A review by pomoevareads
Bright Young Women by Jessica Knoll

adventurous dark mysterious medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

Thank you to @simonschusterca for sending me an ARC of Bright Young Women for me to read and review. This is a winner!

Author Jessica Knoll has written a fresh perspective on the killings by serial killer Ted Bundy. Bundy has always been glamorized as the handsome and intelligent man who killed many women in the 1970s. In Bright Young Women, the reader is asked to see the man for who he really was and he wasn’t all that bright. The focus of this story is from the perspective of one of his victims (Ruth), an important person in her life (Martina) and a friend (Pamela) of two women murdered at a Florida university. The two women come together to see if there is a connection between the murder in Issaquah, Washington and the sorority murders in Tallahassee, Florida. With so much distance between the missing person case in Washington state and the murders in Florida, Tina and Pam don’t have much support from officials in linking the cases but that doesn’t stop them from continuing.

This book is marketed as a thriller but I would say it reads more like women’s fiction/historical fiction.  There is an emphasis on character development and shifting the perspectives of people who have been made by media and those in positions of power to see Bundy as clever and “Kennedyesque.”  While The name Ted is only used once during the entire book those who know the case will recognize the details. I thought it very smart to refer to him as The Defendant thus further minimizing his importance.

I will not be shocked to see this one picked up by celebrity book clubs and now want to pick up this author’s previous novel, Luckiest Girl Alive, which has been made into a Netflix program. 

Bright Young Women is in stores September 19, 2023 and I recommend this one to fans of thrillers, true crime, historical fiction with a more recent focus (1970s) and character driven stories of strong women. 
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