Women Out of Control: How the Girls Next Door Became Some of the World's Most Notorious Criminals

I'm giving this book four stars instead of five because I wish the chapters had been longer and because I almost didn't read the book after trying to get through the introduction, which struck me as a bit feminazi; so if you can get through the first 17 pages of why men react the way they do to the empowerment of women, it's great reading (although, she did offer a couple of interesting insights into why "Thelma and Louise" made so many people nervous). I am a fan of true crime and I am especially interested in women who commit violent crimes, but I have somehow managed to avoid reading up on the women profiled in this book (Lorena Bobbitt, Karla Homolka, Pamela Smart, Mary Letourneau and Karla Faye Tucker), so I grabbed the book. Linda Stunell does not hold back. I love her no-holds-barred writing style that is almost tongue in cheek at times, but for the fact that her choice of words is flippantly confrontational (that's the only way I can think of describe it, so hopefully I'm providing some reasoning as to why I loved her writing). She doesn't try to make excuses for these women or rationalize or try to decrease culpability. The way she portrays these women leaves no room for questionable accountability. She sticks with the facts and is unbiased. I know that all one has to do to get information these days is type something into a Google search, but another thing I really liked about this book was the updates on the women, which you won't get by reading a lot of the trade paperbacks that came out shortly after the sensationalism died down. A couple of them are quite entertaining (like Mr. Bobbitt's life after his penis was reattached; or how Pamela Smart survived her first few years in prison) and surprising (like Mary Letourneau actually living happily every after with the boy she was convicted of raping; and when Karla Homolka was released from prison). This is a quick read and great for someone who can't seem to sit down long enough to finish a chapter because all of the profiles are broken up into numerous sections.