Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I cannot comprehend how this book has five stars, unless the reviews are fake. I heard about this book through an NPR interview with its author, and, as a lover of Nabokov, was excited at the chance to learn more about "Lolita." It turns out the story of Sally Horner is only peripherally related to the story of Lolita, and it gets as much attention as it deserves in the novel. (Sally is mentioned in a parenthetical remark towards the end of the book.) Not only does Weinman do a poor job of relating Sally's story to Lo's, she does a poor job of investigating Sally's case in any meaningful way. The crimes against her were committed 60 years ago, so there is almost no evidence or witnesses left to investigate. Notably, Sally did not leave a diary from which to examine her life. That doesn't stop Weinman from wildly speculating on Sally's thoughts, actions, what she ate for breakfast, what she prayed for, in which parking space her neighbors parked their mobile home--seriously--without any evidence whatsoever. The amount of sentences that begin with "Perhaps" in this book should disqualify from being classified as non-fiction. Speaking of diction, this book is not only completely speculative, but also poorly written and apparently unedited. There are sentence fragments galore, wrongly-conjugated verbs, misstated "facts," repeated words and passages, etc. In a word, it's infuriating. Even barring all of these flaws, the book falls short of its goal. It is apparently trying to claim that Nabokov used the story of Sally Horner as inspiration for "Lolita." So what? He acknowledged her in the novel itself. What more proof is necessary? And if he was inspired by her story, what does that mean for his masterpiece? Nothing. It is no less of a literary treasure now that I know there was another young girl who was abducted in the decade before its release. In fact, I'm sure there are myriad girls who have been abused in similar ways throughout history. Not really the bombshell Weinman makes it out to be. I do not recommend this book to Nabokov readers, as they clearly have much higher standards, nor to true-crime readers, as I found it lacking in the "true" category. Regrettably, I paid almost $30 for this book. Please don't make the same mistake I did. (I originally published my review with two stars, calling it "disappointing." Since finishing the book, I had to amend it to one star and "really bad." It just kept getting worse.)