All I Want To Do Is Kill

by Dale Hudson

Lesbian lovers Holly Harvey and Sandy Ketchum, fueled by sex, drugs and obsession, swore that nothing would ever tear them apart. When Holly's grandparents wanted her to stop seeing Sandy and getting high, the pair killed the elderly couple in a frenzied attack.

Genres: True Crime, Nonfiction

320 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published October 1, 2007

Reviews

[J.H. Moncrieff · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting book until the last quarter...then it got bogged down with trial stuff and legal wrangling and I lost interest. I don't know why Goodreads says this book is just over 300 pages--my version was over 460. Seemed a bit long for a true crime about one double murder, as horrific as that murder was.

While this was mostly well written, the purple prose could get over the top and the descriptions of the murders and subsequent injuries were so detailed they seemed gratuitous at times--not what I'm used to from true crime.

[♥ Marlene♥ · Rating 5 out of 5]

on Sunday, May 18, 2008 I wrote about this book:


I picked my first True crime book after being a month without any.
I had started to get a bit annoyed and bored by the True Crime books I had read. Especially because most TC authors do not build the suspense anymore.

Wow, I am so glad I chose this book .
What a great read. I was lying in bed , my heart racing, so scary.

This is how a good true crime book should be written.
(although I still think authors should not start with the murder) ;)

I decided to skip the first few episodes , started with the story of the Teenagers (Chapter 10) . Once I was where everything had happened, then I went back to read the first 9 chapters

That is the best way to read this book.
Well I finished it last night (May 18 2008) I felt a bit sad cause what to read now and it was such a well written book and an interesting case, but glad that thanks to this book I remember again why I love to read true crime.

TC was the reason I started to read English books.
Last night I ordered 3 TC books online.

This book is shocking.

SPOILER!!!!
Still wonder about Sandy though. I am a bit surprised how much influence one police cop has on the future of one of the girls. It seemed to me he hated Holly and I did not like how he blamed it all to her and not to Sandy.
Don't think Sandy was that innocent to be honest. I wish that Survivor judge Pascal English was her judge to.
Another thing I noticed was that Holly took the deal especially cause she did not want anyone to see the crime pictures. Not the public and specially not her family.
Well the author showed the crime pics to everyone to see.

I would give this book a 10 if not for the spoilers in the first few chapters. so i give it a 9.5

[Tracy · Rating 3 out of 5]

The books starts out with a fascinating description of the friend calling the police and them checking to see if the grandparents are dead. Then the author moves back to cover the background of why Holly Harvey was living with her grandparents. While the book was good but it was verbose in some areas. I found some parts didn't really add to the story in any way. For example, the author described an interview on the news that didn't add any more information about the crime, the murderers or the family members of the victim and killer.
My favorite part was where the judge was questioning Holly about what she and did and why. I find myself wondering how any one could plan to kill someone and carry it out. It was also interesting to see how the different viewpoints were different. Holly told one story, while Sandy Ketchum told a different version of what happened. There was also the people who said that "she wouldn't do that." Even though both teens had trouble in the past, no one seemed to predict this even though there was some hints before the homicide took place.

[Izabela · Rating 4 out of 5]

The details in this are excellent, though tend to become a bit too subjective for a true crime book. The language also sometimes leans toward a crime book written long before this one was, with cliches used by a generation much older than the one written about. Despite the sometimes odd structure of the syntax, this was one interesting and informative read.

[Melanie · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5/3 stars. This book is about twice as long as it should be. So many repetitive phrases and situations that are extremely annoying. The entirety of part 1 felt extremely unnecessary as the crime is fully played out in another part and I seriously doubt anyone who chooses to read a true crime book needs to be told that a detective’s job is stressful or that a crime scene investigators job is crucial in getting a conviction.
Oh and omg the horribly cheesy and inappropriate idioms/metaphors that really take you out of the true crime mindset and distract from the story. Literally the author used the word boobies and then called them milk manufacturing machines, in the middle of a book about teen killers.
The story is compelling and the girls back stories are interesting but the rest of the book wasn’t great. I found out there are other books about this crime and I wish I had tried one of them instead because I feel like this could’ve been a great story.

[Coffeesaddict · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's an ok read. It can get a bit repetitive with it's details at points and some chapters could have been combined (ex: the murder itself stretches across 4 chapters with no real reason to break them up). Both of these factors can make the book feel padded at times. The narrative may have benefited from moving on a more linear timeline instead of starting with the police investigation then jumping right back to the crime. So much emphasis is placed on how the girls were raised and how it played a role in their desicion making later on. It would have been a more interesting way to start instead of police procedure.

[Mary Jo · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book was hard to read. The writing was terrible, and it seemed like the writer leaned toward a sympathetic view of the two asshole teenagers who killed two innocent people. I finished it because I feel compelled to finish a book if I have started it. The author repeats himself endlessly, like he forgets he already wrote about something. I was left with the impression that both of these girls are just wastes of flesh, and so are pretty much everyone involved in their lives.

[Koren · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a very well-written true crime book in my opinion. At 577 pages I thought it was going to be overly detailed with a long drawn-out court room scene, but it wasn't. It held my interest from beginning to end.

[Chelsea McWhirk · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is based on a true story. Its about 2 young teenage girls, Holly and Sandy, who fall in love with sex, drugs, alcohol, and eachother. They'll do anything to be with eachother and anyone who gets in their way will pay the price. As the girls get more and more off the wrong track in life, Holly's grandparents ask that she and Sandy stop seeing eachother and getting high together. Holly doesn't appreciate being told she can't see the love of her life, and all hell breaks loose. Holly goes on a dark and frightening rampage and she and Sandy kill her grandparents. They run off to Florida and hide out for a few days, until they get caught and arrested. The girls were both sentenced to a minimum of 10 years each. I read this book twice, it was so good! I really liked that the novel was filled with detail and direct quotes from officers and family members involved. The novel also included pictures from the actual crime scene which caught my eye and made me imagine the scene more realisticly.

[Betty · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a sad book, when a grandchild does this to her grandparents, i can not imagine.

[J · Rating 5 out of 5]

Now this was a great read. These chicks killed because they felt they had to in order to be together. Sad, truly sad. A great book.

[Robyn Dones · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read in 2009

[Kristen Doherty · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a pretty sad sorry..these girls really had no authority in their lives...and when Holly did...she ended up killing them.

[Shelley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good book especially if you love true crime. Two teenagers from crappy backgrounds fall in love, and devise a plan to murder ones grandparent. So they can runaway together.

[Sandria Roux · Rating 5 out of 5]

Unbelievable, gruesome true story!!

[. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Better than your run-of-the-mill true crime book, but nothing totally outstanding. Just an interesting account of a very random, violent crime.

[Jamie Lindemulder · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good book, true crime is my favorite genre.

[Samantha Osborne · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really absolutely loved it