Hello Beautiful People! Welcome back to another book review! For this review, I get into Bright Young Women by Jessica Knoll, an enraging thriller in which different women just trying to find themselves in the world are targeted by a man who takes what he wants with no remorse. When I say that the book is enraging, I mean it in a good way, looking into the late 1970’s we see that women’s suffrage (specifically those of a marginalized community) really hasn’t changed much.
Main Characters:
- Pamela Schumacher: A young college student who is a survivor of a violent attack within her sorority house, struggles to deal with the justice system and how to heal in the aftermath
- Tina Cannon: Her partner Ruth goes missing and when she hears about the sorority house attack in Florida, she feels it’s the same person who was causing women to go missing in Seattle, goes to do her own digging
- Ruth Wachowsky: Tina’s partner who goes missing
My Review
Bright Young Women by Jessica Knoll popped up on my radar when I kept hearing/ seeing all the hype about it. I just kept seeing this bright yellow and pink cover everywhere so I needed to check it out. I really enjoyed the book, but I will say I was expecting it to be just a touch better given all the talk I was hearing about it. Overall I gave it an 8/10 rating. While I found the plot itself to be really strong and the characters to be super powerful, I felt like it just dragged on a bit more than it needed to, and it lost me in parts.
The majority of the book takes place in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s, along with some present perspectives from Pamela. I thought placing this book in that time frame was perfect, and I always enjoy thrillers and mysteries that are placed in a different time frame and spice up the narrative a bit from what we usually see. I would also say that the time frame was very needed to tell the story. While we know a household of people can be murdered even to this day, it’s a lot less likely than it was in the 70s. With today’s security measures, and everyone having a phone, it’s not easy to commit, and if you do it’s hard to hide one’s identity. With the LGBTQ2+ pieces to the book as well if this book was placed in today’s time frame Ruth and Tina would not be met with the animosity and hatred that they are in the book… well that’s a lie they would, but maybe not to the degree that they did in this era. The time frame also plays an important role in the connection that Pamela and Tina create in the book. With Tina being a gay woman, and this being known to others, Pamela spending time with her raises people’s brows. It’s not super clear what Pamela’s sexuality is in the book. However, she does only have heterosexual relationships, but nonetheless, she catches heat for being a presenting straight woman who is spending time with a gay one. Pamela struggles to know if she should trust Tina based on others’ opinions but eventually comes around to her own conclusion.
The main point that I picked up early on in the book, and enjoyed throughout was how this book was essentially a piece that focused on the victims of a serial killer, and not the killer himself. I make a point when reading true crime books to pay attention to how the author treats the victims. If the victims don’t take up at least a decent portion of the conversation in the book then I get frustrated. When we talk about crime- specifically serial crimes- we talk about crimes committed by men onto a statistical majority of women victims. Yet it’s the male killers who get sensationalized, who get put on a pedestal. The people they kill, their names, and their stories, get swept under the rug. I liked that this book was almost anti-killer-focused. He isn’t often in the book, we don’t ever hear his perspective or really know his name. The reason we don’t is because it’s not needed. He’s a cruel and horrifying serial killer, what more is there to say? What we focus on in this book is the lives of the people who were hurt, whether it was physically, or by losing someone they cared about horrifyingly. This book was a reminder that the victims, their families and their friends, have interesting stories to tell too, we don’t always need to hear about the unempathetic horrifying ones.
The start of the book is really telling of how the rest of the book will be. The book starts off with Pamela describing the attack on her sorority house. It was a difficult section to read. Not only in the crimes that are committed but in how they are described. The way that Jessica paints the picture is one that’s told through young, and naive eyes. The eyes of a young woman in college who could never imagine stumbling upon her sisters bleeding and in pain, some dead. It just made my heart hurt, but what it did was it made it real. There’s this idea that people should react a certain way in these situations, and we see that through Pamela. She often wants to crumble, but being a woman in 1978 who wants a prominent future meant she could never show her pain. She had to keep her composure to keep a specific image. When we talk about crimes like these we focus on what the killer did, how he did it, and who he did it to. What we rarely focus on is who found the victim, and who has to be the victim’s voice now that they are gone. This book doesn’t describe the crimes in detail committed against Pamela’s friends, and that is rare. Often that is the main part we see in these books. I will say I really enjoyed this switch-up. I liked getting to see how the victims are affected because that paints the horror of a crime almost more than the actual crime itself does sometimes.
The main point of the book, and the things that Pamela and Tina chase throughout is justice. Pamela suffers being a witness to a crime in a male-dominated justice system. The police often don’t listen to her, or dismiss what she says. Due to the injustices she suffers her friends, and for Tina – Ruth, are at risk of being lost in the system forever, just another statistic. Furthermore, due to Tina and Ruth’s relationship, Tina doesn’t feel like she can speak with the police about her concerns or theories, and be taken with any type of seriousness. I really enjoyed Tina and Pamela being paired up, because Tina often reminded Pamela that she didn’t need to also be a victim to the patriarchy. The two are very similar in terms of their status and wealth, but at the same time, they are very different. Tina is very confident and secure in who she is, Pamela is not. Pamela is often looking for the approval of others around her, whereas Tina is just trying to make herself happy. Tina’s wealth however comes from a very different back story than Pamela’s and that makes her a bit grittier and tougher than she is. She reminds Pamela of the power she had beneath her insecurities and naiveties and awakes a strength within her. It was really nice to have someone like this for Pamela because it was clear she didn’t have this other perspective from other women in her life, or if she did it didn’t connect like Tina did.
The book pushes the narrative of the consequences that women have suffered for generations for using their brains and thinking outside of the social norm. As soon as Pamela stopped doing everything the cops (men) told her to do, they started treating her differently. It would present that she was uncooperative or not listening to who she needed to. When Tina connects to her, people panic. They don’t want Pamela to have a mind of her own, to know that she does have power and strength.
This is just really one of those books that gets you thinking. It makes you mad, sad, and happy all at the same time. We get to see positive things come about, but they are brought through pain. As Tina and Pamela work to project the names of the women they care about, we see how many systems try to silence them. The fact is though that this really hasn’t changed to this day. Even in the present, Pamela acknowledges that she still battles constantly just to have her voice heard. She always had to be that person who took it on the chin, didn’t make a complaint, but she was done. This book is one of those ones that just relates to so many different spectrums of womanhood. No matter what your age, race, or sexuality is, there is something to relate to in this book. The way that the only one who has Pamela’s back is Tina shows a lot. In a world like this, we only have those who know our struggle to look out for us.
Overall I really enjoyed the plot and characters in the book. The slow parts are definitely there, but it really doesn’t take away from the story and the message behind it all. While it is a heartbreaking book it is also uplifting in some parts. It’s very realistic in terms of a lot of the struggles women suffer through every day.
Did you check out Bright Young Women by Jessica Knoll? What did you think? Feel free to follow my socials @baddiebookreviews to be kept up to date for when I release a new review.
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