Inside 25 Cromwell St

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They are both vile excuses for human beings, and anyone trying to justify what they did will not get a lot of sympathy in my book. What went on in the house was truly disturbing, and I can't help but find the pair of them a bit naive, knowing what happened as they do but then genuinely supporting their parents and thinking their mother, Rose was innocent.

The book then concludes with a second Appendix publishing many of the letters that Fred and Rosemary West sent Stephen and Mae from prison (which makes for some surreal reading to say the least). The book was evidently complied shortly after the death of Fred West in jail so the events are all so raw - and this shows in the interviews. By the time the reader has gone through these painful memories of escalating torment, it’s around the halfway mark of the book, and from the bitterness of the latter chapters in the first section, the second section of the book commences; detailing the time after discovering Heather’s body, during Fred West’s arrest and his subsequent suicide.But I think that if this book makes you feel more responsible for vulnerable children then you will have gained something positive from all the suffering outlined here. I hope to introduce new features during 2022 and join the Bookstagram community on Instagram properly, so come and follow me there too! I have a vague notion of reading this book a long time ago, but it could be familiar because of the documentaries I have seen about the West family. Mae and Stephen West’s parents were two of Britain’s most notorious serial killers, Fred and Rose West, who brutally tortured and murdered 12 people, including two of their own children. Yes, it is very graphic, but to hold back on that information would be to ignore what drove the two parents to kill again and again.

I also enjoy some contemporary fiction, literary fiction and romance with a smattering of non-fiction.

Although the section includes nowhere near as many of the gritty details surrounding Fred and Rose’s crimes, it still delivers one heck of a shocking punch – exposing the real emotional trauma to what happened and how Stephen and Mae tried to come to terms with what was now being uncovered in their own home. One needs only to see the brother and sister's faces to know this was their experience inside that house. A story from the two middle children of Fred and Rosemary West, the couple arrested for a series of murders including that of their eldest daughter. Not like Maes subsequent book where yes she obviously made another but on her terms in a better mind state some years after. It's good to know that Anne-Marie (the oldest child, half-sister to the others) has grown into a dignified woman and I wish all the other children only the best.

Moving into 25 Cromwell Street, West continued with a behaviour of petty theft on an almost daily basis. It is shocking and at times upsetting but probably the saddest thing of all is in reading how the two West children appear to be trying to make sense of the nonsensical and inexplicable. I understand that both Stephen and Mae were also abused by their parents in numerous ways, and while this is utterly horrendous and disgusting, it makes me wonder why they aren't more angry and broken that they have also been hurt by their own parents. Because the book is largely interviews from the perspective of Mae and Stephen West, it gives a fascinating insight into life with Fred and Rose West. The book in principally divided into three definite sections, which (quite purposefully) reflect the three most important phases of Stephen and Mae’s lives.The book is certainly not for the faint-hearted, and the descriptions of the crimes are graphic and disturbing.