And more to the point, why did Weinman think she could write an entire book filled with guesswork and information about other crimes and individuals unrelated to Sally? This is not true crime, nor is it a reportage about Sally, it's more of a wandering glance into the author's own state of mind, who on several occasions condemns Nabokov for doing the very same thing when he wrote a novel inspired by the cases of real kidnap-rapes of girls bu paedophiles. When we all know that 99% of novels are inspired by our real life experiences. Crime fiction especially. By the end of the book I was asking myself what the point of it was. I could probably write a hundred books myself about true crimes if they were based on facts found in newspapers, interviews with people who may have knew the person or whom just wanted their turn in the limelight to tell me what they heard on the grapevine in the throws of gossip, and what is publicly known both on and offline in library records and register offices.

A brilliant true-crime meets biography. Really insightful, and will send you down a Wikipedia hole the minute you finish. Beautifully written and haunting.

Quite interesting, a reasonable read.

I really did enjoy reading this book and learning what it had to say. I must say if you are just a casual reader, have never read Lolita or are just curious...it is overkill.

Maravilloso, y ya está en español.