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Cover of The Central Park Five

How long does it take to read The Central Park Five?

Sarah Burns

The Central Park Five by Sarah Burns takes about 4 hours 24 minutes to read at 250 words a minute.

About 4 hours 24 minutes

A weekend read

First published 2011. 240 pages, about 66,000 words.

9 days at 30 minutes a day

Estimate based on 275 words per page.

At other speeds

Slow, 150 words a minute 7 hours 20 minutes
Average, 250 words a minute 4 hours 24 minutes
Fast, 400 words a minute 2 hours 45 minutes

The page count is the median across 2 editions, so your copy may differ. How we calculate.

About the book

An in-depth account of one of New York City's most notorious crimes. On April 20, 1989, the body of a woman is discovered in Central Park, her skull badly smashed. Within days, five black and Latino teenagers confess to her rape and beating. The ensuing media frenzy and hysterical public reaction is extraordinary. The young men are tried and convicted as adults, despite the fact that the teens quickly recant their inconsistent and inaccurate confessions and that no tests or eyewitness accounts tie any of them to the victim. They serve their complete sentences before another man, serial rapist Matias Reyes, confesses to the crime and is connected to it by DNA testing. Intertwining the stories of these five young men, the police officers, the district attorneys, the victim, and Reyes, author Burns unravels the forces that made both the crime and its prosecution possible.--From publisher description.

Subjects: Violent crimes, Judicial error, Rape victims, Administration of Criminal justice

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