Book #3 of 2024. My goal is to mix in more nonfiction this year, and this one has been on my TBR for a while. As a true crime buff, I’m familiar with the notoriety behind this case. However, Vincent Bugliosi’s book “Helter Skelter” is what you’re going to want to read if you’re looking for the facts of the case and the trial.
“The Manson Women and Me” takes a completely different angle and instead studies the psychology behind the female members of the Manson Family, specifically Leslie Van Houten and Patricia Krenwinkel. Nikki Meredith focuses on one main question: what compels two seemingly “normal” women do such despicable, horrific, and unspeakable things?
This book was nothing short of fascinating. Meredith’s meticulous analyzation of human psychology was everything from educational and informational, to disturbing and terrifying.
Summary: In the summer of 1969, Leslie Van Houten and Patricia Krenwinkel carried out horrific acts of butchery on the orders of the charismatic cult leader Charles Manson. At their murder trial the following year, lead prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi described the two so-called Manson Women as “human monsters.” But to anyone who knew them growing up, they were bright, promising girls, seemingly incapable of such an unfathomable crime.
Award-winning journalist Nikki Meredith began visiting Van Houten and Krenwinkel in prison to discover how they had changed during their incarceration. The more Meredith got to know them, the more she was lured into a deeper dilemma: What compels “normal” people to do unspeakable things?
The author’s relationship with her subjects provides a chilling lens through which we gain insight into a particular kind of woman capable of a particular kind of brutality. Through their stories, Nikki Meredith takes readers on a dark journey into the very heart of evil.
Books and Bites with Brooke 