I like watching/listening/reading about true crime and I love reading so I was sure I was going to love Bright Young Women. It started off really well and it had me hooked from the start, that is until I came to Ruth’s POV. It made me feel icky to be reading about the fictional life of Ruth when her abduction/death at Lake Sammamish was based on a real victim of Ted Bundy. It just didn’t sit right with me at all. Perhaps that wouldn’t be the case if Knoll kept the dates, places and murders as fact but only used Pamela’s POV as the fiction.

The writing itself was fantastic, the cover is stunning and I enjoyed the pace of the book. I just wish she didn’t include a ‘victim’ POV in the book.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

This novel about a murder spree at a sorority house was based on a true story. 1978 and the inhabitants of a sorority house are getting ready for their nights out; little do they know that not everyone will survive the night and those that do will never be the same again.

This was a gripping novel; not only in the way that the murders were written but about the behaviour, opinions and relationships after the event. Knowing that the book was based on a true story gave me chills and the writing was gripping whilst not over sensationalising the actual murders themselves. A well written and thrilling novel about how murder can affect the lives of those left behind and the struggle to find the truth in a system that can fail victims.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for a copy of the novel in exchange for an honest review.

Bright Young Women is equal parts chilling and captivating. Effortlessly blending fiction and true crime, the novel is inspired by the real-life events of America's first celebrity serial killer, as he targets a female sorority in a university in Florida, in his final murderous spree.

The book opens in January 1978, when Florida State University student Pamela Schumacher awakens at 3am to find two of her sorority sisters dead, and two others brutally wounded. Pamela sees the perpetrator fleeing the scene, but she escapes his attack unscathed. However, the events of the night haunt her for decades to come, as she mourns the lives of the women lost.

In Bright Young Women, Knoll shifts our attention from the notorious serial killer to the women who died by his hand. "The Defendant" is never named, but fans of true crime will recognise the Pacific Northwest origin story, and the familiar descriptions of how "handsome and charming" he is "for a rapist and murderer". But this time, he's the footnote, and the women of this story outshine him. The script is flipped.

As a writer, Knoll doesn't shy away from detail, and between that and the clues littered throughout the story, the novel can be a lot to contend with. However, if you are a fan of true crime and aren't frustrated by narratives that move back and forth in time, you might just love this.

I really enjoy Knoll's scalpel-sharp, considered writing, even the darker parts. She takes chances in her work, and it certainly pays off here, in a story that takes no prisoners in its shredding of the notion of the 'murderer/genius':

"He wants to extinguish us - we are the ones who remind him that he's not that smart, not that good-looking, and there's nothing particularly special about him."

I loved this...a favourite of the year for sure.

In January 1978, Pamela Schumacher, a student at Florida State University, wakes up in the middle of the night to find two of her sorority sisters dead and the other two badly hurt. As the sorority's president, she finds herself in the middle of a terrifying mystery...

Bright Young Women is fiction inspired by actual events. It tells the story of a serial killer but gives voice to the victims and those left behind. The novel presents intelligent and relentless women bound to find the truth about their friends’ murders. It is a fascinating story, although I found the pace too slow. The narrator also points out the contemporary disregard towards young women. For example, the initial call from the students is supposedly logged in as a fight over a boyfriend.

To sum up, it is a relatively slow but well-written read.

disturbing and unsettling, but well-written, I don't usually go for true crime, so I was impressed but how compelling I found the book even if I felt a bit squeamish about the blood and gore.

Thank you for the opportunity to read this book, via NetGalley. I enjoyed this book, although it took me a little longer to get into, in the end I couldn't put it down! Would recommend!

DNF. Which I’m sad about because I LOVE Jessica Knoll’s writing, but this was just so slow and hard to get into. I tried both ebook and audiobook and just couldn’t get that far into it.

* ARC from Netgalley *

Like many others, the crimes of Ted Bundy have been a point of fascination for me in the past. I feel like I have watched every documentary, read every book, and listened to every podcast. Conscious of the continuous discourses happening about the interest and sensationalisation of true crime, I tentatively picked this up.

I think what Jessica Knolls adds to the true crime narrative with *Bright Young Women* is valuable, as even in a fictional sense, she draws the focus away from Bundy and carves out his victims as three-dimensional, complete people. It helps shatter the rose-tinted glasses that people have on when it came/comes to Bundy in particular, and portrays him as nothing but a senseless and savage killer.

Beyond that, Bright Young Women failed to leave any lasting impact. Our two central characters were complex and compelling, but the shifting between their narratives felt disjointed and continually took me out of the story. It felt laborious to read most of the time, which doesn’t bode well for a thriller.

I would definitely urge people who are interested in true crime to pick this up, although I’m unsure of how accurate the narrative is to the real events, but ultimately think it won’t offer much for seasoned thriller readers.

Bright Young Women is a fictionalised true crime story based on an extremely well known serial killer. However in Jessica Knoll’s version of this story the attention is taken away from the offender and given to those who deserve it- the victims and their families and loved ones.
This dual narrative follows two different women who have been affected by these crimes in every different ways. It is a story of resilience, of seeking justice and challenging stereotypes. I highly recommend this book

With thanks to Pan MacMillan and NetGalley for the opportunity to read an early copy of this thought provoking and compelling book in exchange for an honest review.

This took a while to get in to but I ended up really loving it. This takes the Ted Bundy story we all know but places the attention where it should be, on the victims and families affected. It follows two women, Pamela and Ruth, and the horror situations they find themselves in. I found the dual perspectives challenging at first, but Knoll allows us to really get to know these women over the course of the book. I ended up caring deeply about them and was gripped by how they owned their own stories. Fantastic read, one of my favourites so far this year.

It took me a bit to get into this, with both timeline and perspective changes. However, I enjoyed it and appreciated the message the author was pushing. It was only after the mention of Kimberly Leach that I realised the identity of The Defendant (I had to Google).

I'm unsure if this was intentional or a massive failure on the author's part—or perhaps, my own biases led to this—but I remained suspicious of Tina until the end.

Like many other people who have read this, I didn't realise who or what this story was about until about half way through. Really admired the fresh, victim-forward take on an extensively reported happening and found the characters and their accounts deeply moving. Will be recommending this to everyone.

This was a really interesting concept of a book - taking the popularity of true crime cases and creating a fictionalised one and the same vein, and for the most part, I really enjoyed it. I haven't read Knoll's other work, Luckiest Girl Alive, but I am aware of how many people have enjoyed it, and its subsequent film adaptation, so I tentatively had quite high expectations for this newest work of hers. I enjoyed the different narratives, the time jumps between Pamela in the present-day and at the time of the attack, contrasted with Ruth's chapters, and how their respective relationships with Tina and the Defendant connected them. However, I found the ending to be a bit disappointing - it didn't give me that huge moment of satisfaction or a grand reveal that I was waiting for, and I found the role of Tina, and even Carl, to be confusing at times.

Bright Young Women is a stunning fictionalisation of Ted Bundy’s killer spree, a story which is at times harrowing, but also inspirational. Knoll has carefully researched the sensational real-life case, but she’s also created some incredibly authentic, relatable characters. The women in this book will stay with me a long time.

And that’s kind of the point. We’ve all heard of Ted Bundy, his apparent good looks and charm and his shocking killing spree, but we tend to know little about his victims. Jessica Knoll breathes life into these women, putting them front and centre of the story exploring the impact on his victims and survivors.

Pamela Schumacher is a bright young woman. She’s president of the smartest sorority at Florida State University and she’s just got an offer to study law at Columbia. She’s type of girl who chooses to stay in and work instead of joining her sorority sisters at a party, and one night in 1978 this leads her to become the sole eye-witness of the man responsible for a massacre. Her best friend, Denise and another sister, Robbie, are murdered in the night, with another two members of their party left horrifically injured when a mysterious man breaks into the sorority house.

Knoll chooses to open with these horrific scenes often saved for the climax, and its a powerful and effective introduction. From there, we follow Pamela in two timelines, as she deals with the immediate aftermath of her situation and, years later in present day, when she returns to the scene of the crime to meet a face from the past.

On the other side of the country, we meet Ruth, a twenty-five-year-old divorcee who is back living at home with her mother, grieving her recently deceased father. Her grief is complex, but Knoll takes her time revealing the extent of Ruth’s troubles and the reasons why she feels the way she does.

Through these powerful female voices, a different version of the serial killer story is told. Knoll deftly exposes the close-minded views of the time and the everyday dangers that women did and still face. She also single-handedly knocks the myth of the handsome serial killer down to size, revealing her villain to be small in stature and lacking in character.

“I’ve thought about this for so long, tries to make sense of how someone who didn’t stalk his victims in advance ended up going after the best and brightest. And I think that’s it, the thing they all had in common – a light that outshone his. And he couldn’t stand it.”

This is a compelling tale which turns the serial killer genre on its head, explores a slice of history and challenges social norms, while being an emotionally complex novel which will resonate with many.

Well, this was an incredible read!

Beginning in 1978, this fictionalised account of the notorious attack on a Florida State sorority house by a serial killer, is this time told through two POVs - ‘Pamela Schumacher’, president of the sorority in question and Ruth, a young woman who was at Lake Sammamish the day that she died - 4 years before the attack on the sorority sisters.

I generally try to read as little as possible about a book before picking it up. I am also not a true crime aficiando. Consequentially, I had no idea that the story was based so closely on real life events. One of the strengths of the novel for me was the way Knoll drip feeds the information to the reader - those more familiar with the events may not find the novel as suspenseful as I did.

I really loved the characters and relationships Knoll created - Pamela and Tina in particular.

This would be a fantastic pick for book clubs because there are so many different themes you could discuss: misogyny and not believing women, who controls the narrative? patriarchy and the media, the ethics of true crime - just to name a few!

I will say, the novel is extremely graphic in parts - definitely check the TWs before reading.

Pick this book up if: you enjoy thrillers but are critical of the true crime genre - Boy Parts, Death of A Bookseller, I Have Some Questions For You.

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the ARC in exchange for my honest views.

Note: this is a work in progress and the review will be integrated
This is one of the most intense, disturbing and heart breaking book I read in a long time.
There’s a sort of sick fascination with serial killers and Bundy is a sort of superstart.
We know what happened in Tallahassee and maybe we remember the name of the victims.
But it was a lot more, it was some that left people with wounds that can hardly be healed.
I find hard to talk about it because there were some strong emotions involved and I am not sure If I’m ready to talk about these strong feelings.
The author did an excellent job in delivering a book that keeps you turning pages and makes you want to close your eyes and you know you won’t do it.
A strong and well written page turners that gives voice to the victims: those who survived and those who didn’t
I think it will be one of my top books of 2023

I'm a huge fan of Jessica Knoll but found this novel very different from the other two although it uses the same themes. It was well written and I liked the idea behind the plot but I didn't like a lot of the characters

I have very mixed feelings about this book. This is my first book from the author and I'm not sure if I like her style of writing. Especially in the beginning with multiple POVs and timelines, it was difficult to get a grip on the plot. But what I really liked is the topic on which this book is based upon and the intention behind writing this book.

Often, when we hear about an (in?)famous serial killer, most of the attention or the details is about the murderer, or an analysis of how they became one, their violent murderous spree and (if we are lucky) their eventual capture and the trial. But what about all the lives that were cut short? Most of them remain a statistics. The story behind this true crime fiction follows one of the world's most notorious yet glamorized serial killer, Ted Bundy, as he brutally attacks one of the sorority houses in the Florida State University, leaving 2 students dead and other 2 grievously injured. On the night of January 15, 1978, Pamela Schumacher, the president of a sorority in FSU, is woken up from a deep sleep to find an intruder amongst them. She becomes the only eye witness who later identifies the killer in court. But as she realizes the true horrors of the intruder's brutality, there is a unrealistic sense of events.

The story also follows the case of 2 missing women from a crowded beach near Lake Sammamish State Park and the unrelenting efforts of another women to uncover the truth behind these disappearances. The narration shifts between the POV's of Pamela and Ruth, one of the women who went missing, and both are narrated in the first person. The voices of these two are not distinguishable, so it left me a little confused sometimes. How the stories of the two women merge forms the main thread of the story.

What left me fuming in the end, was the presiding judge in the Bundy trial, who referred to him as a 'bright young man' and that 'his talent as a lawyer was wasted because he went the other way'. Like how the hell could that even happen? I would highly recommend this book.

What a book! Immediately has climbed into my top ten books of this year. I loved it. Will be recommending far and wide.


Bright Young Woman by Jessica Knoll.

This is probably the book I found most difficult to put down that I have read this year. I was riveted from the opening chapter to the final sentence.

The book opens in a Florida sorority house in January 1978, hours later the house will become one of the most infamous crime scenes in the US. Sorority president Pamela wakes up in the middle of the night and discovers a man fleeing the house, leaving death and devastation in his wake. On the other side of the country, Tina reads about the murders , she is sure her missing friend was a victim of the same man. Tina travels to Florida and meets Pamela and they become allies determined to find justice for their murdered friends.

This book deftly blends fact and fiction. The perpetrator is Ted Bundy, however is only mentioned as the defendant, in the book. The women's stories are centred in the heart of this book and they are excellent characters. Knoll captures the time period and the challenges women faced ( and continue to) with great care and attention as does she with the factual elements of the story, her research was evidently meticulous.
The story is told from multiple points of view and from different points in time. It's incredibly well paced and genuinely difficult to put down. This book scared me, made me angry ; then made me sad , made me think and was a deeply satisfying read. A clever, compulsive, powerful literary thriller , I loved how Knoll told this story, starving the perpetrator of the light , the media usually shine so brightly on such men and amplifying the powerful stories of women.
Recommend adding to your October reading plans if you haven’t already read!

4.5 - 5 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I was really excited to get a chance to pick up Bright Young Women after reading what it was about. A fictionalized account of Ted Bundy’s last murder spree, this novel predominately follows Pamela, a young woman who has been impacted by an attack at her sorority, resulting in the death and disfigurement of a number of her sorority sisters. In many ways, it was everything I hoped for – a powerful story of feminine rage which successfully recenters an established patriarchal narrative surrounding an intelligent and charismatic serial killer in the 1970s by reclaiming the spotlight on the extraordinary women who came into contact with him.

The author’s message comes across loud and clear as she passionately dismantles piece by piece the legacy of Ted Bundy as an extraordinary man, who in fact remains nameless and is only known as The Defendant throughout the whole novel (this was brilliant!). Bright Young Women is powerful and intelligent with lots of quotable prose that will stay in reader’s minds long after they turn the last page.

However, all the same, I do find this novel difficult to review and rate as, while I thought the heart and message of the story was genuinely brilliant, at the same time, I found the narrative uncompelling and disjointed throughout significant portions. The cold open was superb – heartbreaking and unrestrained; but very soon the wheels started to spin out and the narrative disjointed as it moved between three different timelines (and two perspectives). Possibly part of my trouble is the voices read very similar to me and I found this disengaging particularly as I struggled at first with Ruth (hot take: I think Ruth was only added as a perspective in order to deliver that final last scene). It’s also important to note this is not a mystery, thriller nor courtroom drama, though there are characteristics of each here due to the subject matter. It instead plods along as more of a character study with genre aspects – which I’m not entirely sure was the intention. I did feel at points Bright Young Women may have been stronger as a short story.

Nevertheless if you do persevere, there is a lot to love about this novel and I would thoroughly recommend it to everyone particularly if you are drawn in by any of the themes discussed. (3.5/5)