I have not read The Luckiest Girl, but I enjoy true crime inspired stories so decided to give Bright Young Women by Jessica Knoll a try. What did I think? I had (for me) complicated thoughts on this one. Check out my Review of Bright Young Women by Jessica Knoll, which I put on my list of Best Nontraditional Mysteries of 2023!
Written and edited by Jen Ryland. Last updated on:
Bright Young Women by Jessica Knoll
To be published by Simon & Schuster/Marysue Ricci on September 19, 2023.
Thanks so much to the publisher for providing an advance copy for review.
I read this book in September 2023.
Plot Summary of Bright Young Women by Jessica Knoll
It’s January 1978, and a serial killer has been terrorizing women across the Pacific Northwest. But across the country at Florida State University, no one is worried. Pamela Schumacher, sorority president, decides to stay home and study, a decision that unwittingly saves her life. Startled awake at 3 a.m. by a strange sound, she stumbles on a scene of unimaginable horror and violence. Over the next few days, Pamela is thrust into the spotlight of the media glare.
On the other side of the country, Tina Cannon found peace in 1974 Seattle after years of hardship. A chance encounter brings Ruth Wachowsky into her life, a young woman with painful secrets of her own, and the two form an instant connection. When Ruth goes missing, Tina devotes herself to finding out what happened. When she hears about the 1978 tragedy in Tallahassee, Tina is convinced the man responsible is the same one who took Ruth.
Books by Jessica Knoll in Order
Jessica Knoll wrote The Luckiest Girl Alive in 2015, which is now a series on Netflix, and The Favorite Sister in 2018. If you’ve read Luckiest Girl Alive, I did a book vs movie comparison!
Review of Bright Young Women
There is no single kind of mystery/thriller reader.
Some readers want a fast-paced thrill ride with twists and turns, while others love a methodical detective or police procedural.
I’ll read it all and I want to help you find what YOU like.
At first, I was convinced that Bright Young Women was not going to work for me.
The book and I got off to a great start.
Then I realized that there are at least three timelines (Pamela in Tallahassee in 1978 and New York in 1979, Ruth and Tina in the PNW in 1974, plus Pamela in Washington DC and Florida in the present). I got invested in Pamela’s story and then felt a little annoyed by the intrusion of Ruth.
But I kept reading and the story — all of it — really grew on me.
Bright Young Women is NOT a thriller
What is it then? An interesting fictionalization of some very notorious true crimes. A story of the terrible impact crime has on all the loved ones of the victims. A very moving story of female solidarity and love. A chronicle of sexism, misogyny, and homophobia in the 1970s and beyond and how those things intersect with crimes against women.
Is Bright Young Women just a fictionalization of Ted Bundy’s story?
Some Goodreads reviewers felt that way, and some were bothered by the way it blended fact and fiction. My advance reader copy did NOT include any author acknowledgments and I am very interested to see what the author says about her research and inspiration. The parallels are very extensive. It also seems like the character of Pamela is based on a real person.
How does Bright Young Women turn the Bundy mystique on its head?
By doing two things: emphasizing the bonds between his surviving victims (and between the surviving victims and their slain sorority sisters) and by (a bit weirdly tbh) having Pamela use the horrific experience as an opportunity for personal growth.
What I did like about Knoll’s approach is that it took the power away from the man guilty of these crimes. The book doesn’t even gave him a name and, unlike many accounts of Bundy and his crimes, points out that he was actually not that smart or successful at anything in life but being a predator.
What did I think of Bright Young Women?
I ended up finding both interesting and thought-provoking. As we’ve seen from many true crime cases, from Adnan Syed and Serial to Scott Peterson, people’s perceptions of these cases are highly dependent on the narratives they consume. I appreciated Knoll’s attempt to crate a different kind of narrative, one that centered around fictionalized versions of Bundy’s victims. Not everyone may be comfortable with that.
The book also made me think how eerily similar Bundy’s Tallahassee crimes were to the 2022 Idaho College murders and, as the alleged perpetrator in that recent case was a criminology student, I have to wonder if he studied the Bundy case and had a creepy fixation on it, and on Bundy.
Will you like Bright Young Women?
I think if you regularly read true crime and are comfortable with a fictionalization, then yes.
Do you like crime fiction that is victim-focused and feminist? Then yes.
If you prefer a fast-paced story that isn’t slowed down by timeline jumping (which did get confusing at times and I think could be hard to follow on audiobook format), then maybe not.
But if you are uncomfortable with things that blend fact and fiction, or are very familiar with Bundy and/or the Tallahassee case, then possibly no.
Have you read this, or read The Luckiest Girl, or watched the Netflix show? If so please report your thoughts in the comments! Or leave any comment, as I read and respond to all!