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Preview — Love and Death in the Sunshine State by Cutter Wood
“I was convinced that somewhere in this pile of anecdotes and photographs and recollections was the vital clue, the detail that would make everything slide into place, and as I began to assemble all the information I’d gathered into an idea of a woman, I imagined myself at the head of a troupe of deputies and detectives, leading us all inexorably in the direction of Sabine...more
Published April 17th 2018 by Algonquin Books
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Rating details
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Apr 12, 2018Valerity (Val) rated it liked it · review of another edition
This was a bit of a mash-up of the author’s relationship blended with the story, which was really about a woman in Florida’s Anna Maria Island who goes missing. There are three suspects: her husband, her boyfriend, and the man found driving her car. The writing is a bit different. I generally prefer my true crime to be free of any fiction, but I found that in this situation I didn’t mind the author’s take on what may have happened. This is a good read for crime buffs and history fans with the fl...more
Feb 22, 2018Julie rated it it was ok
It's insufferable, but I couldn't stop reading it. Imagine Payne Lindsey (or John David Booter for that matter) sets out to write a true crime book and instead writes an overly-florid MFA-style memoir. Then, 75% of the way through, he realizes he never really investigated that whole 'crime' thing, so he writes this weird, speculative, fictionalized interlude (in the most purple of purple writing) about what might have happened. And to bind it all together, he tries to contrive some tenuous connec...more
Love and Death in the Sunshine State: The Story of a Crime by Cutter Wood 1.25 stars
Sabine Musil-Buehler owns a nice little hotel in Florida with her estranged husband. Sabine’s car is stolen, but she is nowhere to be found. An investigation turns up with blood on the vehicle and Sabine’s boyfriend is beginning to look like the number one suspect in this odd case. No body, but a car and an apartment covered with odd patches of blood shows that something has gone array. Cutter Wood visited this ho
...more
May 20, 2018Trin rated it did not like it
The nicest vacation of my adult life took place on a little island off the Gulf coast of Florida called Anna Maria. I don't think I've met a single person who wasn't also on that trip who has ever heard of it. So when I saw that there was a new true crime book set on the island, I naturally had to read it right away. Unfortunately, the best thing I can say about this book is that it's an interesting, if inadvertent, study of perception. I went to Anna Maria expecting nothing except for a chance t...more
Sooo when I read a supposed true crime novel I expect the main focus of the book to be the actual crime. This was a mix of a crime that happened in FL which you don't find out much about until almost the end of the book and a mix of information on the author's relationship with his girlfriend, which I really cared nothing about. The writing was not bad but if you are wanting to read a true crime novel this in my opinion does not fit into that category. It is mainly just a book about the author's...more
May 11, 2018Craig Pittman rated it really liked it
If I had known before starting this book that it was an unusual mix of genres -- true crime, memoir and fiction -- I might have put it aside without even opening it because I dislike fiction that masquerades as fact. That would have been a mistake on my part, though, because I would have missed out on a beautifully written book that takes you inside a murder like few others I have ever seen. Cutter Wood is a first-time author who writes like an old pro. He starts off the book talking about how he...more
Mar 24, 2018
Pepe rated it did not like it · review of another edition
It is not often that I do not finish a book. I really, really try to select books I will enjoy, and then, persist through if I begin to struggle. Often, it ends up being well worth it. This is not one of those books. If you read the book's synopsis, and interpret it as I did, you would expect a tale of murder. I think it was the 3rd chapter before any significant mention of the crime was made. I gave it the benefit of the doubt, but by the time I got about 35% in, most references to the crime we...more
May 30, 2018Melinda rated it did not like it
If you read the reviews like I did on Amazon you're probably wondering which of his five MFA writing buddies the author got to fabricate those 5-star reviews. I was curious so I found a copy of this stinker at my public library. The best thing I can say about this mash-up is it was short -- I read the 225 pages in less than 24 hours, maybe a tad longer than it took Mr. Wood to write the book. Here is a sentence from page 86 I read three times: 'If we were are smart, of course, we recognize the d...more
May 24, 2018Sara rated it did not like it
How did I hate this book? Let me count the ways. See Julie's review. Pretentious, disjointed bullshit. Go back to your MFA program, and be nicer to your girlfriend, and at the very least, refrain from mocking her in print...On top of it, he imagines and describes a death scene from inside the head of the victim, using her as a tool for his own writing practice. Gross.
Eh. A lot of it felt like one big tangent. The book is purportedly about this older woman who owned a hotel on an island off of Florida who disappeared/was probably murdered by her husband or her boyfriend. Then someone set the hotel on fire. *shrugs* that's pretty much the extent of the story. Cutter Wood (whose parents oh so clearly think they're hilarious. What a goddamn name) stayed at this hotel one time, so he feels a deep personal connection to Sabine, the murdered woman. He kind of inves...more
Jul 15, 2018Rob rated it did not like it · review of another edition
Writer frets about being a pretentious writer, gets interested in a true crime, spends most of the book pretentiously talking about his life and then I put it down.
It's impossible not to have a strong reaction to Love and Death in the Sunshine State. I want to say you'll either love it or hate it, but I suspect many readers will fall somewhere in between. As you can tell from the book description--and some of the vitriolic reviews provided by ordinary readers here on Goodreads--Love and Death in the Sunshine State blurs genres. It's a little bit of true crime, a tad of memoir, and a whole lot of fiction rolled into one. I was absolutely enamored of this bo...more
I picked up Cutter Wood’s Love and Death in the Sunshine State because of its setting: Anna Maria Island in Florida, a place I know well. This true-crime books deals with the disappearance of Sabine Musil-Buehler, a local motel owner, and the three men suspected of murdering her. Wood’s description of the island, the surrounding communities, and the local citizens are authentic, although I was disappointed that he doesn’t identify most of the bars and restaurants where events take place. (Mr. Bo...more
Aug 13, 2018Stephanie rated it it was ok
'...nor for a long time after did it occur to me that much of the grieving after a death is done not so much for the loss of the loved one but for the simple passage of time, which so gently obliterates everything before it.' Sigh Cutter Wood can write. He is a fantastic writer, in fact. The way this story was presented just irritated me to no end. Wood begins the story with a personal memoir. He explains why he picked this particular murder - he had a personal connection to the motel - but also de...more
The book is really two stories, one about the author and the other an unsolved murder on a Florida island where he once vacationed. The constant running through both stories is the colorful characters. From the author’s squirrel-napping father and profane, gin-drinking mother to the lead suspect in the murder who sends him a drawing of a teddy bear “suitable for a mat frame” from prison, the characters are eccentric and lively. As I sat reading this book on a island in Florida, looking out at a...more
A crime occurs at a small Florida motel. A young creative-writing student realizes he once stayed at that motel and decides to look into the crime, but he ends up examining his own life more than anything else. The writing is good, but the overall reading experience is like hearing some great guitar playing in a bad song; you can appreciate the talent without enjoying the result.
another I couldn't stick with and didn't finish
I expected more of a murder mystery but this was really more of a memoir.
A bigger message hidden within the confines of a couple met with disaster and the author seeking answers with a connection to the very same hotel of the murder. A stolen car leads to a missing women Sabine and 3 likely suspects. The husband, the boyfriend, and one other man are in the cross hairs. When a motel fire occurs the boyfriend flees creating an intensive search on Anna Marie Island. Ultimately how we treat those we love using factual based evidence and beyond facts to get to the heart of t...more
Didn't enjoy this book too much. Just 'okay'. Almost read like something he had to write to complete an 'assignment' for college. There is a 'bit' of a connection between the writer and this story, which is probably to lead us to believe that this connection makes for some good reading. It doesn't. It's a mixed up tale of murder. Poor writing has the book taking different directions throughout. Waste of time.
Mar 27, 2018Jake rated it liked it
A relatively unremarkable missing person case in the Tampa Bay Area gets investigated when a struggling grad student with a tenuous relationship with the town can't stop thinking about it. He returns to town, half-asses an investigation, and strikes up a correspondence with a person of interest. Almost half of the book is an account of what the author thinks might have happened. Kind of like if when writing HHhH, Laurent Binet had only done one tenth of the research and spent way more time talki...more
Hardly qualifies as True Crime. Reads like an English student trying to impress some one. Also, if you don't know what male privilege is, a more perfect example can't be found than when the author asks if it really even matters who killed Sabine? She's already dead anyways.
When reading In Cold Blood I didn't learn about Truman Capote's college writing classes. When reading Son: A Psychopath and his Victims I didn't have to wade through Jack Olsen's love life. I did learn about Ann Rule's time as a suicide-line helper, but that's okay since she sat next to Ted Bundy whilst doing it (The Stranger Beside Me: Ted Bundy The Shocking Inside Story). OK, it's not exactly fair to bring up these classics of true-crime against a random book picked up off the new book shelf at...more
So much navel gazing. So very much.
May 21, 2018Jean rated it it was ok
Ugh. I don't read a lot of true crime, but the ones I've read have been so good that perhaps I have set the bar too high. This was a bear to get through. Just a slow story. The author spends too much time looking at his own life and not enough giving enough details of the actual mystery. I was bored and almost gave up a few times, but decided to go ahead and finish it just to see who the murderer was. The style was much to literary with not enough suspense and intrigue for my taste.
Cutter Wood appears to possess the ability to write very well, but that does not manage to save this largely plotless and dull crime novel—or is this a memoir? Love and Death in the Sunshine State follows Cutter himself as he follows a love-triangle affair murder/arson. Readers watch him fall in love and get into Iowa's MFA program but fail to do much in the way of digging up important information on the crime. It is almost as though he spent so much time and money on attempting to research this...more
Jun 05, 2018Katie Turner rated it liked it · review of another edition
I have been a full time Florida resident since 2000 and lived in the Bay Area from 2000-2004 so I am familiar with Anna Maria Island and the environs herein but had no familiarity with the murder mystery that is the subject of this book. After reading an excerpt of the book on LitHub I downloaded it right away. True crime set in my deeply unique adopted home state? Yes please. It was....good. I could have done without the author's own love story being shoehorned into a big section of the book wh...more
I will say that I liked the actual writing of this book which is why I'm reluctantly giving it 3 stars. The author clearly has some talent and a way with words. However, I don't really understand why he chose to try to make parallels from a random crime that happened in Florida with his own love life. That really didn't work at all. And I couldn't help but feel that if something this horrible happened to me (being murdered by my ex con bf) I would be seriously annoyed at the detailed description...more
What a strange book. What is it... true crime? Memoir? Small-town character sketch? Are we listening to Holden Caulfield or Truman Capote? All are correct. I think? I’m glad I knew in advance that this book is compared to In Cold Blood, or else I would have lost patience because I would have been expecting a true crime. I listened to it on audio and the narrator’s peculiar voice had me addled immediately. I made it through by rationalizing, “Well, Capote’s voice was... peculiar also”. I am a nati...more
Dec 12, 2018Johnvano rated it liked it
Good use of language and an intriguing premise, especially as the author wound his personal romantic narrative within the romance gone bad from the true crime narrative. But halfway through I wondered how all of his pining and then settling in with his woman mattered to the true crime story. I never felt like the pieces truly connected. And it certainly needed more of a wrap-up than he gave it in the end. Also, as he rapidly sped through the scenes leading up to how the murder must've went down,...more
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Cutter Wood completed an MFA in creative nonfiction at the University of Iowa in 2010, during which time he was awarded numerous fellowships and had essays published in Harper’s and other magazines. After serving as a Provost Fellow at UI and a Visiting Scholar at the University of Louisville, Wood moved to New York. For his forthcoming book, Love and Death in the Sunshine State, he was awarded a...more