Book Review: Bright Young Women

Ted Bundy is one of the most infamous serial killers in modern American history. A horrible and inhumane excuse for a human being who was known to have killed a total of 30 young women during his period of activity.  Something that has always irked me about people like Ted and many other serial killers of modern history, is how society has come to idolize them in some twisted sense; not for the actions they have committed, but for the supposedly intriguing way they got away with it. Too many true crime shows fail to tow the line in educating the audience on the true nature of these killers. In the end they often, always come off as praising these people for their supposed intelligence or charm.  There’s far too much focus put on the killers themselves and never the people they hurt.  Their victims were good, decent people who had entire lives ahead of them, why should their stories not be just as important as the sick monsters who snuffed them out?

Bright Young Women is a book which tackles that sole issue and does what many of these true crime shows should do, it puts the spotlight on the victims and doesn’t even give Ted Bundy the benefit of even being named. Written by Jessica Knoll, this book serves as a focused perspective from the eyes of the women who suffered from Bundy’s real-life attacks in both Washington and Florida.  While the names and characters in the story are fictionalized, the events themselves are based on true incidents and a lot of the facts and events referred to are based in reality.  It’s an interesting approach as it doesn’t serve to portray the real victims or name them at the risk of potential harm, but it does reflect the real grief and turmoil they suffered from these deplorable acts.

The narrative follows the perspective of two central female leads.  Pamela Schumacher is a president of the local Florida State Sorority and ends up becoming a witness to one of Bundy’s most heinous acts when he attacks a sorority house and kills 2 of its students. From here, we follow Pamela as she struggles against a misogynistic society including the police and media, which won’t allow her to aid in tracking down Bundy.  Through her struggles to navigate the trauma caused by his attack, she meets a women called Tina Cannon who knows all too well the suffering Bundy causes as he murdered one of her closest friends back in Washington, a woman named Ruth Wachowsky. The story also chooses to follow Ruth’s perspective as she navigates her own tumultuous life before also meeting Tina and her unfortunate fate at the hands of Ted Bundy.  The book utilizes these three central characters to showcase the journey all women face in the wake of such harrowing events and the struggle they shouldn’t have to overcome to try and get true justice.

The narrative structure of Bright Young Women is brilliant on so many levels. I love how Jessica Knoll utilizes the perspective of both Pamela and Ruth to showcase a lot of similarities they suffered despite being from two very different environments. Pamela while initially a bit of a control-freak, progresses through the course of the story to become a better person and find her own worth without the need of any oppressive attitudes from the men around her.  Ruth is a sadder perspective because you know her fate before you even begin to read her chapters, but similar to Pamela, she also develops over the course of the narrative. I love how the story focused essentially on the women and their ability to suffer and grow from these events and not let themselves be lost to it.  Again, the story balances fiction and fact incredibly well by utilizing the real events of Bundy’s attacks as a backdrop and educational opportunity.  There’s a lot of themes revolving around misogyny and ineptitude, not just from Bundy but from the police and media when it came to the handling of Bundy’s attacks. It’s so heartbreaking to read how Bundy was able to get away with so much just by a clear lack of oversight on the police’s part.  The book does a fantastic job in stripping away the supposed capabilities of Ted Bundy and showing him for what he was, a weasel who hated people for his own ineptitudes.

The narrative is given the momentum to carry it along by the quality of Knoll’s writing.  While I do think she can get a bit carried away at times describing some rather redundant elements, I think when it comes to pivotal scenes; she delivers phenomenally.  I say this with no level of exaggeration, it may be some of the best writing I’ve ever read in my life.  The way Knoll is able to deconstruct emotions like trauma and grief is incredible in its own right, but her ability to decipher some of the more intrinsic layers of human behaviour and portray it in a written analysis is beyond incredible. She does this all the while juggling the narrative from multiple perspectives and time periods.  It’s not perfect in all fairness, I do think the time periods make the story a little more jumbled than it needs to be, but it’s only really a minor blemish on what is a comprehensively packaged reading experience from start to finish.

Even now, my blood boils when I think about Ted Bundy, how he was allowed to get away with so much simply because he relied on the incapability of the police or the flaws of the justice system. Many people consider him a smart and charming man, but I refuse to believe it.  The man was lucky and if he was as half as capable as so many people would have you believe, he wouldn’t have been caught in the end.  Bright Young Women does an excellent job in putting the spotlight on the right people when it comes to Ted Bundy and telling their stories.  I can only hope as time goes by, more stories like this will rise to prominence and we’ll soon start learning to treat these serial killers with less interest and more disregard. If this book tells you anything, it’s that there is more stock and quality in the stories of the victims than there is in the killers and I will always respect Jessica Knoll for recognizing that.