Wow, this was horrible but not in a good way. I feel like the mother's input was a waste. I do feel it was well researched, but it felt like more of a tribute which is a gross.

When I picked up this book I was not familiar with the story. So, when I started reading My Son, The Killer I expected something completely different.

For me, it did not flow the way it should when telling a story of this magnitude.

Here is the synopsis:
n 2012, the Canadian Press ignited a firestorm of criticism by naming killer Luka Magnotta as its “Newsmaker Of The Year.” But while the recognition was questionable for its sensitivity, there’s no doubt that few people had captured the public’s attention like the young murderer and internet sensation. A male escort and sometimes model, Magnotta had earned his notoriety by videotaping himself stabbing Chinese student Lin Jun to death with an ice pick and dismembering the body, before posting the video online. After mailing Jun’s hands and feet to elementary schools, he then led Interpol on a manhunt that ended when he was arrested at an Internet café in Berlin where he was reading news stories about himself. An international celebrity in a macabre sort of way, with a legion of fans, Magnotta was brought back to Canada, convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to prison. During this time, Anna Yourkin, his estranged mother, troubled by Magnotta’s abused childhood and her role in that, reconnected with her killer son. Despite his internet fame, Magnotta never agreed to any in-depth interviews. Now Magnotta has given award-winning journalist and author, Brian Whitney (RAW DEAL, THE SHAWCROSS LETTERS) an exclusive look inside the mind of this “social media” killer. Joining Whitney to tell this unique true crime story is Anna Yourkin. The book also contains exclusive photos provided by Yourkin.

Wasnt exactly what I was expecting but I still enjoyed it. It was an interesting account and I'm always interested in seeing the lives behind serial killers and possibly an insight into why they ended up doing what they do. That is why I always find myself attracted to the True Crime genre - I love knowing what makes serial killers tick and this book gives you a great insight into the lives from a different persons perspective. A lot of books I've been reading lately seem to be from the perspective of the serial killer, not their families. All in all, a decent read.

A book which is told by Lukes familys perspective. I still found it interesting as Luke hasnt done any interviews about the case.

I really enjoyed this book, the characters were well developed. It had an interesting plot. I would be interested in reading more

I love true crime! You just can’t make most of this stuff up. The story itself is just pure evil, but I didn’t really like the style so much of the book. I felt like I was reading this stuff straight off of google. I give the author props though because no way could write a crime book about this and research everything about it and interview people. hanks Netgalley for giving me the chance to read this in exchange for an honest review!!

Luka is a murderer who was convicted of killing and dismembering Lin Jun, a Chinese international student, before mailing Jun's hands feet to elementary schools and federal political party offices.

Keep that in mind as you read Anna's story of her son's past and the events leading up to his horrific crime. I could not help but be frustrated with Anna's inability to fully condemn her son's actions and a tale such as this deserved more empathy and sensitivity to the family of the victim.

I love true crime. I really do. But this didn't top my list of favourites.

I was familiar with Luka Magnotta's horrific crime and story before but I had still hoped to find some new information here and there just wasn't anything of note. I did learn about Luka's mother Anna's life as it was primarily written in her voice.

While I certainly sympathize with many experiences she endured throughout her life, I feel like the entire tone of her narrative is minimizing the terrible things that her son did. She was making a lot of excuses for actions that are in no way, shape or form worthy of any excuse at all. It's a slap in the face to victim Lin Jun and his family who have already suffered so much.

I know she loves her son. I have 2 sons myself and I cannot imagine having to navigate the things she has had to deal with on account of Luka. My heart breaks for her as a fellow mother but it was very hard for me to rationalize things the way she does. I imagine it's her mind's way of protecting itself and I can understand that, in a way. I applaud her efforts to take care of her own mental health in the ways she speaks about. It's not an easy process.

It is abundantly clear that Luka is mentally ill. Couple that with incredible narcissism and it makes for a really awful combination. His level of self-absorption was infuriating and left me with very little sympathy for him. At the same time, I understand that he needs help and a lot of it. His mother sees his redeeming qualities but they are lost on me.

Back to the book itself, there were many grammatical errors and awkward writing so the reading experience suffered because of it. The chapters were arranged strangely in parts which just felt weird. I'll be honest, a lot of things felt weird. Like how Luka calls his mother, "Sweetie". That almost made me barf. As did many things in this book.

Was an ok read. Seemed like nothing but a source for her own benefit.
Should have given more attention to crime he committed and the poor victims family than her own agenda.

I'm really not sure how I feel about this book. On the one hand it is an interesting, albeit extremely disturbing, story. On the other hand though, I feel that having Luka's mother apart of the book just makes this book seem like it's trying to justify Luka's actions, which in my opinion (and I think most people's opinions) are not justifiable. I was hoping for more investigating on the part of the author and less sensationalism. I was also upset that the victim isn't really mentioned in this much, I feel like he's an after-thought, which I found really disrespectful.

My Son, The Killer is a bit of a mess as it only asks more questions than what it answers and makes the case of Magnotta more sensationalised as if it needed any more. There are parts of the book that deal with the crime and a mother’s justification of herself as she deals with her son’s life choices.

On one hand, we have a book, assumingly written by Brian Whitney who tries to shed a light with a subject matter whose stories are not consistent. We also have the victim Jun Lin who is but a footnote in the book. This seems quite ridiculous and considering Brian Whitney is a crime writer, you think he would have done a little bit of research beyond the typical media fact sheet on Lin. A couple of paragraphs about a person who was murdered seems a bit lazy.

Looking through his back catalogue, he seems to enjoy sensationalising his subject matter without delving too deep. His past output was letters from Arthur Shawcross. I grew up with Arthur Shawcross and know his family as I am from the same small town and although I haven’t read the book, saying that you are going to look into the mind of someone who thinks they are deep but are shallow and lacks a lot of intelligence, shows you were this book, in particular, is probably going.

My Son, The Killer, Whitney says that he has access to Magnotta and then we get the same sound bites that have been radiating out of this case since it exploded on the public due to a slow news day. Magnotta although trying to sound deep and meaningful, really doesn’t come out with anything beyond the normal conspiracy theories and not wanting to discuss the case at all. We are left with nothing really further which considering the author claims to have personal contact with his subject, we are left with pretty much nothing beyond the normal website or news that has already been reported.

Most of the book is taken up by the mother, Anna Yourkin about her son Luka. We have the classic story of a woman in an abusive relationship with her husband. It does seem odd that we have an abusive father who physically and mentally abuses his wife and children and they feel that home schooling is the best way forward when raising your children. For whatever the reasons, we are left with a flimsy reasoning behind this and justification that the other children are well balanced. When the mother leaves the husband, we have well balanced children entering society except for Luka who was apparently bullied and only got on with children who had physical or mental handicaps. I am not sure what is trying to be betrayed here and it is an odd justification to be thrown in the mix.

The mother than states that she finds herself in another abusive relationship to herself and her children and she chooses the man over her son. Again, I am not quite sure if this is to justify why Luka would become the person he became or to shed some sympathy onto Luka as a boy. The story then shifts from Luka becoming an apparent model, pornography, rent boy, etc and the mother seems to approve of these life choices due to gifts and holidays Luka is able to dispense among the family. The couple of times that Luka does get in trouble with the law it is always someone elses fault and Luka is the innocent party.

Once Luka murders Jun Lin, we now have an apparent close knit family who turn their back on Luka because it is too much for them to handle. They do not want the press or media involved in their lives and show no support for their son who becomes a murderer and uses the internet to publicise his crimes. This is a total contradiction to what is written about how close and supportive they are with each other.

The cloud settles and now we have a mother who wants to get back in touch with her boy. This time she seems to have a supportive boyfriend in tow though his name is not mentioned and starts building a relationship with her now famous son. Through the various chapters, we have a mother who seems to be quite self-involved and it was extremely difficult to have empathy for her.

The reasoning for writing a book does not really shed any light on the crime that Luka Magnotta neither committed nor shed light on the family structure. Everything has been heavily documented and publicised before. This in fact seems to be one of those crime books that is released to capitalise on making money. I read the book and was compelled to read to the end though my eyes rolled at quite a few passages. The editor should be sued because the facts playing against each other, dates and years are jumble and there are so many contradictions within the pages it is hard to figure out what the main purpose of this was. The passage where she tells her son that she has written a book is a rather odd one because apparently she had already written it and it is going to the publisher but we have a chapter where she is telling her son about it.

Overall, the book is an over sensationalised inconsistent crime that seems to settle between fiction and non fiction. Luka Magnotta comes across as a hard killer and facts don’t really line up. If this was to shed a light on who Luka is, it doesn’t really do this. I found him to be sad, pathetic and terribly lonely figure who had mental issues due to family who left him out to dry. If he maybe had the support and love that a person should have had, maybe things would not have lead up to what they became. His mother is looking for pity and justification due to her bad life choices and this book is about her coming across as a victim although it portrays her as a conspirator to what her son had become. The book comes across as non apologetic and feels like a get rich scheme.

Maybe one day, Luka Magnotta will open up and let the world see the real person but you are not going to find this person within these pages. You have an apparent crime writer who doesn’t do any research beyond Wikipedia and a mother who makes everything about her. She exploited her son for financial means when he was a pornography actor and rent boy and she continues to exploit him now that he has become a famous killer. There is a probably a decent book to be had with the right editor and the right people involved but this is not that book. As for Luka Magnotta, a man of great promise when born came out a by product of bad parenting and someone forced to live in society’s underbelly.

While it was an interesting perspective I did not enjoy this book. Luka Magnotta's crimes were horrific and I felt this book was trying to find a way to justify his behaviors.

The grammatical errors made it difficult for me - hoping that the editors reviewed more thoroughly before release.

This was an interesting book. I liked the theory of writing this book using interviewing of the family of the killer and the killer himself. In parts it seemed confusing but it tied in together. Serial Killers are an interesting bunch and trying to find out what made them do what they do but until we as a society understand the human brain we will never know.

Mr. Whitney should not have accepted this project on behalf of a serial killer's obviously dysfunctional, abnormal, narcissistic mother and family who want to make a quick buck on the shoulders of their progeny. This is not the first or the last time that a serial / killer or his family will make money off his crime, but my hope is that 'journalists' be clear about not romanticizing the depraved individual, giving a platform to his arrogant and self-centered family to declare their lack of remorse and cluelessness as to the extent to which their son / brother is evil - especially when none of them even had the courtesy to 'publicly apologize' to the victim's family. It's all Me, Me, Me with the entire family. And the lack of shame and remorse or any kind of self-evaluation any ordinary normal person would feel. Whoever sent this family a gift basket needs to have their head examined - along with the entire Yourkin household.

My humble opinion is that the instead of going hysterical over the police raid over alleged 'cat videos' (when they were actually looking for the son over a human being's murder), they should have concentrated on the fact that doing anything abnormal to anything (e.g. animals such as cats) on videos is NOT okay (or the sex work, or the fraud conviction or anything else before the killer hit 'big time') and there is something seriously wrong with Yourkin household (mother Yourkin, sister Melissa, brother Conrad etc.) for them to think nothing of it. I don't want to give anymore space to the actual murderer than has been given by the author. This book justifies whatever he did, whenever he did it. And there is zero journalistic / forensic concentration on each time period and corresponding action (for e.g. the entire sex work tenure, bondage videos, and his cosmetic surgeries). The book reads like a breezy bio data / CV as if everyone is discussing how to make crème brûlée!

Another problem with the book is that the voice of the author is diluted with that of the killer and his mother etc. - It would have been better if his own thought process and the manner in which for e.g. Mother Yourkin describes things was in a separate linguistic style. It all sounds the same.

Part of the problem is the apparent lack of curiosity on the author's part to ask questions, and inform himself as to the background of the parents, their choices and 'handling' of matters, and all who surrounded the kids and the choices of the adult-child-murderer. That kind of work would have involved getting up from his own house and that of Mother Yourkin - you know, actual investigative stuff. (for the life of me, I cannot imagine a mother being happy about any kid's troubles, foray into prostitution or bankruptcy - but that's just another incomprehensible breeze in an ill-thought book written entirely to befuddle the commonsensical you.) I don't think this family knows the meaning of the word 'unhealthy.'

It's also not mentioned whether the killer was medicated / under prescription drugs at the time of the interview calls and written answers.

The author obviously wanted to satiate the public's appetite for murderers (especially Canadian murderers), but make no mistake, he and the Yourkin crowd is exploiting the public, not the other way around. "Just as in all stories about _____, he is always the star, and he will be in this story as well," writes the author.

This book is a catch only if you want to know how NOT to write a book on a serial killer and his family, let alone, a serial killer's book for him.

This is the story of Luka (Eric) Magnotta, who was known as the 1 Lunatic 1 Icepick killer. Written by Brian Whitney and Luka's mother, Anna Yourkin. Luka killed Jun Lin, A Chinese computer student that he met on Craig's List. A video, really a "snuff" film was made by Luka and distributed on some Dark net sites. The description of the video will make the strongest stomach turn. Much of this book are quotes from Luka who is in prison. It was an interesting book but I felt his mother made excuses for the things he did. There is an imaginary ? man named Manny that is supposedly the person who made him do the bad things he did, including the kitten torture films. This book is not for the squeamish. I received this book from Net Galley and Wild Blue Press for a honest review.

So I went into this book with high hopes, I thought it would have been great to hear from Lukas Mother, Anna and how she handled the whole situation when her Son was doing such awful things and when he was caught. Also the idea that the author of the book was able to get in touch with Luka who wanted to 'set some things straight' from his perspective also fascinating me, because what I'd read so far seemed crazy. As well as this the book was marketing as an insight into the mind of a serial killer and as Luka has said and done some troubling things in the past I couldn't wait to dive into his mind.

Firstly the book does not really go into Lukas mind, nor does it showcase any new facts or information to the case. Luka mentions he was being controlled by someone called 'Manny' which is why he did such awful things, but a quick look into the case makes you realise the police could never find this Manny person. However he is adamant that everything ever written about him in the media was lies...

I do not think the book was awful, but I really did not like the tone. Anna spoke about Luka's upbringing and the things he went through as a child and young adult were horrible - however the spin on this was to almost make the reader feel sorry for Luka. This instantly made me feel uncomfortable, especially since his Mother clearly believes a lot of what Luka is suggesting is the true but there has never been any evidence on his behalf...for example, Lukas denial to being obsessed with wanting to become an online celebrity, which himself denied over and over again the book. But if you do a little bit of reading into the case it was quite obvious he was did love the limelight and was looking for new ways to become a social media star. And apparently over 80 social media accounts were tied to him, yet again he denies this constantly.

The majority of the book focused on his issues growing up and not the case itself. It didn't really feel like we got to the bottom of anything from the 'mind of the serial killer' and just constant excuses for his behaviour. Also I wasn't quite comfortable with the amount of forgiveness that was given to him throughout the book and his mother coming to her own jury conclusion - she is his Mother, of course unconsciously she is going to be on his side. At one point she cuts him out and then goes back, only to criticise her family members who have decided to have nothing to do with Luka (Anna then admits to cutting those family members out herself).

So the book cuts between chapters from Anna's perspective, chapters of things Luka has said and then chapters titled various aliases that Luka has had in the past. I quite liked the way the book was broken up and the chapters were short and snappy so it was a good read for my quick commutes or if you just fancied a break from a work for 5-10 minutes every now and again.

I just think for me, because this was such a high profile case that I remember reading about I couldn't not take the book at all seriously due to the fact it was very much 'poor Luka'. They only mention his victim briefly and then move on to talk about his past again and the trauma he dealt with growing up, or that he look sad during his trial.

When I'd reached around 70% of the way through it was way post his trial and was his mother talking about seeing him I thought it could have ended - there wasn't actually much chat about the case or deep dive into why he did it because HE kept telling everyone he wasn't a sociopath or schizophrenic so it felt a little drawn out near the second half of the book. And then the ending of the book really upset me because it was a 'Oh he is getting married and he deserves forgiveness, he didn't do it - it was Manny' (again someone they never had found to exist).

I guess I assumed the book would be more about the case and finding out why he would do such a thing, rather than a book about his Mother. Luka does not give anyone a 'look into the mind' of a serial killer as he simply refuses to acknowledge the murder throughout the book and just keeps saying it was all lies on the internet fabricated and he was being controlled by a man who was part of an underground mob. Also without the evidence that Luka may have had mental health issues, in my opinion this book just helped confirm that he really is a very disturbed and emotionally detached man.

I rated this book a 2.5/5 stars and I would recommend picking it up in the sale if you're interested in true crime.

The publicity for this book states that it's "an exclusive look inside the mind of this 'social media' killer, but it's really not. Instead, it's a look inside the mind of his mother. Some of it is vaguely interesting, but a lot of it just a blow-by-blow of every detail of the days she visits him in prison (from what the doors looked like to what the guards said to her on the way in)— except for what she and her son actually talked about.

Alternate chapters are written by Brian Whitney, and they never really scratch the surface. We're missing any true research as well as any kind of organization or perspective. A more experienced writer could perhaps have integrated Anna's memories into something more compelling.

Luka Magnotta committed one of the most heinous murders in history, filmed it, and posted it online. I remember hearing about this now infamous crime a couple of years ago and being completely disturbed. When I saw that his mother had written a book, I was incredibly intrigued. I'm a true crime buff, and we RARELY hear from a criminal's family member. I thought it would offer a unique perspective, and I excitedly dove in.

I will start by saying that I do recommend this book for true crime readers and that it was very fascinating. However, there were some definite downfalls. Anna, Luka's mother, is very clearly not a professional writer. I found her words to be riddled with both grammatical and stylistic errors. Also, as his mother, she is of course quite bias and sees him as less guilty than he is. That said, the book was not as revealing as I had hoped. I finished it STILL not understanding why he did what he did. Perhaps he doesn't even know himself, though. Both Anna and Luka claim he does not have any mental health disorders... but then she complains that no one helped him when he was seeking help for his mental health. That was a bit contradictory. Also, if he isn't mentally ill, what's the explanation for why he did what he did? Definitely a bit unclear at times.

While this book was not the best written, I still flew through it rapidly. I found it fascinating to get an inside look at this killer's life both before and after his atrocious crime. I wish there had been more answers, but I still enjoyed the insight that it did offer. I really thought it was cool to get the perspective from his mother and I couldn't put it down, to be honest.

Ultimately, I'd say overlook the errors and read this if you're a fellow true crime fan... it's super interesting.

What a horrible story that was. I had mixed feelings about this book… I felt as if htis mother took a bit of an advantage of what her son did to make money, by having a book released. It is purely my judgement and I still read it, with a morbid Curiosity related to what I felt when this case came out… and the memoir was interesting, but not amazing

Luka Magnotta's story was a big deal. I remember how shocking it was when his story was in the headlines. In this book his mother and author Brian Whitney who interviewed Luka go back and forth telling the story. His mother being able to tell her side of the story is interesting and she does a good job explaining how it felt to have your son be caught up in such craziness.

Where the problem lies for this is a book is that sometimes it just doesn't add up. His mother will say he'd lie to her about things such as being in Russia and would deny it when she confronted him. However, when Luka denies certain aspect of his crimes she trusts him fully. You'll find lots of things like this where as a reader you're expecting some fact checking, but won't get it. Everyone gets caught in the crosshairs from the media to the cops to the prison guards.

Obviously his mother having to deal with her son becoming a headlining grabbing killer was difficult. If you read this as her story and can overlook the faults, you will enjoy it. If you're looking for the truth on Luka you won't find it her, there is just too much bias.