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A review by amyvl93
Bright Young Women by Jessica Knoll
dark
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
This novel was everywhere last year and so I was excited to be picking up this novel at last; and was left having had a good reading experience but not one that I think will stay with me in the way that I wanted it to.
Bright Young Women is a fictionalised look at the final murders and arrest of Ted Bundy, told from the perspective of women whose lives were changed forever by him - one, Pamela - the president of the sorority shaken by the murders of their friends and the other, Ruth, who is learning to find herself and her identity away from her overbearing mother after the death of her father.
Knoll clearly has a message that she wants to share through this novel - which is that a fascination with serial killers and the rise of true crime risks further magnifying and amplifying men who were not that special, and whose stories shield those of the people whose lives they have either ended or affected forever. Bundy goes unnamed within the text, and his smart suaveness that we've come to hear as a given from numerous stories about him is consistently disrupted through the pages of this novel.
However, Bundy is not the only man who comes out poorly within this novel. There are bad boyfriends, journalists who see the potential of a career gain as of greater importance than reporting the truth, police forces who want to take the most straightforward way out and members of the judicial system who struggle to see a charming man as anything other than a potential victim. Knoll is excellent at building this just pile-up of male incompetence throughout the novel, in direct contrast to the women who are coming together to support each other and never let the truth go. Knoll also brings to life the pain of women with bright lights and lives ahead of them being cut short which are usually buried in our considerations of true crime narratives.
I did feel that there was a lot going on within the pages of this novel though, and did feel like there were opportunities for it to be tighter. The fictionalisation also didn't necessarily always work for me, it was slightly distracting knowing we were talking about a real man but that the women in the story were largely creations. Whilst I'm sure this was out of respect for the real victims, it felt that the narrative was almost saying that their real stories were not of interest enough for a novel to be created about them. I would have almost preferred Knoll to create an entirely fictitious scenario, with nods to Bundy, instead.
Bright Young Women is a fictionalised look at the final murders and arrest of Ted Bundy, told from the perspective of women whose lives were changed forever by him - one, Pamela - the president of the sorority shaken by the murders of their friends and the other, Ruth, who is learning to find herself and her identity away from her overbearing mother after the death of her father.
Knoll clearly has a message that she wants to share through this novel - which is that a fascination with serial killers and the rise of true crime risks further magnifying and amplifying men who were not that special, and whose stories shield those of the people whose lives they have either ended or affected forever. Bundy goes unnamed within the text, and his smart suaveness that we've come to hear as a given from numerous stories about him is consistently disrupted through the pages of this novel.
However, Bundy is not the only man who comes out poorly within this novel. There are bad boyfriends, journalists who see the potential of a career gain as of greater importance than reporting the truth, police forces who want to take the most straightforward way out and members of the judicial system who struggle to see a charming man as anything other than a potential victim. Knoll is excellent at building this just pile-up of male incompetence throughout the novel, in direct contrast to the women who are coming together to support each other and never let the truth go. Knoll also brings to life the pain of women with bright lights and lives ahead of them being cut short which are usually buried in our considerations of true crime narratives.
I did feel that there was a lot going on within the pages of this novel though, and did feel like there were opportunities for it to be tighter. The fictionalisation also didn't necessarily always work for me, it was slightly distracting knowing we were talking about a real man but that the women in the story were largely creations. Whilst I'm sure this was out of respect for the real victims, it felt that the narrative was almost saying that their real stories were not of interest enough for a novel to be created about them. I would have almost preferred Knoll to create an entirely fictitious scenario, with nods to Bundy, instead.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Rape, Sexual assault, and Murder
Moderate: Homophobia, Sexism, Violence, and Grief