09/05/2025
Book Review: This Book Will Bury Me by Ashley Winstead
🐥🐥🐣/5
Ashley Winstead’s This Book Will Bury Me is a bold, provocative entry into the true crime–inspired thriller space—but one that left me feeling more uneasy than enthralled. The story follows a true crime writer returning to the site of a college-town murder that mirrors her bestselling book, digging into the case as new questions begin to surface. Structurally, the novel plays with timelines and narrative layers in a way that’s ambitious, but at times, overly complicated and emotionally detached.
While the writing is sharp and the pacing keeps things moving, the book struggles to balance its meta commentary with sensitivity. The characters, particularly the protagonist, come across as more like vehicles for ethical debate than fully realized people. But the biggest issue for me—and for many readers—was how closely this book resembles the real-life 2022 University of Idaho murders. From the location and timeline to specific crime scene details, the parallels are uncomfortably clear. With the trial of the accused just now beginning in late 2025, it feels too soon, and the book has sparked criticism for exploiting a tragedy that’s still very fresh for the victims’ families and the public.
Readers who gravitate toward dark academia, morally gray protagonists, and twisty, introspective thrillers like True Crime Story by Joseph Knox or Notes on an Ex*****on by Danya Kukafka will find This Book Will Bury Me gripping. But this is not a casual read—it demands you to sit with your discomfort and question the line between storytelling and exploitation. It’s disappointing because I’ve enjoyed Winstead’s previous books, and it feels like a shortcut to mirror a real-life crime when she’s clearly capable of creating original, compelling stories.
