Maggie C

Extremely shocking story from an excellent writer

Revisado: 06-30-19 El oyente recibió este título gratis

I’ve been on a binge of listening to true crime audiobooks and podcasts, so the opportunity to listen to and review Obeying Evil was attractive to me. I had heard of Ronald Gene Simmons a bit here and there, but I hadn’t seen or listened to anything in depth about him before this book. I’m always looking for new content to examine so this looked perfect for me.

The first thing I noticed was that this was a much shorter audiobook than I was used to – 3 hours. By contrast, an audiobook I had recently listened to about BTK was around 11 hours long. I was a bit worried at first, thinking that this would skip a lot of detail and wouldn’t be worth my time, but I still decided to try it out.

I was completely wrong. Somehow, Ryan Green manages to make those 3 hours last forever. He packs so much detail and information into that time – it’s amazing. I think I listened to this one over the course of one day because I just couldn’t stop listening – I had to learn what happened next. This is where not knowing the details behind this case is a good thing, as all of these details were brand new to me so I didn’t feel like I was rehearing the same details over and over.

This is also not just the usual retelling of a case, telling us about Simmons’ life, what led to him being such a sick person, his wife’s upbringing, and so on. Again, I don’t know how Green did this, but he had a first person view of both Simmons’ and his wife’s thoughts. I presume this may have come from Simmons’ own testimony and letters found from and to various family members. As a listener, you are plunged into the depravity of this man’s actions and the terrible things he did to others, starting well before the actual deaths took place.

Every time I listen to another true crime audiobook or podcast, I think I’m hearing about the absolute worst of human behavior. Then I listen to another one, and experience a new low. I have listened to a few things since Obeying Evil, and still nothing has come close to Simmons’ actions.

Steven White’s narration is spot on in this rendition. I think he struck a good balance between telling the story and adding some emotion into the characters. Again, the fact that the book is not the usual true crime retelling helps set the tone for the narrator, but I still enjoyed White’s performance.

I do warn that if you are new to true crime stories, I wouldn’t start with this one. I am by no means new to any of the usual stories, and I was still shocked. I do think Obeying Evil was worth the listen, but maybe after reading about some other killers first.

While shocking and overwhelmingly sad, Obeying Evil by Ryan Green tells the details of Ronald Gene Simmons’ life and killings thoroughly, with plenty of facts and also emotion. I highly recommend this book and will be seeking out other true crime books and audiobooks by Green.

I received a free copy of this audiobook in order to provide a review. All thoughts are my own.

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Solid story if a bit sad

Revisado: 06-08-19

I had not heard about the Waneta Hoyt case before, and it sounded very interesting, albeit a bit sad. I was excited to get a chance to listen to Goodbye, My Little Ones: The True Story of a Murderous Mother and Five Innocent Victimsand eagerly listened to it every chance I got.

The narration by Kelley Huston was excellent. She has a pleasant voice with little judgement on what must have been a hard subject to delve into. I would be happy to listen to any of her other works and look forward to any books she narrates in the future.

As for the work itself, I found it to be engrossing all the way through. Through this book, I learned more about two similar cases that helped set precedent for the district attorney to go after Waneta Hoyt. I’ve already found a podcast on the Tinning case and hope to find some more about the other one.

I was just a little confused at some points about the names, but with a non-fiction book, that’s a given for me. There were so many legal figures in a case of this magnitude that it’s confusing even when reading print versions of cases, so it’s definitely not the fault of the authors.

The only thing that I didn’t understand was why the district attorney pursued this case so far. He had to relinquish control of the prosecution as many of the cases took place in a different county, but yet he kept pushing it with the appropriate people. I am in no way saying that Hoyt deserved to get away with any harm at all against any child, but it sounds like a lot of money was spent on a woman who was far past child-bearing years and would likely not come in contact with any babies. I think that pursuing justice for one child would have saved time and money, but perhaps they needed all of the children’s deaths to prove that their mother was the cause for their demise.

The tragic mystery of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) is explored in this book. Even all these years later, little is understood about SIDS and parents still worry about this silent killer taking their baby. It was interesting to find out about the research that was conducted by various doctors around the country and how Hoyt’s children’s deaths impacted this research, perhaps negatively. Her actions not only killed her poor children, but I fear that they led others to doubt other parents who lost their children to SIDS.

This is a sad book, because even though justice is served, the babies cannot be brought back to life. I feel that Waneta received a fair sentence and hope that she is able to face up to what she did at some point.

If you’re also into true crime but can bear the sadness of this book, then check out Goodbye, My Little Ones: The True Story of a Murderous Mother and Five Innocent Victims from Audible.com.

I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

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