The Manson Women and Me 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. 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 … 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.
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Was little to do with the Manson girls and more to do with the “me” part. Mostly her talking about being Jewish and comparing Manson to Hitler. Boring. Don’t waste your time or money.
It is basically an autobiography of the author. Nothing new to learn. I do not recommend!!!
I believe the author got too emotionally involved and I would have liked more objectivity. Learning about what influenced and motivated these women was almost secondary to the author’s own story.
This is one of those books where I should have listened to other reviewers. I did not mind the premise of the author using her life as a backdrop, but her life was boring. It seemed like the book became a way to advocate for the women she interviewed (Pat and Leslie) and overall it was just pretty boring. I have read much better books about Manson’s followers. Don’t waste your time.
The author befriended these women and visited them in prison. I remember those murders and how terrified we who lived in Los Angeles area were. A sad tale of wasted lives. They were girls like us. Or were they?
It was interesting and the author makes it clear he feels some sympathy for both women.
This is a rarity in my reading life. I will not finish it. I lack about 80 pages. The book is not a story about the Manson women. It a story about Nikki Meredith and her perceptions of the Manson women and Charles “Tex” Watson and some interviews with them. Sometimes, it is merely about Nikki Meredith. I do not know what I expected. The Manson case is intriguing, horrifying, and well-publicized though I have not read much about it before. This did not reveal anything to me that I felt I would want to know about the case–not one thing.
Did not care for the way it ended
It was very interesting to see another side of the Manson women.
Eye opening and shows that even these women, who are in prison for brutal murders, also have a human side. When they are given a chance to show that there is a lot more to them than the crime they committed years ago, we see that they are not totally defined by the murders. Shows them as very complex, not one dimensional.
Nikki Meredith asks the most important questions when dealing with people: Why? and How? I’ve read almost every book on Manson and The Family, and not a single one came anywhere near accomplishing what Meredith has with The Manson Women and Me. This is one of the best books I’ve read EVER! Read it, and you’ll see how the author’s thought process gives birth to something that could somewhat clear up the stain Charles Manson has left on human consciousness.
Factually incorrect (author writes Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated in Atlanta; common knowledge knows it was in Memphis). After this, I lost respect for the author. She thinks the reader will sympathize with the Manson women, who the author believes she got to know while they are in prison. Unbelievable.
More about the author than the actual characters. The title was misleading.
I was very interested in the subject of this book but it ended up with the author talking about herself and her life more than the supposed subjects of the book.