Babysitter - Review

Author: Liza Rodman & Jennifer Jordan

Genre: True Crime

Format: Ebook

Pages: 352

Going into this I didn't know much about the case around Tony Costa, just that he was in fact a convicted serial killer. Which was one of the reasons I wanted to read this. I was also interested because it held the story of Liza Rodman who spent her summers around Costa during the time he was actively killing people. All of that made for something I was really was excited about, and The Babysitter was one of my most anticipated reads of the first half of 2021.

Unfortunately, this one let me down in the end.

I will say this, Jennifer Jordan dows a lot of research around the case that was built around Tony Costa and his life leading up to him becoming a serial killer. There is a lot of information presented in three hundred pages, and a lot of work was put into that. I did learn a lot about the case. I also really liked that both Tony and Liza's stories were told together through the timeline. It gave two different views of the world at that time.

However, that being said after a while having the chapters go back and forth between Tony and Liza quickly become an info dump. So much information is being laid at your feet, that by the I got to the last few chapters I had forgotten the first couple of victims. This bothers me because for me with a true-crime I want these stories to be more about the victims than the serial killer themselves. I want to remember their names and what was done to them. I want to feel for them, but it was hard to have an emotion other than disgust. Between the things Costa was doing and the life, Liza Rodman had to live.

Personally, I feel like the short chapters didn't help either. It would have been nice if the book was split in years so the timeline was a little more upfront. 

I also felt a little bad for Liza because I feel like this book aired a lot of her dirty laundry in a way. She had a hard childhood, and I'm not really sure we needed to know all of that. I thought it was going to be her story about spending summers with Costa at the RC, but it was more about her struggles growing up that included Costa a handful of times. 

Also, while I don't mind books getting gruesome with blood and gore. It just didn't feel needed here. Yes, what Costa did to these women was terrible, but I feel like there was a better way to handle those moments. 

I just put this book down a lot, and for something barely over three hundred pages, it took me most of the month. A few days have passed and I realized I didn't really retain any of the information in the book, just that I'm really disappointed this wasn't as good as I wanted it to be.

Thanks to Netgalley for an early copy of The Babysitter, this has been my honest opinion of this book.

HAPPY READING!!