Bright Young Women

A book is like perfume, your reaction to it is very personal, highly subjective. This one, I struggled with. It's not a novel. I wouldn't call it a thriller. And it's definitely not a page-turner. I read it in its entirety, so obviously it held my attention, but for the longest time, I could not connect with the main characters, Pamela, Ruth and Tina. I had trouble liking them and couldn't understand why the author chose to make them all hate their mothers but retain precious words of wisdom from their fathers. Ruth's before-last chapter is my favourite. It is 85% into the book. That is how long it took me to start appreciating the author's style and to start feeling a connection with Pamela and Ruth.

I really like the title of the book and the author's idea of putting the focus on bright young women instead of on the real-life notorious criminal who already received an excessive amount of media attention. But even—and especially—while not naming this infamous person, isn't the author putting the focus on him again, and using him and his real-life victims to get famous herself? Knowing that survivors of the tragedy and victims' families are still living, why did she choose to go ahead with fictionalized true crime instead of making up her own serial killer, her own events? It felt too soon for me, a bit insensitive and disrespectful.

Another thing that bothered me is that halfway through the book, a man is murdered by two women but the crime is never mentioned again. Seemingly, these two women suffer no consequences and feel no remorse. The guy was a complete asshole, yes, but there are other solutions, and where do we draw the line?

Bright Young Women would definitely make for a great book club discussion. I had so many conflicting feelings about it.