Book Review: Bright Young Women: A Novel by Jessica Knoll

Rating: ★★★★★ (5/5)

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Introduction:

I am a member of Kappa Delta. I was inducted in Spring of 2012. We only had four sororities on my campus, one of which being Chi Omega. Fun fact, Chi-O is actually a woman’s fraternity. They do not call themselves a sorority. Having a deep understanding of Greek Life culture helps set the stage in my mind of this story.

I have not had much experience with historical fiction. When I saw that this was a fictionalized telling of the aftermath of one of Ted Bundy’s crimes I found myself intrigued. Having known that Chi-O was the sorority that was attacked by Bundy I was curious to see how both he and the sorority would be portrayed in the book.

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Summary: A Brief Overview (Without Major Spoilers)

From Good Reads:

A Saturday in 1978 in Florida: In the middle of the night, a man breaks into a female student dormitory. He goes from room to room and kills several residents. He will soon be known as one of the most famous serial killers in the USA. But he was observed committing his crime.

The survivors, including key witness Pamela Schumacher, will be forever changed by this night. They have all become victims. But they tell their perspectives here, they remain masters of their stories. And they hunt the perpetrator on their own – against resistance from the justice system and the police; against public opinion, which idolizes the serial killer.

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What Worked for Me:

How grief is handled in the book. There was a section that had characters dealing with complex grief. I lost the man who had been the first love of my life to alcoholism at the beginning of March in 2022. The last day of March I found out my husband and I were expecting our first child. My dad passed away 19 days later. It was a crazy few months for me that led to a lot of complex grief. How they handled it in this novel was very relatable.

Giving a voice to the victims instead of The Defendant. Knoll makes a point to show how small of a man Bundy was. She didn’t use his name. She did however let the world know that he was not some evil genius the world has made him out to be. She delves into how social media and traditional media does a disservice to the case by trying to paint Bundy as some intelligent but twisted Casanova. He wasn’t. It took him eight years to finish one degree and his grades were mediocre. The only thing this man did was murder thirty plus women. That is all that makes him more than a shit stain of a footnote to the world. He shouldn’t be sensationalized the way he is and I love that the book looks to the victims not him.

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What Didn’t Work for Me: Trigger Warnings and Criticisms

This book deals with a lot of misogyny. The police do not take Pamela seriously enough and tend to talk down to her. It is set in the 70s and it’s hard to read at times. It’s not the level of being too much of a trigger that I wouldn’t read the book but it is something to be aware of. When a woman states a fact and a man looks at her like she has twelve heads and dismisses her as being a piece of work, it’s infuriating. Pamela and Tina have to deal with this.

The House. I understand not using Bundy’s name directly or not wanting to use Chi Omega but Knoll should have given the soroity a name. I always called Kappa Delta KD. The KD house was home all four years of college. A sorority girl would never just call it “The House”. We love our letters and they deserved a spot in the book. Even if she named a fake sorority it would have been better.

Mentioning Highland Park and private school. This is just a moment in the book but if you are from Dallas you know how wrong it is. She mentions that Tina was raised “outside of Dallas in an affluent neighborhood called Highland Park.” My inlaws live in Highland Park. Along with University Park the two make up an enclave called the Parks Cities that is and isn’t Dallas. HP is its own 2 mile city not just a neighborhood. It’s a small moment but when Knoll is so vague about other details and then throws in incorrect ones like this, it’s annoying.

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Final Thoughts:

In the aknowlegements, Knoll gave credit to one of the victims for working with her on the book. I Googled the name and found her story here. https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/feb/27/ted-bundy-bludgeoned-and-almost-killed-me-i-resolved-he-would-not-ruin-my-life

For my first real dive into historical fiction, this one knocked it out of the park for me. I think the message of putting the victims first and not their attacker is important. This novel gives a voice to the silenced and I am thankful for that.