Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


Part 9 Only Posting Already Done Review Now Let’s See How Many Are Left Over After That I Will Never Do This To Y’All Again

Bright Young Women by Jessica Knoll

The Philadelphia Chromosome: A Genetic Mystery, a Lethal Cancer, and the Improbable Invention of a Lifesaving Treatment by Jessica Wapner

Margo's Got Money Troubles by Rufi Thorpe

The Dream Hotel by Laila Lalami

The Field Guide to Dumb Birds of North America by Matt Kracht

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Book 41: Bright Young Women by Jessica Knoll Rough Review: 5 stars. This is an interesting book. I’ve tagged it both as True Crime and Historical Fiction. Its relationship to the idea of “based on a true story” is fascinating. I’m not sure I’ve read a book quite like this before, and I think I appreciated it more than I enjoyed it. That’s not a knock against it, the subject matter is quite brutal and the fact that it’s based on a (n infuriating) true […]

recommendation from aileen!

Bright Young Women by Jessica Knoll

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Recommendation from Aileen! I suppose some mild spoiler alerts for what this book apparently is–thinly veiled shade towards Ted Bundy, who was once called by a judge a “bright young man,” in the vein of all the usual misogyny that we’re used to seeing in the judicial system when faced with the fact that yet another (male) murderer who seemed so normal has gone off the rails. I didn’t really know this part, and honestly I couldn’t really tell you much about Ted Bundy so […]

Changing the Narrative

Bright Young Women by Jessica Knoll

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To start with, I want to acknowledge that this novel is attempting something noble. Taking the Ted Bundy case for inspiration, author Jessica Knoll seeks to de-sensationalize the serial killer narrative we are all so familiar with. For one thing, her main protagonist, Pamela Schumacher, refuses to use Bundy’s name, instead referring to him solely as “The Defendant.” Through Pamela, Knoll also tries to counteract the narrative that was constructed around him, that he was a handsome, charming, intelligent man who preyed on gullible women. […]

Bright Young Women- suck it Ted Bundy, ya basic.

Bright Young Women by Jessica Knoll

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January 1978. A serial killer has terrorized women across the Pacific Northwest, but his existence couldn’t be further from the minds of the vibrant young women at the top sorority on Florida State University’s campus in Tallahassee. Tonight is a night of promise, excitement, and desire, but Pamela Schumacher, president of the sorority, makes the unpopular decision to stay home—a decision that unwittingly saves her life. Startled awake at 3 a.m. by a strange sound, she makes the fateful decision to investigate. What she finds […]

Nevertheless, they persisted

Bright Young Women: A Novel by Jessica Knoll

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From Harper’s Bazaar, Best Books of 2023: Don’t miss this “breakneck thriller based on Ted Bundy’s heinous crimes [following] two women with connections to the murders and their search for justice…a sharp examination of our culture’s obsession with serial killers and true crime” I was unaware while reading Jessica Knoll’s Bright Young Women: A Novel that the story was inspired by Ted Bundy’s murders of two sorority girls at Florida State University in 1978. The novel recounts the events and more importantly the aftermath of […]

Bright Young Women

Bright Young Women by Jessica Knoll

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I was hesitant to pick up the new novel from Jessica Knoll as I really didn’t care for Luckiest Girl Alive, one of her previous published works which was turned into a Netflix film starring Mila Kunis. But I was pleasantly surpised by Bright Young Women, as it was a refreshing take on the oft cliched true crime drama narrative. Rather than focusing on the perpetrator, Knoll brings attention and humanity to the victims, their friends and their families. The book follows two women across two different […]



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