I have so much to say about this book, and there is a very good chance I will come back later and edit this review as I've had a chance to sit on the book for longer, but I really need to get a lot of this out now, so this is going to be messy and is coming from an emotional place. I am going to try to keep my review as fair and organised as possible, even though I am absolutely furious about the acknowledgements - but we will get to that.

I must note that from the beginning of the Ruth narrative, my opinion of the book had been shifted by reading some 1 star reviews that changed my perspective on this book. I made a forum post about this at the time. It feels necessary to note, because it means I did not go into the rest of this book without any biased opinions towards the nature and quality of the writing. However, I am incredibly grateful that I did read the rest of the book with the knowledge that I did, because it was only through my ignorance that a lot of the faults of this book were able to stand without question. I am so grateful I was able to go into the rest of this book with some critical thinking, because I think Knoll is doing more harm than good with this book. I do still feel like my opinions have ended up fair and justified, as I still feel as positively about the opening section of Pamela's perspective now as I did at the time.

Indeed, I think this book would have been far more successful if Knoll had kept to focusing on the sorority murders, and Pamela. A lot of that opening section is incredibly powerful, and really brings great attention to the incompetency of the police and the disgrace of the media and how both of these institutions treat the victims and survivors in the wake of tragedy. A lot of my qualms with this book come far more from the Ruth narrative, and though I still think there are substantial parts of Pamela's narrative that are problematic, I don't find it anywhere near as abhorrent as the Ruth section.

For a book that's aim is largely to recentre the narrative of this case back on the victims and criticise the glorification of Ted Bundy, the book does an awful lot to perpetuate this, and neglects the victims time and time again. I think a lot of authors just assume that not giving a character a name in your book is an assured way to dehumanise them and strip them of any power, and as a literature student, we get taught this line of analysis time and time again, but it simply doesn't work in this book. Firstly, it's rather pointless to try to obscure the name of the perpetrator, when you are going to use the details of their lives and their crimes so 1-for-1, and will even verbatim use parts of their closing arguments. This book is so recognisably Bundy, that you're not getting the anonymity that provides the dehumanising effect that not naming a character has. It's pointless to not name him, because that's all that's going through people's heads when he is mentioned. It's literally how this book is marketed - a retelling of the murders of Ted Bundy. If anything, giving him the title of "The Defendent" - capitalised as such throughout the whole book - pervertedly adds to this glorification. I'm not suggesting this was intentional on the part of Knoll, but throughout the whole book, it literally just turns Bundy into a myth. I hate to have to reference JKR in a manner of defence because I fucking hate her and everything she stands for, but the "Dark Lord" in Harry Potter is unfortunately a really good (and well known) example of exactly the point I'm trying to make - sometimes, by not naming something, you give it more power. And unfortunately, that's what comes across here. Knoll's whole argument in this book is that Bundy wasn't this elusive genius - he was fundamentally, to literally quote Knoll, "a dull man [...] an ordinary misogynist." So even to the extent that simply refering to him as "The Defendent" dehumanises him, doesn't that directly contradict what Knoll is trying to do? That title gives him the power to exist as something other than simply a disgusting man who violated women.

Perhaps this obscurity would have success if the reverse intention - to centre the victims - was actually achieved. Yes, fundamentally, the two perspectives were firmly victims, and I appreciated that survivors were given such a focus as well. However, wanting to centre victims, by in part, not directly naming the perpetrator, is pointless when countless victims are NEVER named throughout the course of this entire book, even into the acknowledgements. That's what really irks me about this book - regardless of where characters of lots of these victims were different in this book, every single victim has a direct equivalent in the real story. A real person's and family's tragedy that it's building off of, with a stand-in taking it's place. Of simply the 3 core deaths of this book: Denise is Lisa Janet Levy; Robbie is Margaret Elizabeth Bowman; Ruth is Janice Ann-Ott. Now, where I say "is", I'm not claiming that I am 100% correct there, HOWEVER, my point is that every murder is recognisable to each of those three. The tragedies these "characters" underwent, regardless of whether the character themselves were representative of the real victim or not, were real. They were real action that hurt, violated and brutally took the lives of 3 real women; young women with futures they never got to live and families they never got to grow old with. I can somewhat understand changing the names of victims to respect them - especially if you are taking creative liberty with their lives and existence as people - but then how dare you not name these women in your acknowledgements. You are using their stories, so fucking name them. How many people could name any of Bundy's victims? Or Dahmer, or Jack the Ripper, or John Wayne Gacy? I guarantee not as many as could tell you about the MOs of these killers. If the purpose of your book is truly to recentre the narrative of the victims, how dare you not name them - how dare you not give them the recognition you are claiming to.

Where Bundy is so accurately depicted, it is so unfair on the victims that so much of them is fictionalised; pop culture knows about Bundy, and can attest to the details surrounding him being true. What society is not aware of - at least to the same extent - is the victims. How can the average person distinguish where the line between fiction and fact is? When you are claiming to write a retelling that centres the victims, I feel a certain level of trust is developed between author and reader that the author has done their research. When a book such as this begins with such accuracy in the description of the Chi Omega murders and attacks, and when the murders and kidnappings that are only named (where the victims do not appear as characters) are attributed with the genuine names of the women and girls, this trust is solidified. So then when the lines are blurred, most readers - like myself - who do not have an acute awareness of the Bundy case don't know where the line is. Because when you search for the facts, what you get is names and sentences about the atrocities these women faced - and yes, some names are changed, but the rest is very accurately depicted (beyond Knoll changing the date of Caryn Campbell's death, but we'll get to that). How is this recentring the victims, when it's impossible - within this book itself - for the reader to know where the victims actually are, and where the book is fictionalised? I could go into even more criticism of the fact that this book is capitalising on the stories of people still living without seemingly having permission to do so, which I think is problematic in and of itself, but this review is already getting long enough.

And that's not to say I think the book should have been completely accurate. In fact, I wish the opposite were true. I think a lot of Knoll's intentions would have been so much more successful if she had utilised a completely fictionalised narrative, and in fact, I think a lot of this book would have been much easier to construct, because I haven't even touched on the messy narrative yet and honestly don't fully plan to beyond saying this book could have benefitted at points from a restructure. So I can't help but feel like the Bundy retelling aspect was done to sell the book. Yes, he isn't named, but as I say, it's how this book has been marketed. People love true crime, people love serial killer stories. Just look at how popular documentaries and films on these kinds of topics are - no wonder a book "about" Bundy is going to sell.

As the Pamela narrative progressed, and the Ruth narrative got introduced, the book felt like it was going further and further into "crappy" thriller territory. And let me be clear, I don't mean crappy as an insult to people who enjoy those books - I LOVE a crappy thriller - I mean it to highlight how formulaic and tropey the fictionalised (to my knowledge...) aspects of the hunt for information was. There were certainly still key moments of crticising the media - particularly through the Carl arc - and of Pamela wanting to highlight the victims and their lives, but can I comfortably say that the recentering of and giving justice to the victims was a success? No. The Ruth narrative was so messy and felt so rushed. I also think the way she was depicted was absolutely disgusting, especially in her early chapters, when this character can be tied to someone who genuinely lost their life. Of course, I'm not saying victims should be perfect people who never struggled or anything like that. But the point is that Ruth isn't the real victim; and so attaching Ruth to a real victim is damaging. Her first few chapters were constantly just talking about how gross and ugly Ruth is, going into ridiculous detail on her acne. It goes back to the uncertainty of where the line between fiction and fact lies that upsets me with this, less than the detail itself, if that makes sense.

What especially though leads me to the thought of Bundy being a marketing strategy is - as alluded to earlier - Caryn Campbell. In this book, Knoll has Caryn Campbell's death take place in 1973, so that Ruth (standing in for Janice Ann-Ott, or otherwise for Denise Marie Naslund which I want to mention to highlight that there was a victim genuinely called Denise) who dies in 1974 can be told about this as a warning to the dangers for a woman to be alone in this region and climate. Caryn Campbell - a real victim of Bundy - was murdered in 1975. Genuinely, why the fuck did this date get changed? ESPECIALLY when Caryn Campbell gets referred to by name, and has the details of her story told - at least to my current understanding - relatively accurately. I genuinely cannot see a reason for this, other than Knoll deciding it fit her narrative better. Genuinely, how fucking dare you change a detail like that of a genuine person's murder because it didn't suit your narrative. How on earth is that recentering the victims and wanting to show them justice in your book, when you don't even have the basic decency to be truthful WHEN NAMING VICTIMS. At least I can somewhat excuse the cases where victims names were changed in this book, because yes, they are attachable to real women, but in some ways thank god they aren't named to not have this level of disrespect.

Truly, the only way I think Jessica Knoll has achieved her aim at all of refocusing the narrative on the victims is I now feel so determined to look into these women, and their lives and their deaths. Who were they, what actually happened to them, and how disrespectful is this book actually. I would love to be proven wrong; that Knoll had the approval of more victims (both survivors and families) than just Kathy Kleiner, but until then, fuck you Jessica Knoll. How dare you use these women and manipulate their stories - the exact thing you criticise the media for doing in your book - to suit your narrative and to make sales. I hope I have to come back and apologise for that statement, but I don't hold much hope.