Take a photo of a barcode or cover
diereading 's review for:
The Stranger Beside Me
by Ann Rule
I don’t rate books like this but I’ll just say, looking at this as a novel itself, it was not the best.
1. I understand Bundy had a lot of victims but the lack of insight into the victims as people rather than just as another name on a list bugs me. If you do not provide insight into the women as people, then you just degrade them into objects unto which murder was committed, and is that not what Bundy did? Maybe she could’ve gotten rid of random details about her home life and her family that were completely irrelevant and instead talked more about the victims. Pretty sure at points she just completely skips over particular murders. I would be able to get on board with this if the point of the book was to delve into Bundy’s psyche, or the personal relationship with Bundy or Rule, except she fails to do both of those things. She only ever really digs into the psychological side of Bundy in her additions years later, but the majority of the book fails to really connect the information we’re being told about Bundy with the behaviors he displays. Additionally, Rule consistently referenced to letters and other communications with Bundy, but never shared much information from them, as if she was still trying to protect him. Although, to be fair, I listened on audiobook so there’s a chance there are like scans of letters in the physical copy that just weren’t read aloud.
2. Rule’s relationship with Bundy is just odd. At points I could understand it, and at others I was very confused. It felt like every argument I (or Rule) would make for why she continued to be close to him was contradicted by something else. She couldn’t believe it was him, and yet even without all the evidence in front of her, long before he was caught, she herself mentioned him to police because she suspected him. She felt he needed somebody, and yet she also mentions on multiple occasions that he wrote with many people while in prison.
3. Also on the point of Rule and Bundy’s relationship, how close were they really. We’ve all had coworker friends and we all know how it goes. You like ‘em, you stick around them at work, maybe meet up at some outside social functions, but once one of you leaves the job the contact fades away. And that’s pretty much how Rule describes her relationship with Bundy. Nothing more than your average coworker friendship. Yet at the same time the way she portrays this relationship with Bundy is as though they are very close. And one could argue that though they were maybe not very close initially, they grew closer through being pen pals during his many incarcerations. Except no, because he pretty much ghosts her after the first few years and Rule herself mentions that he was in constant contact with many other women. Really, it seems Bundy used Rule as a conduit to the Seattle police and she fell for it and continues to fall for it. At one point she says something along the lines of “I knew him perhaps better than anyone”. But that makes no sense. This man has a family, he had a fiance, and two wives. He wrote to other people from prison far more often than he wrote to Rule. He had lawyers, he’s spent countless hours with correctional officers and police officers. There’s so many people who have opportunities to get to know Bundy on a level far more nuanced than Rule. Everything she summed up about Bundy in her updates were with a lens of retrospect: things that anyone could’ve told you. But in the moment it was clear that as much as she judged other woman for falling for Bundy, she did too.
That’s all I can think of for now.
1. I understand Bundy had a lot of victims but the lack of insight into the victims as people rather than just as another name on a list bugs me. If you do not provide insight into the women as people, then you just degrade them into objects unto which murder was committed, and is that not what Bundy did? Maybe she could’ve gotten rid of random details about her home life and her family that were completely irrelevant and instead talked more about the victims. Pretty sure at points she just completely skips over particular murders. I would be able to get on board with this if the point of the book was to delve into Bundy’s psyche, or the personal relationship with Bundy or Rule, except she fails to do both of those things. She only ever really digs into the psychological side of Bundy in her additions years later, but the majority of the book fails to really connect the information we’re being told about Bundy with the behaviors he displays. Additionally, Rule consistently referenced to letters and other communications with Bundy, but never shared much information from them, as if she was still trying to protect him. Although, to be fair, I listened on audiobook so there’s a chance there are like scans of letters in the physical copy that just weren’t read aloud.
2. Rule’s relationship with Bundy is just odd. At points I could understand it, and at others I was very confused. It felt like every argument I (or Rule) would make for why she continued to be close to him was contradicted by something else. She couldn’t believe it was him, and yet even without all the evidence in front of her, long before he was caught, she herself mentioned him to police because she suspected him. She felt he needed somebody, and yet she also mentions on multiple occasions that he wrote with many people while in prison.
3. Also on the point of Rule and Bundy’s relationship, how close were they really. We’ve all had coworker friends and we all know how it goes. You like ‘em, you stick around them at work, maybe meet up at some outside social functions, but once one of you leaves the job the contact fades away. And that’s pretty much how Rule describes her relationship with Bundy. Nothing more than your average coworker friendship. Yet at the same time the way she portrays this relationship with Bundy is as though they are very close. And one could argue that though they were maybe not very close initially, they grew closer through being pen pals during his many incarcerations. Except no, because he pretty much ghosts her after the first few years and Rule herself mentions that he was in constant contact with many other women. Really, it seems Bundy used Rule as a conduit to the Seattle police and she fell for it and continues to fall for it. At one point she says something along the lines of “I knew him perhaps better than anyone”. But that makes no sense. This man has a family, he had a fiance, and two wives. He wrote to other people from prison far more often than he wrote to Rule. He had lawyers, he’s spent countless hours with correctional officers and police officers. There’s so many people who have opportunities to get to know Bundy on a level far more nuanced than Rule. Everything she summed up about Bundy in her updates were with a lens of retrospect: things that anyone could’ve told you. But in the moment it was clear that as much as she judged other woman for falling for Bundy, she did too.
That’s all I can think of for now.