The Devil In The White City Summary

The author, Eric Larson, tells the true story of two different men and what goes on in Chicago circa 1893 at the Chicago World Fair.

The book, "The Devil In The White City" tells the story of H. H. Holmes and Daniel Burnham. The book has two plot lines. One plot line centers on Burnham, being a architect who builds the 1893 Chicago World's Fair. The other plot line focuses on H. H. Holmes, the serial killer who uses the fair to get his victims.

I found the book to be very informative but also difficult to read. I didn’t like the chapters about Burnham, I really only liked learning about Holmes, Holmes hotel that he built the same time the fair was being built, and the murders and victims.

In my opinion the main points the author makes are:

• Describing how Holmes would kill his victims

• Describing how Burnham is a highly respectable man with great pride

• Describing how everyone was so occupied with the fair, that they paid no attention to the killings that were happening just blocks from the fair grounds

I think that the author did achieve their purpose in writing the story. His purpose was to inform the readers of what happened at the 1893 World Fair. He included the process of how the fair was built, but he also gave us, the readers, insight on the twisted story of H. H. Holmes.

I personally found the writing difficult. His

sentences seemed as if they would go on forever yet some sentences were very short and choppy. The book dragged on longer than needed in my opinion.
In my opinion the strengths in the book would be all the information.

The book contained a lot of information about not only H. H. Holmes, but as well as Daniel Burnham. It went into detail about the construction of the fair and how Holmes killed his victims, he would seal them into a room without windows and let them suffocate, he would put them into a room and gas them, and once they were dead he would sometimes skin them and send them to schools to be used as examples of the skeleton. I think the weaknesses in the story would be how much detail the author went into on Burnham, I just didn’t like reading the chapters about

him.
I think that the author was qualified to write this book. Erik Larson clearly knew what he was doing when he wrote this book. It had a good argument, good points, and a good conclusion. Although it was a difficult book to read at times, it was still well written.
Overall I did not enjoy the book. Although I did enjoy certain parts of it. I found certain parts and chapters of the book to be interesting while other parts were boring and dull. However, I do feel like the book taught me a lot about the topic. I would recommend this book to someone else only if they were in need of a book to write a report on or if they actually enjoy reading books like this.
The book didn’t leave a impression on me, I wont think of this book on down the road cause I honestly disliked it. This book was very informative, it helped educate me on H. H. Holmes and how he would kill his victims. It also educated me about how the fair was built and the struggles that came with building it.