Lena’s Reviews > Notes on an Execution > Status Update

This book predominantly covers the story of the life of a man named Ansel. The story essentially starts discussing his childhood were basically his mother had become a teen mother and her, and her boyfriend moved out to some remote farm. His father was extremely abusive and would limit the amount of food that him and his mother had access to. Then the mother gave birth to Ansel‘s younger brother at which point she decided she had to escape the abuse. After one day and soul‘s dad beats her up, as penance. She asks him to drive her away and basically escapes. She calls the police to have child protective services. Come take the kids at which point they’re both taken into foster care.

The story goes back-and-forth with basically describing what happened with Ansel’s past, as well as as the clock ticking down because he’s currently on death row. Basically in the current timeframe and plot, he had developed an affair with one of the female guards who stated that she would help him escape. Unfortunately, that was all a lie, she didn’t really help him escape, and in fact, kind of left him high and dry.

So basically going back to the past his mother after escaping gets to California because she wants to see the ocean. She basically lives like a homeless person for a while until she finds some commune in Central California and begins to like build her own life. At that point and soul was taken to a foster home with a bunch of other children. One of the kids their name was saffron, and she had a huge crush on him. One day, though, when she went to go, tell him that she had a crush on him she found out that he had basically killed three animals. She ran back to the house to be with her friends and was laughing with them about something. And so overheard this, and because he was so mad that they were laughing at him he left the corpse of the fox he had killed on saffron‘s bed. This was a preview into the fact that he’s a sociopath.

After this incident saffron, who was in the foster home because her mother had passed away, and her father had went back to the country where he came from. Saffron felt uncomfortable staying at that foster home and is transferred to a new home. She ends up growing up and becoming a police officer and eventually a captain. One of the cases that she was fixated on is that she comes to find out that her three best friends from that foster home were murdered. She has high suspicion that Ansel was the one who did it. So she spends a lot of of her career, trying to find out what happened to those three girls.

In a parallel plot line, and eventually grows up and goes to college where he meets a girl named Jennifer. Jennifer has a twin sister named Hazel. One day during the holidays Jennifer and Ansel, who became boyfriend girlfriend come over for Christmas time. Hazel had gotten into a dancing accident while on stage one day so she had blown her knee and no longer was able to go to school for a period of time. Hazel was kind of jealous of Jennifer and Ansel, but she knew that something was wrong. One day she wakes up in the early hours of the morning and she sees Ansel outside bearing something in her backyard. She assumes that she’s just dreaming it and goes back to sleep.

So the book basically alternates with Ansel currently on death row, saffron, trying to solve these murder cases, and the story of Hazel, who is the twin sister of Ansel’s girlfriend and eventually wife, Jennifer.

So flash forward to a more recent timeline. Jennifer calls Hazel on the phone being like I want to leave Ansel, and she gets a new nursing job in Texas. So Hazel helps Jennifer to escape Ansel and start a new life in Texas.
When Hazel takes Jennifer to the airport, Jennifer gives Hazel her wedding ring which she keeps in the car. Unfortunately after a series of unfortunate events and soul decides to drive to Texas to find Jennifer. He sees her leaving the hospital with a male coworker and she kisses him on the cheek. He follows her to her apartment and bust her door in and stabs her to death. Hazel and her family are devastated when they find out. On the day of Jennifer‘s funeral Hazel remembers seeing Ansel bury something in the backyard. She uncovers it and it turns out that it’s a jewelry box with various pieces of jewelry. She brings this jewelry box and the wedding ring to Captain saffron who basically uncovers the case. Because of the killing of the three girls and Jennifer, Ansel is put on death row as a serial killer. One of his main things that he was so disappointed about when the female police officer betrays him is that he had basically written a manifesto, and he was hoping that it would be distributed to all the new sources and magazines, but that wasn’t gonna happen. In his final moments, he basically reflecting, on the fact that he died, not being famous.

Hazel and her mother show up to watch the execution. Another important thing to note is that Ansel‘s brother also ended up surviving and being adopted by a wonderful family. He ended up passing away really young due to cancer. His daughter however, ended up reaching out to Ansel being like I’m your niece and they connected for a bit. However, saffron let the niece whose name is blue and her mother know that Ansel is a murderer. So they ended up cutting off connections with him. It was that night that they cut him off where he drove to Texas to kill Jennifer. Blue ended up, also showing up at the execution. In the final chapters of the book and soul dies from lethal injection.

In the final chapter of the book saffron goes through what she thinks the lives of her friends would’ve looked like if they were not murdered by Ansel.

Overall, the book was good, although there were some frustrating features, including the plot line of Ansel‘s mom. I never quite understood what the purpose of having her in the book was after she gave up both of her children. Also, it felt like the plot wasn’t necessarily smooth. Although at points, the writing was very lyrical and wonderful, I did at multiple points wonder where the storyline was going, particularly because we were jumping between so many different perspectives that didn’t all seem to fluidly be cohesive. It’s definitely an extremely unique book and I’ve never read anything like it, so I definitely would recommend it. However, I don’t know if it was worth all the hype that it got.