This book was recommended to me by several people. I think all the hype is the reason I didn’t love it. It fell short of my expectations. I would still recommend it but there were some parts of it I definitely didn’t like. I’ll get to those later. First the summary.

Armin Meiwes is definitely deranged, but what some people find even more deranged is that his victim wanted to be eaten. He answered an ad and traveled from Berlin to Rotenburg to meet Meiwes for the purpose of ending his life and his body being destroyed. He wanted his body gone but didn’t want it to go to waste. Meiwes was eventually found out and brought to trial.

What I liked about this book was it covers the lives of both men, how they met and the reasons for their actions. I also liked that the procedures of the German justice system are explained to those who are not familiar with it. What I didn’t like was it read like a novel. The thoughts and motivations of the killer, victim, and even spectators of the trial are given but Jones doesn’t say how she got them, in other words there are facts but not much documentation.

However a search of the internet shows that the facts of the book are accurate and it was an interesting read, some have said the ‘butchery parts’ are a little hard to read. I didn’t find that to be so, but then ‘squeamish’ is not a word that has ever been used to describe me. The book ends with Meiwes serving 8-½ yrs for manslaughter.

Update: According to BBC NEWS (9 May 2006) a judge ruled the sentence too lenient and ordered a retrail. In this trial he was found guilty of murder and sentenced to life in prison. ( )

On Wednesday, July 04, 2007 I wrote about this book:

My God this book was so scary. I had to skip some parts and I hardly ever do that (about the butchering for instance).
Very well written. Such an unbelievable story this is.
My only negative thing is that Lois Jones pretended to know what was in Bernd's head at the time of his dying. On the other hand I understand she did that to make the book better, but for me that was not necessary. O that was such a hard part to. I gave it a 9 out of a 10 on bookcrossing
( )

I got this book for my sister, who has a weird fascination with true crime, and serial killers, especially cannibals.

From the excerpts she read to me, this is a very graphic and sometimes disturbing book. But even more than that, it's the fact that the cannibal found numerous WILLING victims to the ad he placed for someone to murder and then eat.

If you've ever wondered if there really are such messed up people in the world, the answer is undoubtedly YES! ( )