A Light in the Dark was in no way a light read. It was quite graphic about not only what happened to her but other victims of Ted Bundy. She felt compelled to write the book after 40+ years of fawning over Ted Bundy to set the record straight–he was not a smart, attractive man who charmed women and then killed them but a creepy serial killer who chose to assault and murder children and women after attacking them in the dark, lying to them or jumping them as they went about their every day lives.

She makes this point many, many times and how important it is to focus on the victims and stop blaming them for believing a man when he said he was a police officer or needed help or simply being the wrong place at the wrong time.

Kathy Kleiner Rubin did survive a lot more than a vicious attack by Ted Bundy–childhood lupus put into remission by chemotherapy, breast cancer in her early 30s, and Hurricane Katrina but seems to be both very aware of all that has happened to her but realistic about her life and what she had done in a very down-to-earth way.

A must-read in the true crime genre, we don’t get to hear enough first-person reports about what it was like to live through one the worst things that could happen to someone. Not that we deserve their stories or it is work they have to do but the worship of these criminals cannot be the only narrative we hear. We need to think of the victims.