Bright Young Women: A Novel

Women in Crime
The ’70s have been coined the decade of serial killers. In 1978, a man escapes prison and descends on a Floridian sorority house with deadly results. Key witness and chapter president Pam Schumacher is permanently altered. Across the county, Tina Cannon is convinced the murders result from the All-American Sex Killer who claimed the life of her missing best friend. When Tina makes her way to Florida, she joins forces with Pam to get justice for those they love.Review:We will go in reverse order and begin with my complaints, of which there is only one. My sole complaint is that some metaphors and comparisons are a little off-putting. Describing the grown murderer as a “booger-eater” feels strange. While that may have been the point – to emasculate The Defendant, there are other odd comparisons. My complaint is undoubtedly tiny, insignificant, and doesn’t affect my rating; it was weird enough to notice.Now, let’s move on to what I enjoyed in the novel.Much like Luckiest Girl Alive, Knoll writes with a break-neck pace. The novel opens with The Defendent’s attack on the sorority house, and that chapter is intense. You feel like you are Pamela, traipsing through the house, setting her friends’ pain and death, and identifying the perpetrator. When I read the opening chapter, I held my breath and ran through the house with Pam. Knoll’s writing pace is exceptional; the book never lulls or feels inconsequential. Every chapter is thoroughly thought-out and fits into the overall novel perfectly. As readers, we are aligned with Pam and Tina and feel their emotions as if they were our own. I believe Knoll’s writing style sets her apart from other writers. She takes a genuine crime case and gives it the proper care and handling it deserves.According to Psychology Today, society is obsessed with serial killers because it helps us identify potential threats. If we know and understand the motivations of some killers, we are more likely to look for and actively avoid these potentially dangerous situations. While such an assertion is valid, with the obsession comes a forgetting of the victims, those who were taken without thought or concern. Herein lies Knoll’s belief. We give so much thought and attention to the killers that their victims are tossed to the wayside. There are countless documentaries, movies, and books about serial killers, but not enough about their victims. Knoll draws the line here. While the book refers to Ted Bundy, and there is an author’s note at the beginning that says as much, his name is never mentioned in the book. He is consistently referred to as The Defendant. Pam argues that people always make him more than he is, a serial rapist and killer. However, so much attention was given to his law school experience during the trials, even though he never graduated. Women align themselves with his story because he is a good-looking man. Still, according to Pam, he is only handsome because it’s unusual for someone relatively attractive to commit such heinous acts. She argues that there is not much difference between him and any other man on the street. Knoll focuses on the victims and survivors rather than giving credence to his failed degree. She makes them human, something many true crime series do not do. She never names Bundy; instead, she devotes her time to getting to know the victims.As an outspoken survivor of sexual assault, Knoll handles the women’s case with respect and honor. In her previously published essay, she writes about the gang rape she was subjected to and how people believed it to be her fault. In a tragic and triggering moment in the book, a character is raped, and she rationalizes and minimizes the experience by explaining that, in the grand scheme of life, being raped isn’t so bad because so many women experience the same thing, yet they live on. While reading her inner thoughts, readers are struck by her shockingly disturbing rationalization, but this is precisely what happens with survivors. So many of us do not come forward because we fear what others will say about our stories. We fear that we will be blamed for the assault on OUR bodies. We minimize what happened to us because, unfortunately, it has become the norm. With a sexual assault occurring every 68 seconds, it becomes a regular part of life. As a survivor, I felt seen and recognized in the novel, which is Knoll’s goal. Knoll takes her violent and life-altering experience and provides other survivors with safety and recognition; she takes back her story and becomes its author.I thoroughly enjoyed my time reading Knoll’s third novel. Similar to Luckiest Girl Alive, Bright Young Women is fast-paced and vital. If you like thrillers or true crime, you will enjoy the book. I give Knoll’s novel five out of five stars and highly recommend it.

What’s real and what’s memorex
This book posed a real conundrum for me. It is really well written, the story is very compelling and so many of the elements are introduced in genuine murder mystery fashion. I tore through the book in two sessions. And I was engrossed in every single page. I confess, I am a big fan of truer crime stories, have read a great deal over the years about Ted Bundy and the horror of his murder victims. And I did appreciate the fact that the author declined to identify him by name (although it was crystal clear who the perp in this story was) and focus more on the unfulfilled lives of the girls he murdered but therein lies my initial confusion and ultimate dissatisfaction. In fictionalizing the two sorority house victims, (who in reality were Lisa Levy, 20 and Margaret Bowman, 21 and one of the Lake Samamish victims (in reality Denise Naslund or Janice Ott) in creating entirely new entirely made up personas, (and not just changing their names thus creating a true Roman a Clef,) but everything about them. Their history, their interests, their families, I felt these “bright young women” were erased once again. Bundy is portrayed as the monster he truly was but his victims were completely invented. Yet so many other elements of the story are genuine and true. Even his very last victim, twelve year old Kimberly Leach is correctly identified, but the bulk of this novel, the main driving narrative, centers on three completely fictionalized characters. I know the author profusely thanks one of the surviving sorority sisters, Kathy Kleiner for her contributions to the story. I just can’t help but wonder if she was satisfied with the final product. I know I ultimately wasn’t.

Una novela del montón. Aburrida.

A tremendous read. This is set around the sorority house murders in Florida perpetrated by the infamous Ted Bundy. To her credit, the author refused to mention his name once the whole way through. I have read a LOT about this case and I found it interesting that sometimes she uses real names, then doesn’t. An interesting conception. Usually it’s one way or the other……this aside, it was very well written and offered up what occurred from the viewpoint of one of the girls in the house that night. And I saw in the acknowledgements that one of them was thanked so it came right from the horse’s mouth, so to speak.The final chapters were extremely harrowing, from the point of view of knowing what happened to Ruth. Very sad indeed.I did get a little confused here and there as we jump around in timelines but also Pamela and Ruth are both pseudonyms. I think, from a personal preference, I’d have been a little less baffled if she HAD used real names the whole way through. In all fairness, all the characters with fictional names HAVE been named throughout the ensuing decades. However, she clearly has her reasons not to have done.I read a book last year about the Speck killings in Chicago and this is reminiscent of that, though it could well have been written before that one was. Both are very good indeed.I was aware his time in the house wasn’t hours and hours but hadn’t taken on board that the damage he did was really only in the space of around 20 minutes !! He had truly lost his mind altogether by then. I had also always “remembered” that the attack down the road happened first, but according to this he went on after this attack to the other victim’s place !!I liked there was some levity in the girls’ thoughts and actions post-crime…..as in true-life there would have been, I’m sure. People need to find humour in dreadful events at times or they’d fall to pieces. No doubt there was plenty of that, too, to go round.Loved this little passage she wrote, “Nobody had ever treated me like I was the silver ball of mercury in the thermometer’s glass chamber.”I googled a “see you soon” that was referred to but Google was no help……clearly an American idiom of old they consider we’d all understand ! She also described Bundy as an incel, which I wouldn’t as he WAS legitimately getting laid most of the time as I recall.There were hardly any mistakes, either. She did commence proceedings using a LOT of hyphens but that dropped off as I read, and at one point she wrote compounded and not impounded then least where I’d have written worst to make better sense, and I also spotted a few missed question marks. Nothing sufficient to mar this terrific tale, though. I’ll definitely be reading other books she’s written, too.