Customer Reviews

DEAD GIRL

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

I am reading this book for the third time -- something I do rarely. Be not deceived, this book does not belong housed with the True Crime genre. It is not about murder and the hunt for a killer although that appears to be the foundation of the story. It is written by a literary writer and not a sensationalist journalist. It is about the impact such a crime has on the lives of those who loved the victim, in this case, the best friend of the victim, through her perceptions and emotions. The book may be more fully appreciated by those who, in their late teens and early twenties, have lost significant relationships through death and by those who study the impact of such trauma.

If you are hoping for a true crime story, you will be dissappointed (and probably annoyed) by this book. I wish someone would write a true crime book about this particular murder, but unfortunately The Dead Girl is more of a long, self indulgent journal entry- I learned way too much about the author's own emptiness and overly abstract,needy, and self-referential thinking style and not enough about the tragedy the book was purportedly about.I read the first third, skimmed the second, and then skipped to the epilogue. Ms. Thernstrom's other book, Halfway Heaven, however, is BRILLIANT and a must read for true crime fans!

Roberta "Bibi" Lee was murdered by her boyfriend in 1984. She was a close friend of the author and this book is about her murder and subsequent trial and sentence of the boyfriend.

Melanie Thernstrom does a sterling job of researching Bibi's murder and including letters that, according to her, "sound like what Bibi would have written." The only drawback is that this book is very verbose and could have been cut down in places.

I also felt the author's description of her devastation over her break up with her boyfriend Adam was extraneous. As bad as one felt for the author, her love life really had nothing to do with Bibi.

It is to Ms. Thernstrom's credit that she cared so much about Bibi that this book was ever written. It is a loving testamony to the strong bonds of friendship. Had this book been less verbose, it would have gotten more stars.

This book is unlike anything I have ever read. It offers a true journey into the mind and soul of a surviving victim. It's an agonizing journey at times but the grace and beauty of the author's writing marks a stark contrast to the events she is often describing.

Not a book for people who want the sensationalistic "movie of the week" in book form. This instead is an amazing elegy to a senselessly murdered friend. If you allow it into your mind it will force you to think not just of crime and murder but of life and death and the very nature of existence. The author bears her soul sharing her innermost thoughts and feelings and her beautiful honest and unpretentious expression of them is a wonderful gift to the reader

This book totally transcends the genre of "true crime". I have read close to 1000 books about crime, some great, some not very good but I think this may be the best book of them all. Absolutely incredible!

I have to agree with the others here who rated this book with 1 or 2 stars. The most compelling part of the book was the transcript of the trial(s) - which doesn't come until almost the very end. The book is too much centered on Thernstrom's feelings, angst & general immaturity at the time of the murder. While it is obvious that Roberta's depression is important & relevant it is constantly over-shadowed by Thernstrom's self-indulgence regarding her own state-of-mind.

I thought the writing jumbled & pretentious. Too many literary details - fine for a thesis, rotten for a general-consumption published memoir. At the end of the book I still have many questions. The most important issue to my mind is does Thernstrom believe in Page's guilt or not? Also, why didn't the family want the original letters published? Why make the letters the centerpiece of the work if you cannot use them at all & have to make things up from memory? Surely some other device could have been used.

I hope Roberta Lee's life & murder will get another look by a more conscientious author. May she rest in peace.

As a frequent reader of true crime, I picked this up thinking it would be just another entry in the slain-young-girl-whodunit and how-did-they-catch-him category. Imagine my surprise to find that this book was something very different indeed. I echo the sentiment that it does not belong in the true crime category. Instead, the book is the author's true memoir, set in the early 1980s, of what happened after her best friend, a volatile and gifted Berkeley student named Bibi Lee, disappeared on a run through a park and was later found in a shallow grave. Although the initial investigation focused on Bibi's supposed abduction by a strange "man in a van", her seemingly mild-mannered boyfriend ends up confessing to the crime despite a lack of physical evidence tying him to the murder. He later recants, saying he was manipulated by the police.

Overall, approximately 1/3 of the book focuses on the murder story - Bibi's disappearance, the search for her, and the boyfriend's eventual murder trial. The book perfectly evokes the era just prior to "kids on milk cartons" when people tended to think of abductions and murders as being performed by strangers, rather than in the Laci Peterson era when people are more likely to suspect the boyfriend, husband or other family member. The other 2/3 of the book focus on the author's relationship with Bibi, and the author coming to grips with both the untimely loss of her best friend, and with the fear that arises from feeling that if her friend, who was similar to her in interests, background and education, was killed, then she herself might just as likely become a victim. Eventually, depressed over a breakup with a "safe" boyfriend (i.e. one who she was sure would not murder her), the author eventually ends up making a halfhearted attempt at suicide and spends some time in a mental ward. One gets the impression that both the author and Bibi suffered from untreated mood disorders, perhaps depression or bipolar disorder, that weren't as easily treated in the 1980s when Prozac and other mood-altering drugs were not widely available.

Despite the dark subject matter, this is a very spiritual and readable book, without being too heavily preachy, Christian or God-focused. One who is seeking insights on dealing with the untimely death of a loved one, on survivor's guilt, or on how to cope when there simply isn't going to be a happy ending will find much food for thought in the various insights the author records from her own thoughts and dreams and from her friends. It is also to some extent a coming-of-age story about being a young girl at a top-ranked university in the 1980s (when I too was in college). I have read and re-read this book many times and it provided me with insights into my own life, and I'm sure many others have too. It is one of my favorite books to this day. The loss of Bibi, while tragic, was certainly not in vain.

When reading this book, one must keep in mind that the writer was friends with the murder victim. The book is more of a catharsiss for the writer than a truee crime novel for the reader. The writer goes into details that some readers would not be interested in. We eally don't care that some guy who has nothing to do with the crime wears clothes in a way that maakes him look like a store maniquien. We really do not want to know that the writer thinks her thighs are fat. If you want the true crime stuff, read the first chapter or two, then skip to about page 203. You will skim through some pages to get to the trial. That part is good and it is only during the trial that we learn about what happened. We learn the victim and the murderer were in many ways typical Berkeley whack jobs. The moral relativism of the Berkeley mind set plays an interesting role in the urder. That is layed out quite well in the book. This poor girl did not deserve to die so brutally. It is a sad and strange story written in a strange fashion that captures all that is wrong and wierd with Berkeley.

I was living in the Bay Area at the time when this happened and remember seeing the articles in the paper and the clips on the news about the search, arrest and conviction.

But wow, this book was really helpful for helping me get to sleep at night! Very long and drawn out.

And I was pretty disappointed to learn that Bibi's family refused to let the author use any actual letters from Bibi for her book and the author just wrote all these fake ones for it.

A disappointment, especially after following this story in the news.

She left out the part where Bradley Pages returned to the body and had sex with it a few times.

Like others, I wish this book provided more conclusive evidence of Page's guilt or innocence. At least, Thernstrom could have assessed the alleged confession and the (lack of) physical evidence. The intent of the book, of course, is to describe her feelings and relate her thoughts during the process of grief. Some of that would be okay, but a little goes a long way. For those wanting to learn more about the two trials, the possibility of a coerced or false confession, the possibility that a serial killer did it, Dead Girl won't provide much insight.

We can forgive Thernstrom for writing in such a self-indulgent way, because she was still in her 20's at the time and had started the book as a thesis. Maybe her professors should shoulder some of the criticism for contacting agents and capitalizing on the grave subject matter.

It's a very thought-provoking case because Page is connected to the crime by essentially no physical evidence. I can believe that a mild-mannered, unformed college kid could accidentally kill in a burst of rage, but my own limited research tells me that the 'proof' wasn't there, not even in his confession, because it did not match certain facts. On the other hand, the jury must have felt that he confessed certain details that only the killer could have known.

Frustrating. I wish someone else would write a more investigative book.

Melanie Thernstrom has written a very informative and well thought out book about the loss of a friend. Melanie; BiBi is in a better place now, I know. Don't beat yourself up over her death, or your own life. You have a great talent, hope you continue to use it. Have more faith in yourself;I do.