A review by andie
Bright Young Women by Jessica Knoll

challenging reflective sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character

3.5

 a tough one to review, to be honest. i used to call myself a “true crime fan” - but in recent years i’ve found myself questioning my interest in true crime and ended up stopping watching/reading about true crime altogether. my mind always went back to “why are we always talking so much about the killers but not the victims?” and how we’re always exploiting other people’s trauma, over and over again, always consuming this type of content to the point we become numb to the atrocities these killers have done. 

this story definitely made me think about this again, bringing the perspective of a survivor of a serial killer who would later become very famous because of how the media portrayed him as a very smart and charming man. the book never says his name, but with the hints it gives, if you know, you know. it does a very interesting job in telling a survivor pov and her quest for justice, and a recounting the life of a person who would soon be a victim. 

but at the same time, even if the book never says his name and is using his story as a means to question our thoughts about true crime, if someone doesn’t know who the killer mentioned is, i think it’s almost inevitable that they might fall into a research rabbit hole, eventually not only finding out who he is, but reading everything they can about him. so even if the book questions people’s interests in serial killers and how they turn famous, isn’t the story indirectly making us interested in finding out who they’re talking about? it’s contradicting, and i’m still not sure how i feel about it. 

i found the storytelling itself very compelling, and it touches subjects like homophobia and society’s views on women as well. i give a four star for the storytelling alone, but considering the behavior that it ends up evoking to the reader, i lowered it down to three and a half. it's a thought-proviking read for sure, but after reflecting about it for a while after reading, it still gives me conflicting thoughts. it would probably have been a better choice if it was entirely fictional.