I’d like to start my review with a big thank you to the author, Ashley Winstead, the publisher, Sourcebooks Landmark, and NetGalley for the incredible opportunity to read This Book Will Bury Me. This dramatic thriller focuses on one girl’s obsession with true crime and the traumatic events that drive her to seek justice for victims. Filled with psychological suspense and chatroom conversations, the story grabs your attention and holds it hostage, all while exploring deeper themes of grief and the human condition.

The narrator, Jane Sharp, is a fascinating storyteller, and early on, it’s clear that her version of events may not be entirely reliable. Her college life is derailed by the sudden death of her father, sending her into an emotional spiral as she grapples with questions about death, meaning, and purpose. She finds solace in an online community of amateur sleuths, where she discovers a talent for solving crimes. Jane is strangely brave and capable when it comes to unraveling mysteries, yet she struggles with everyday life and returning to college.

The book opens with a wild, attention-grabbing scene and maintains a relentless pace throughout. Jane is a sympathetic yet frustrating character, whose determination leads her to piece together clues in the death of a woman named Indira. The confidence she gains from this case fuels her obsession with solving the murders of three college girls—a case that has captured national attention. The details of the murders don’t quite add up, and as Jane digs deeper, she uncovers a web of secrets and motives that challenge everything she thought she knew.

Without giving too much away, the devil is in the details—and so are the motives. True crime and online sleuthing can be alluring hobbies in the age of the internet, where information is boundless, but the consequences aren’t always beneficial for those involved or the victims. This book raises important questions about the true crime phenomenon and society’s role in sensationalizing tragedy for entertainment.

The narrative alternates between present-day Jane and her recollections of the investigation, creating a layered and immersive reading experience. Beneath the true crime mystery lies a deeply human story of grief and loss, as Jane struggles to cope with the emptiness of her home after her father’s death. Her need for connection drives her into the online sleuthing community, which brings out both the best and most dangerous aspects of her personality.

The ending left me stunned, and I immediately wanted to dive into another Ashley Winstead book. She is a masterful storyteller, and if This Book Will Bury Me is any indication of her ability to craft emotionally driven, suspenseful plots, she will continue to captivate readers for years to come. I loved the modern feel of the chatroom conversations and online friendships, paired with the slow-burn psychological suspense that left me with a lingering sense of dread.

Major Themes and Tropes:

- dealing with grief and loss (parental)
- true crime and its ethical implications
- friendship and emotional connection, particularly online friendships
- media sensationalism and tabloid culture
- unreliable narrator
- online sleuthing and amateur detective work

Fans of Alex Michaelides, Gillian Flynn, Megan Goldin, Michelle McNamara, and true crime enthusiasts will devour this book. I highly recommend it to anyone who loves a suspenseful, thought-provoking thriller!

4.2/5 stars!

At first I wasn’t sure how I felt about this book. I liked Winstead’s writing, and this felt like a departure to me. However, as the book went on, I got so wrapped into the story and the characters - really thinking about who they were in real life compared to their online personas - I felt so much compassion for the narrator.
As a person who consumes true crime content, I also had to sit and analyze the book from that perspective. It can be exploitative, there is no doubt about that. Some people are interested for, what they perceive, to be righteous reasons. Others are interested for purely selfish motivation. Either way at the end of the day until you are directly impacted as the victim or the family of the victim/offender, true crime junkies will always be consumers of the horrors of others.

Thank you to NetGalley and Sourcebooks Landmark for the copy of This Book Will Bury Me. I’m giving this one 3.5 stars! It was suspenseful and the ending was an angle I haven’t experienced in a mystery (can you imagine if that happened IRL?!) - but I always have to laugh that in so many books the characters can solve murders better than law enforcement can with just some online sleuthing 😅

Another win from this author! This book pulled me in from the start and didn't quit. I look forward to whatever this author writes. 5 stars!

DNF at 35%. I LOVE Ashley Winstead, I usually devour whatever she writes, but this one was a massive miss for me. I got 35% in and the amount of details that are near identical to the Idaho 4 murders is pretty alarming. I understand a lot of thrillers and horror novels more likely than not draw inspiration from true crime cases of the past, but for how current this one is, and that it hasn't even gone to trial yet, feels even more off. I'll catch Ashley on her next one, but this was a no for me.

Thank you NetGalley and Sourcebooks Landmark for a copy of this one.

This is an exciting, fresh, COMPLICATED thriller. Every second I wasn't reading it, I wanted to be reading it again. It follows a young woman whose father dies and leaves her feeling untethered. She discovers a feeling of "found family" with a group of sleuth misfits on the internet. They turn their focus to a college serial killer case and things quickly begin to go wrong...
The conversations this book brings! It would be a great book club pick. Just the internet sleuth commentary alone makes this very relevant to today. My only issues with this were the similarities to the Idaho Four case. It's very, very similar and it feels a bit too soon. It also spoiled the ending a bit. I think if the author had taken more creative liberties with the details of the case, this would have been a 5 star for me. I truly could not put it down. Thank you to the publisher for my gifted copy!

I liked this one, but I can see how it would turn some people off since it is SO close to a recent case.
I do think as the book goes on there are more differences, but in the beginning/first half of the book it is a bit of a shock and a little too close for comfort.

I know this is a very "buzzy" book at the moment, but I really did not like it. I didn't like the predatory keyboard-detective angle, and I also didn't like that this was based on a true crime.

Thanks you for the advanced copy! Overall a great book. It was very engrossing. Covers some topics that may cause drama due to the closeness of real events. But still a great read

Constantly crafting finely honed thrillers such as “Midnight Is the Darkest Hour” and “The Last Housewife,” Ashley Winstead continues the trend with “This Book Will Bury Me” (Sourcebooks Landmark, $27.99), an unsettling dive into the dark underbelly of true crime obsession. Merging the cerebral allure of dark academia, the moral complexities of online sleuthing and a profoundly introspective study of grief, this novel is both intellectually riveting and emotionally unsettling.

College student Jane Sharp copes with her father’s sudden death by immersing herself in amateur detective work. She joins an elite online group determined to solve the infamous Delphine, Idaho, murders. But when digital theories collide with real-world consequences, Jane and her fellow sleuths quickly find themselves in over their heads. Told through unreliable narration, footnotes and narrative gaps, the book unfolds like a true crime documentary unraveling in real time.

Winstead’s signature wit and psychological depth make “This Book Will Bury Me” more than just another thriller — it’s a sharp critique of the voyeuristic nature of true crime fandom. At what point does the pursuit of justice become an obsession, and when does fascination with tragedy cross an ethical line?

I love the variety in Ashley Winstead's books! Everything she writes may fit into very similar genres, but all the characters are always so different and so well flushed out. All the characters in this book had very distinct personalities and they were all super easy to tell apart even though I feel like we didn't get to know anyone very well, even the main character who's POV we follow. I have some pretty hot takes about true crime enjoyment but I did enjoy that this book talked about some of the things I think about without making it feel like my ideas are wrong. Winstead did a great job of showing how and why people on both sides of the conversation feel and didn't really lean one way or the other. While the MC is part of online true crime forums, she doesn't ever go on a tirade about why she's right and everyone else is wrong. I have yet to rate an Ashley Winstead book 5 stars, but this one is a really solid 4 star!

The ending made it all worth it! The beginning was a little slow for my taste, and I wasn't quire sure how this was going to turn out, but boy was this a wild ride! The character development was fantastic and the twists and turns kept me on my toes. A great thriller!

I really enjoyed how this book started out. I was hooked with the online amateur sleuths. The middle was way too long, but the ending I didn’t see coming!

I was so excited for this book and it was just okay. I feel like this was a big turn for Ashley Winstead and as someone who has read all of her books so far I didn't think it was her greatest. I feel like the concept was good but it seemed pretty obvious from halfway through what was going to happen.

SPOILERS AHEAD!


This book was good, but predictable, I figured out the killer’s identity at as soon as they were in Delphine and Citizen was the only one close enough to drive himself. That, and the constant reference to the book that tells the different true crime personas made it clear to me that one of the 5 was the killer since that was a possible persona.

I also felt the bits about her looking into her father’s life were a bit unnecessary to the plot. Especially the part about his Star Trek fanfic. Maybe it went over my head, but I just don’t see why that was included.

Overall I felt it was enjoyable, but I was disappointed by the fact that I could easily figure it out, even as a person who doesn’t read a lot of thrillers.

📚This Book Will Bury Me by Ashley Winstead

⚠️CWs for true crime, murder, death of a loved one, grief/loss, misogyny, incels, kidnapping, stalking, animal death, sexual assault, and more

Story: 1/5
Audiobook: 3/5 (narrated by Leslie Howard)
Length: 13h12min

Rating: ⭐️/5

I already knew I shouldn’t have picked this up based on the description alone, but felt like I had to in order to write a fully informed review.

To start things off…while I’m aware that the author acknowledged the inspiration behind this book (which is more than a lot of other authors can say at least!), I was still shocked and deeply disturbed by the outcome. This was so grotesquely linked to the Idaho murders that it made me physically uncomfortable from start to finish. Direct references included how the murderer accessed the house, the victims being in a sorority, the murder weapon, precipitating events to the murder, the red herrings, characterizations of the real life alleged murderer, and more. Not only did the “inspiration” just feel like lazy writing, but it came across as cruelly insensitive to the real life victims. And the fact that this case is still open!!!!!! Be so for real right now. What a weird way of capitalizing on a real tragedy for entertainment purposes. I had already been questioning the ethics behind the consumption of true crime content in recent years, but this book literally made me want to avoid any true crime content at all costs.

I absolutely loved In My Dreams I Hold a Knife, but all other Ashley Winstead books I’ve picked up since have been huge flops for me. At this point, I think it’s clear that me and Ashley Winstead are just not meant to be (no matter how much I love her covers!!).

Hmm. I am so incredibly torn about my feelings on this book.

Winstead is a great writer, of that there's no doubt. But I had some big issues with where some of the inspiration for this book came from. The University of Idaho murders happened very near me and it hit close to home. When I started this book, I immediately recognized all of the almost exact same details being used, down to pretty specific things. It doesn't sit right with me, especially since this case is so fresh and hasn't even gone to trial.

That being said, the story did go in its own direction entirely and eventually veered sharply away from the reality of what happened. I liked the twists, I liked the writing, I was still invested enough to see how it ended. It did NOT need to use real life tragedy as the basis. It feels cheap and gross to me and the twists, turns, and bulk of the story could've been done without being at the expense of families who are still grieving and a tragedy that is ongoing.

I truly wasn't sure how to rate this one given my complex feelings and even a few weeks after finishing, I'm still really torn about it. Good book, good writing, poor use of inspiration.

I feel like Ashley Winstead has now hit the one hit wonder wall for me. This book just didn’t work for me.

I did finish it so I won’t give it a one star. It kept me wanting to know what happened and had some interesting commentary on grief, but the rest?

The rest was unfortunately lacking in depth. I didn’t feel like I cared for any of the characters at all. Our main character The Searcher, felt very juvenile that I had a hard time realizing she was an actual adult who just lost a parent.

The characters also kind of melded together and didn’t have a unique voice.

For a book that has a lot to say about our obsession with true crime, it’s unfortunate that it pulled so much from an actual case and glamorized it even more. It just felt really dirty and gross. It’s not any better than the obsessive podcasts consumed.

I loved this! I loved the true crime aspect so much, and the POV of this one. Reading it as a memoir added such depth to the story. I knew early on that a certain character was involved and was not surprised when it was later revealed. I do love the multiple murders in this and the twists! I loved the ending. Can’t wait to read this author again!

True Crime is really a complex subject and our obsession with it as a society could (and probably does) fill many a thesis. I do enjoy thrillers that deal with the True Crime community and I actually haven't read one like Winstead's newest work before, which takes a closer look at internet sleuths and how they both work to help solve crimes but at the same time sensationalise those crimes in a completely tone-deaf, desensitised manner. Winstead really did well with that.

The book is also very much a studdy of our protagonist's grief after the death of her father. The way he dies is very specific and feels personal, and there are reveals later on that i felt were a bit glossed over on the whole, but I actually liked how grief and distracting herself from it was the reason behind Jane joining a true crime group that's working to solve a case that just so happens to be all over media when her father dies. It's relatable, it makes sense and it gives the whole story more of an emotional edge.
The thriller elements are well done, but also drawn out due to the structuring and form of the novel. I wasn't always engaged, although the central murder mystery is definitely a good one and the murders themselves brutal and merciless. Jane's group, who quickly become famous in the True Crime community because of their case solving successes, works hard to figure out who brutally killed three young women in a sleepy little town - just in time for another group of three young women to be killed the same way in the same town, with the murderer once again leaving no evidence behind. I wanted to solve this case, I wanted to know what went on. The characters in the group are well-written and I mostly liked them well enough, and while Jane was, at times, a frustrating protagonist I still liked following her.
There is a big twist later on that is very obvious, which was a little disappointing because I felt like it actually made some of the characters look a little stupid to not notice certain things (things that the writing very clearly almost spelled out for us), and while I actually don't mind guessing a twist, this one felt a little lame. But there was merit as to why Winstead chose to go this way with her story, at least.

All in all, a solid thriller that takes a closer look at the dangers of obsessing over true crime but suffers from slow pacing, being just a little too long and ending up in more of a conventional thriller sphere than I would have hoped for. Still, solid three stars.