A review by catsloverain
Bright Young Women by Jessica Knoll

Not sure this mix of truth and first-person fiction and anti-true crime essay works. I definitely agree with the anti-true crime arguments being made but it's a little bizarre that they're told through the first person perspective of a survivor of a real life murderer. A big message is that "no one knows the real names of B*ndy's victims," but the whole of this book is making up pretend victims who didn't exist and blending them with the graphic details of real victims? It's a little odd having real names of victims, places of murders, murder details, and even a reference to Zac Efron in the biopic, while simultaneously having the entire story center around invented characters.
On a personal note, I felt like the scenes at the end with Ruth were also unnecessarily stomach churning and I'm not sure the role they specifically served.

Edit: After looking at some other reviews, I think that I was not the audience (I was already very anti-true crime before starting this book). The defensive attitudes about how cops, journalists, and true crime "fans" are depicted in this novel seems to indicate that this kind of book is necessary, although this particular one may not have been well written enough to be fully successful.
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