The Book Blog - Learning Resources at St. Johns River State College

When you think of romance novels, do you think of cheesy covers with half naked men? Do you think of predictable plot lines? Dumb heroines? Over the top heroes? Cringe-worthy scenes? If you do, that’s okay! But I am here to tell you that romance novels have come a long way since then and why you should give them a try.

For me, I was tired of having to read assigned books in school that held little to no interest for me. I lost my love of reading and really struggled to find something I enjoyed. For many years, I chose not to read, outside of schoolwork. From about middle school to my freshman year of college, I read nothing outside of assigned reading, and the most popular books at the time, which was Twilight and Hunger Games. (I didn’t even read Harry Potter!) I was burnt out on reading. But my best friend introduced me to romance novels, and I was hooked. Today’s romance novels come in a variety of plot points, heat levels, and much more. There really is something for everyone in this genre. Here is a quick breakdown of ways to find the perfect romance novel for you!

Plot Points (Tropes)

Romance novels are famous for specific plot points, also known as tropes. Knowing the trope of the book will give you an idea about what the book is going to be about. Here are a few popular ones: Friends to Lovers, Enemies to Lovers, Fake Relationship, Second Chance, Forbidden Love.

Heat Levels

Don’t like super sexy scenes? That’s okay! Don’t like when the book leaves you hanging? That’s okay! Romance novels usually give labels to let you know how descriptive the book gets. Think of them like movie ratings: Clean (G), Sweet (PG), Steamy (PG-13/R), Spicy (R).

Genres within Genres

To me, the best part about romance novels is that they cover a huge variety of other genres. In fact, the romance can actually take place alongside another point plot. Mysteries and thriller/suspense romances are two subgenres where the romance is just a side plot to the overall plot of the book. Here are a few subgenres that are popular within the overall romance genre: Paranormal, Sports, Contemporary, Historical, LGBTQ+.

Romance novels can be read by anyone. You can find a romance novel that has any combination of tropes, levels of spice, and subgenres. After high school, college, and graduate school, I was tired of having to read assigned books that held little to no interest for me. When my best friend suggested that I read a romance novel, I scoffed at the idea of reading something like that. I thought that reading had to be educational, impactful, and enlightening. But I was wrong. Reading can be whatever you want it to be, and it took me until I was 20 to rediscover that idea. Are the plots predictable? Sometimes. Can the characters be cheesy, over the top, or just plain dumb? Sometimes. But can’t you say the same for other books in other genres?

I hope this gives you a better look into the romance genre and will encourage you to pick one up and give it a try! Let us know what you are reading or if you would like any recommendations!

Check out what we have at SJR State!

People We Meet on Vacation by Emily Henry

ISBN: 9781984806758

Publication Date: 2021-05-11

THE #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER! A TONIGHT SHOW STARRING JIMMY FALLON SUMMER READS NOMINEE! Named a Most Anticipated Book of 2021 by Newsweek ∙ Oprah Magazine ∙ The Skimm ∙ Marie Claire ∙ Parade ∙ The Wall Street Journal ∙ Chicago Tribune ∙ PopSugar ∙ BookPage ∙ BookBub ∙ Betches ∙ SheReads ∙ Good Housekeeping ∙ BuzzFeed ∙ Business Insider ∙ Real Simple ∙ Frolic ∙ and more! Two best friends. Ten summer trips. One last chance to fall in love. From the New York Times bestselling author of Beach Read comes a sparkling new novel that will leave you with the warm, hazy afterglow usually reserved for the best vacations. Poppy and Alex. Alex and Poppy. They have nothing in common. She's a wild child; he wears khakis. She has insatiable wanderlust; he prefers to stay home with a book. And somehow, ever since a fateful car share home from college many years ago, they are the very best of friends. For most of the year they live far apart--she's in New York City, and he's in their small hometown--but every summer, for a decade, they have taken one glorious week of vacation together. Until two years ago, when they ruined everything. They haven't spoken since. Poppy has everything she should want, but she's stuck in a rut. When someone asks when she was last truly happy, she knows, without a doubt, it was on that ill-fated, final trip with Alex. And so, she decides to convince her best friend to take one more vacation together--lay everything on the table, make it all right. Miraculously, he agrees. Now she has a week to fix everything. If only she can get around the one big truth that has always stood quietly in the middle of their seemingly perfect relationship. What could possibly go wrong?

Beach Read by Emily Henry

ISBN: 1984806734

Publication Date: 2020-05-19

THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER FROM THE #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF PEOPLE WE MEET ON VACATION! "Original, sparkling bright, and layered with feeling."--Sally Thorne, author of The Hating Game A romance writer who no longer believes in love and a literary writer stuck in a rut engage in a summer-long challenge that may just upend everything they believe about happily ever afters. Augustus Everett is an acclaimed author of literary fiction. January Andrews writes bestselling romance. When she pens a happily ever after, he kills off his entire cast. They're polar opposites. In fact, the only thing they have in common is that for the next three months, they're living in neighboring beach houses, broke, and bogged down with writer's block. Until, one hazy evening, one thing leads to another and they strike a deal designed to force them out of their creative ruts: Augustus will spend the summer writing something happy, and January will pen the next Great American Novel. She'll take him on field trips worthy of any rom-com montage, and he'll take her to interview surviving members of a backwoods death cult (obviously). Everyone will finish a book and no one will fall in love. Really.

One Last Stop by Casey McQuiston

ISBN: 9781250244499

Publication Date: 2021-06-01

*INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER* *INSTANT USA TODAY BESTSELLER* *INSTANT #1 INDIE BESTSELLER* From the New York Times bestselling author of Red, White & Royal Blue comes a new romantic comedy that will stop readers in their tracks... For cynical twenty-three-year-old August, moving to New York City is supposed to prove her right: that things like magic and cinematic love stories don't exist, and the only smart way to go through life is alone. She can't imagine how waiting tables at a 24-hour pancake diner and moving in with too many weird roommates could possibly change that. And there's certainly no chance of her subway commute being anything more than a daily trudge through boredom and electrical failures. But then, there's this gorgeous girl on the train. Jane. Dazzling, charming, mysterious, impossible Jane. Jane with her rough edges and swoopy hair and soft smile, showing up in a leather jacket to save August's day when she needed it most. August's subway crush becomes the best part of her day, but pretty soon, she discovers there's one big problem: Jane doesn't just look like an old school punk rocker. She's literally displaced in time from the 1970s, and August is going to have to use everything she tried to leave in her own past to help her. Maybe it's time to start believing in some things, after all. Casey McQuiston's One Last Stop is a magical, sexy, big-hearted romance where the impossible becomes possible as August does everything in her power to save the girl lost in time. "A dazzling romance, filled with plenty of humor and heart." - Time Magazine, "The 21 Most Anticipated Books of 2021" "Dreamy, other worldly, smart, swoony, thoughtful, hilarious - all in all, exactly what you'd expect from Casey McQuiston!" - Jasmine Guillory, New York Times bestselling author of The Proposal and Party for Two

Verity by Colleen Hoover

ISBN: 9781791392796

Publication Date: 2018-12-10

Lowen Ashleigh is a struggling writer on the brink of financial ruin. When Jeremy Crawford, husband of bestselling author Verity Crawford, asks Lowen to complete the remaining books in a contract his permanently injured wife is unable to fulfill, Lowen has no choice but to accept. Lowen arrives at the Crawford home with the intention of only staying one or two nights--long enough to sort through Verity's chaotic home office to collect all the notes and outlines she'll need to start writing the first novel. But the more time Lowen spends with Jeremy Crawford, the less of a hurry she is in to leave. While there, Lowen uncovers a hidden manuscript. An autobiography containing chilling admissions Verity planned to take to her grave, including the truth behind the events that turned their lives upside down. A truth that, if revealed to Jeremy, would further devastate the already grieving father. Lowen decides to keep the manuscript a secret, allowing Jeremy to continue to believe Verity is merely an innocent, unfortunate victim of circumstance. But as Lowen's feelings for the devoted father and husband deepen, she wonders if keeping Jeremy in the dark is in her own best interest. After all, if Jeremy were to read his wife's autobiography, the disturbing truth would make it impossible for him to continue to love her. A chilling romantic thriller from #1 New York Times bestselling author Colleen Hoover.

It Ends with Us by Colleen Hoover

Call Number: Popular Fiction PS3608.O623 I84 2016

ISBN: 9781501110368

Publication Date: 2016-08-02

"The newest, highly anticipated novel from beloved #1 New York Times bestselling author, Colleen Hoover. Sometimes it is the one who loves you who hurts you the most. Lily hasn’t always had it easy, but that’s never stopped her from working hard for the life she wants. She’s come a long way from the small town in Maine where she grew up--she graduated from college, moved to Boston, and started her own business. So when she feels a spark with a gorgeous neurosurgeon named Ryle Kincaid, everything in Lily’s life suddenly seems almost too good to be true. Ryle is assertive, stubborn, maybe even a little arrogant. He’s also sensitive, brilliant, and has a total soft spot for Lily. And the way he looks in scrubs certainly doesn’t hurt. Lily can’t get him out of her head. But Ryle’s complete aversion to relationships is disturbing. Even as Lily finds herself becoming the exception to his "no dating" rule, she can’t help but wonder what made him that way in the first place. As questions about her new relationship overwhelm her, so do thoughts of Atlas Corrigan--her first love and a link to the past she left behind. He was her kindred spirit, her protector. When Atlas suddenly reappears, everything Lily has built with Ryle is threatened. With this bold and deeply personal novel, Colleen Hoover delivers a heart-wrenching story that breaks exciting new ground for her as a writer. Combining a captivating romance with a cast of all-too-human characters, It Ends With Us is an unforgettable tale of love that comes at the ultimate price"-- Provided by publisher.

Hook, Line, and Sinker : a novel by Tessa Bailey

ISBN: 9780063212749

Publication Date: 2022-03-01

AN INSTANT #1 NEW YORK TIMES AND #1 USA TODAY BESTSELLER In the follow-up to It Happened One Summer, Tessa Bailey delivers another deliciously fun rom-com about a former player who accidentally falls for his best friend while trying to help her land a different man... King crab fisherman Fox Thornton has a reputation as a sexy, carefree flirt. Everyone knows he's a guaranteed good time--in bed and out--and that's exactly how he prefers it. Until he meets Hannah Bellinger. She's immune to his charm and looks, but she seems to enjoy his... personality? And wants to be friends? Bizarre. But he likes her too much to risk a fling, so platonic pals it is. Now, Hannah's in town for work, crashing in Fox's spare bedroom. She knows he's a notorious ladies' man, but they're definitely just friends. In fact, she's nursing a hopeless crush on a colleague and Fox is just the person to help with her lackluster love life. Armed with a few tips from Westport's resident Casanova, Hannah sets out to catch her coworker's eye... yet the more time she spends with Fox, the more she wants him instead. As the line between friendship and flirtation begins to blur, Hannah can't deny she loves everything about Fox, but she refuses to be another notch on his bedpost. Living with his best friend should have been easy. Except now she's walking around in a towel, sleeping right across the hall, and Fox is fantasizing about waking up next to her for the rest of his life and... and... man overboard! He's fallen for her, hook, line, and sinker. Helping her flirt with another guy is pure torture, but maybe if Fox can tackle his inner demons and show Hannah he's all in, she'll choose him instead?

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How I Embrace Autumn in Sunny Florida

As someone who grew up in Kentucky, autumn has always been my favorite season. There's nothing quite like the crisp air, the golden leaves crunching beneath your feet, and that undeniable shift in the atmosphere that signals sweater weather is on its way. When I moved to Florida, I knew that my beloved autumn wouldn’t follow me. Instead of flannels and bonfires, it's endless sunshine (or like we have seen in the recent weeks, endless rain). But that doesn’t mean I’ve given up on chasing those cozy or spooky autumn vibes.When September hits, I load up my digital and physical shelves with books that have that autumn feeling I'm craving. I know it sounds silly, but I love bringing as much autumn energy into my home as possible. So, you'll usually find me reading with an autumn-scented candle burning and sipping endless cups of apple cider. I might not get to pull out my boots or wear my favorite sweater, but the right stories take me to cozy cottages, ancient forests, magical towns, or haunted mansions where autumn is in full swing.Below are some of my favs!The Very Secret Society of Irregular WitchesA warm and uplifting novel about an isolated witch whose opportunity to embrace a quirky new family--and a new love--changes the course of her life. The Unfortunate Side Effects of Heartbreak and MagicSadie Revelare has always believed that the curse of four heartbreaks that accompanies her magic would be worth the price. But when her grandmother is diagnosed with cancer with only weeks to live, and her first heartbreak, Jake McNealy, returns to town after a decade, her carefully structured life begins to unravel. Legends & LattesThe battle-weary orc aims to start fresh, opening the first ever coffee shop in the city of Thune. But old and new rivals stand in the way of success — not to mention the fact that no one has the faintest idea what coffee actually is.The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying VampiresFried Green Tomatoes and Steel Magnolias meet Dracula in this Southern-flavored supernatural thriller set in the '90s about a women's book club that must protect its suburban community from a mysterious and handsome stranger who turns out to be a blood-sucking fiend.A House with Good BonesSam Montgomery is worried about her mother. She seems anxious, jumpy, and she's begun making mystifying changes to the family home on Lammergeier Lane. Sam figures it has something to do with her mother's relationship to Sam's late, unlamented grandmother.She's not wrong.The Midnight LibraryBetween life and death there is a library. Wuthering HeightsSet in the west Yorkshire moors, Wuthering Heights is the story of two gentry families -- the Earnshaws and the Lintons -- and their turbulent relationships with Earnshaw's adopted son, Heathclifff. Practical MagicWhen the beautiful and precocious sisters Sally and Gillian Owens are orphaned at a young age, they are taken to a small Massachusetts town to be raised by their eccentric aunts, who happen to dwell in the darkest, eeriest house in town. As they become more aware of their aunts' mysterious and sometimes frightening powers -- and as their own powers begin to surface -- the sisters grow determined to escape their strange upbringing by blending into "normal" society.TwilightAbout three things I was absolutely positive.First, Edward was a vampire.Second, there was a part of him - and I didn't know how dominant that part might be - that thirsted for my blood.And third, I was unconditionally and irrevocably in love with him.Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's StoneHarry Potter thinks he is an ordinary boy - until he is rescued by an owl, taken to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, learns to play Quidditch and does battle in a deadly duel. The Reason ... HARRY POTTER IS A WIZARD! ...

By the pricking of my thumbs... A review of this year's three 'Macbeth' retellings

I’ve been on something of a Macbeth kick this year. For some reason, several authors have written “feminist” retellings of Shakespeare's Scottish play this year, all from the perspective of Lady Macbeth, and I can't be blamed for falling down this particular rabbit hole.This started a few months back when I was scrolling through NetGalley—an online service which allows library professionals, educators, and online influencers to read books before they’re published in exchange for reviews—and I came across a book by Val McDermid called Queen Macbeth. I had never read anything by McDermid before, and I didn’t really know anything about her other than that she is one of the most well-known modern authors in Scotland, but I knew I liked Macbeth, so I decided to give this book a chance. Dear reader, I wish I hadn’t because it was genuinely the worst book I’ve read this year so far.Queen Macbeth is told across two alternating timelines, the first, during Gruoch’s (that’s Lady Macbeth’s historical name for those unaware, as I was) marriage to her first husband when she met her soon-to-be second husband Macbeth, and the second, about twenty years later. I’m not sure why this story is told in alternating timelines, though, because the two are not connected in the slightest, and so far as I could tell, there was no plot to this book. Perhaps the alternating timelines existed as a means of hiding that there was no plot. I couldn’t figure it out, and I still can’t.The second Lady Macbeth book I read was significantly better, if only because it did have an actual plot, and it was generally fun to read, even if it made very little sense at first. In Lady Macbeth, author Ava Reid presents readers with a completely new, never-before-seen Lady Macbeth, replacing the middle aged Scottish leading lady of Shakespeare’s Scottish play with a French teenager named Roscille, also called Roscilla, Rosele, and Rosalie at different points in the story… apparently for the sake of linguistics. As someone with a degree in European history, I understood what Reid was going for, but I thought that it exposed a deep misunderstanding of how medieval and early modern spellings actually worked rather than adding depth and nuance to her retelling as she thought it did.Roscille is seventeen and the illegitimate daughter of a French nobleman who has married her off to some distant, isolated lower member of the Scottish noble class in order to get rid of her because she is a nuisance. Sometime before her marriage, Roscille was accused of charming a stable boy with witchcraft, and as punishment, she had to watch as her father had the boy executed, and was forced to wear a veil at all times following this incident in order to protect men from her treacherous gaze, something which she wholeheartedly believes in.When she marries Macbeth, she refuses to remove her veil in his presence even when they are alone, and she also refuses to consummate their marriage until he brings her three very specific gifts that she thinks will be difficult to procure. She is terrified of her husband and views him as brutish and harsh and unpredictable, and thus does everything in her power to avoid displeasing him, including allowing him to pressure her into committing several murders for him (a stark contrast to the OG Lady M, who pressured her husband into committing murder).This all appears to be a result of her trauma from seeing her father kill the first boy she loved and being forced to wear a veil so she doesn’t accidentally bewitch/seduce anyone else. I thought her belief that she was a witch who needed to be veiled was also a result of this trauma, but no. She actually is a witch.The first half of Reid's book read like a piece of historical fiction, while the second half was an increasingly bizarre fantasy novel interspersed with random, weirdly-timed sex scenes featuring a fellow Scottish noble's son, who is English in this story for some reason, and who can turn into a massive, powerful dragon (he didn’t do that during the sex scenes, but she did make it very clear she would have been into it if he did).At no point, though, did any of this book feel like it had anything to do with Macbeth beyond the fact that some of the characters had the same names as characters from Macbeth, and there were three witches who made a few cameo appearances. I generally enjoyed this one, but I didn't like it as a retelling of Macbeth.The third and final Lady Macbeth book of the year (unless someone else drops another one in the final months of 2024…) for me is All Our Yesterdays by Joel H. Morris. This book is by far my favorite of these three, and one of my favorite books I’ve read this year in general. It is the only one of the three that interprets the characters in a way which, in my opinion, honors the play it was based on.Where Val McDermid’s Lady hates her first husband for being weak and cowardly and unmanly and therefore, in her eyes, less-than, Morris gives her a backstory which makes her hatred of him make sense, and which equally shows the reader how this Lady has fought for her life as well as her station and how she could become the Lady Macbeth of Shakespeare’s play. Where Ava Reid’s Macbeth was large and brutish and cruel, Morris’s Macbeth is a gentle, softspoken, and somewhat awkward man who tries—not always successfully—to leave his battles on the battlefield, and who loves his wife and puts her comfort and her interests first, which lines up much more believably with the Macbeth Shakespeare created.Interestingly, Macbeth was referenced in another book I read this year as well: Julia Armfield’s Private Rites, which is actually a retelling of another Shakespeare play, King Lear. From the perspective of Agnes, Private Rites’ Cordelia (Lear’s youngest and most beloved daughter who he cast aside late in life), Armfield writes of the three sisters:It occurs to her [Agnes] that there has always been one shitty witch in Macbeth, the one that never says anything useful and always just seems to be filling in space between the other two. Most of the time she feels like this witch is Irene, although sometimes it’s Agnes and sometimes it’s all of them, which doesn’t really make sense but still feels fundamentally accurate. (p. 175, UK edition).The inverse, I think, is fundamentally accurate where these three Lady Macbeth books are concerned: two are just filling space with nothing useful to say, and one is a proper one....

What did I just read?!

Well… I’m not really sure where to start this post. I decided at the beginning of this year that my reading goal was to stick with the genre that I love most – romance – but broaden my horizons within the genre. My least favorite and least read genre is fantasy/science fiction. Ever since I read Sarah J. Maas’ A Court of Thorn and Roses (ACOTAR) series last year, I decided that maybe I was too harsh on the genre of fantasy and should give it another go. So far, it hasn’t been too bad! But I’ve come to the conclusion that within the genre of ‘fantasy,’ I’m still not a huge fan of the “fae/fairy” stuff. Now, there have been some exceptions to this rule, such as ACOTAR, so I wanted to keep an open mind. That brings us up to our Book Club meeting on July 16th…Having discussed with the group about my goal of trying to read more fantasy/sci-fi but disliking “fae/fairy” stories, our very own Brittnee Fisher then recommended I should read, How Does It Feel? by Jeneane O’Riley. To be fair, she did warn me that it was a “fae/fairy” book and that she did not like it and that it was wild (and not in a good way). With a raving review like that, who could stay away? So, I quickly found and downloaded the book, then waited a few days (because I had no idea what I was about to dive into), then I got started…So, all I knew starting this book was that it was a well discussed book on BookTok and the synopsis on Amazon – A forbidden obsessionUnyielding family allegianceThree deadly challengesTHE HUMAN.When a trip into the forest to collect a rare mushroom goes horribly wrong, I find myself falling through a fairy portal and straight into the arms of the Unseelie Fae prince. The dangerously unhinged and handsome Unseelie Fae prince.What could be more horrible than that? He thinks I'm an assassin sent by the humans to kill him, not a biologist.Determined to kill me first, and rid himself of the human he has unwillingly grown obsessed with, yet also needing to entertain his people, the villain challenges me to three deadly trials.If I survive, I gain my freedom. But if not...The Fae.I've never felt anything but hate and loathing until my eyes found hers--the vile human assassin's. She is a parasite that has mercilessly latched onto my mind and won't let me free.My hand itches to be ungloved and feel her smooth skin, even though I would never. The Unseelie Fae royals would rather burn than touch a repulsive human.I fear that if I do not destroy the girl soon, she may be the only thing that's capable of truly destroying me. Let’s just say, this book was… a collection of interesting choices. First, the main heroine, who is a human, Callie, is just not very smart. She makes one horrible mistake after another that really left me confused. The main love interest, Prince Mendax, who is the prince of the unseelie court, is supposed to be an anti-hero/villain-who-gets-the-girl, however, he was BEYOND unlikable. Because he is the “villain” of the story, he was abusive and horrible with Callie, and it makes absolutely ZERO sense why she would end up falling in love with him. Speaking of falling in love, I’m still baffled as to how Mendax becomes interested in Callie. He is convinced for the ENTIRE book, that Callie has been sent to kill him. We also never get his perspective so his “love” for her really feels out of the blue. The “relationship” that forms over the course of this book is best described as toxic. Basically, Mendax starts off hating and abusing Callie and then ends up being an obsessed stalker. There is also a twist at the end that I have to say, I didn’t see coming, and I guess, cleared up some confusion about the plot. However, the book ends on a cliffhanger and left me feeling uncomfortable with the toxic relationship and confused with the overall choices the author made.But obviously I had to read the second book! What Did You Do? is the title and it is even more wild and confusing than the first! I won’t go into too much detail into this book since the main plot is about the twist at the end of the first book. However, another love interest enters the picture to create a sad and messed up love triangle between the three characters. Things got even more wild and crazy with the plot, and it ended on another cliffhanger.I believe that there are supposed to be two more books in this series and honestly, I’m probably going to read them. So far, these books are like car wrecks, you can’t help but look! I can also honestly say that I said to myself, out loud, “what the heck am I reading?” multiple times while reading these books.So, with all that being said, if you want to read something crazy (and not in a good way), check these out! And if you too are uncomfortable and confused by these books, we can all thank Brittnee for that!...

Bright Young Women defeat a law school drop-out

Top left: Bright, young women Lisa Levy, Margaret Bowman, both murdered by Bundy.Bottom left: Bright, young women Cheryl Thomas, Karen Chandler, Kathy Kleiner, all injured by BundyNita Neary, a member of the Chi Omega sorority, came home to find Ted Bundy (Left-artist’s rendition with Neary’s description; Right-photo of Ted Bundy) running from the house.Chi Omega Sorority House description of Bundy’s attack On January 1, 1978, at 4:00 am, serial killer Ted Bundy brutally murdered two women and injured three others (see first photo above) at the Chi Omega Sorority House on the Florida State University campus in Tallahassee, Florida. Nita Neary, sorority sister to the women, saw Bundy run past her and out the front door. Later, she would become a witness for the prosecution at the trial that convicted what the judge would call at his sentencing a “bright young man.” Seeking to correct the judge’s ridiculous and erroneous description of the sadistic murderer who kidnapped, raped, and killed at least 30 women, Luckiest Girl Alive author Jessica Knoll wrote Bright Young Women. When I re-watched the judge at Bundy’s trial attributing those compliments to Bundy, I am in disbelief, and I have always felt sickened by the positive adjectives heaped on this killer. After finishing graduate school and moving to South Florida in 1989, I worked in a high school where Bundy’s crimes were still on the faculty and staff’s minds. Buried deep in my subconscious, I was reminded of his murders when a fellow teacher recalled dropping her daughter off at FSU. “You remember what happened [at FSU] when Bundy killed those sorority girls.” No, I hadn’t remembered, and she reminded me admitting that parents were still haunted by the killings and dropping their bright young daughters off at FSU scared them to death.I was in eighth grade when Bundy killed these bright young women, but I wasn’t aware of the stranglehold that his crimes had on a nation mired in Vietnam fatigue and Watergate. Today, viewers can’t get enough of true crime, and I counted 30 shows currently on Netflix alone that will quench viewers’ thirsts, including “Conversations with a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes.” Googling “shows about Bundy” displays the following hit: Present-day interviews, archival footage and audio recordings made on death row form a searing portrait of notorious serial killer Ted Bundy. Watch all you want. Knoll destroys his “bright young man [ness]” when she refuses to call him by name; instead, she refers to him as the defendant. When the judge referred to him as “bright,” she reminds the reader that he was in the bottom fifth of law school, and he wasn’t accepted to ANY of his top choices. He also attended the University of Utah School of Law, but only because of falsified documents. Few people know that although Bundy did represent himself at his murder trial, he had a “team” of lawyers at his side to act as advisers. Knoll surmises that he acted as his own attorney so that he could “relive his crimes.” And finally, he NEVER earned his law degree. Spending his time as a serial killer may have hindered his studying for exams.Knoll reminds the reader how the New York Times played a part in wrongly characterizing the defendant referring to the serial killer as a “terrific looking young man with beautiful eyes, light brown hair…Kennedy-esque.”When the defendant stuffed his prison cell keyhole with toilet paper to cause his tardiness to the courtroom during his trial, reporters called him “clever.” Knoll’s response: “I have a dog who rips up toilet paper when he doesn’t get his way, too.” I’ll allow the reader to connect the dots here.All too often, the victims of crimes are shoved to the background, while the perpetrators occupy the foreground. Reading Bright Young Women reminds the reader that honoring the lives of Lisa Levy, Margaret Bowman, Cheryl Thomas, Karen Chandler and Kathy Kleiner eclipses the scores of TV shows and movies devoted to a not-so-bright sadistic murderer. ...

In Defense of Romance

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