“In giving Paula voice, Dykstra helps to heal a grave injustice.”

“A provocative true-crime page-turner on how sexism, racism and public opinion set women up for violence.”

“The investigation Dykstra conducts goes beyond the details of Oberbroeckling’s life to ask larger questions about class, race, gender, respectability norms, and sex. It’s a complicated and crucial book that doesn’t shy away from personal culpability, the mythology of innocence, and the assumptions we cast upon dead girls. ”

“What Happened to Paula is a new reminder of how completely the true crime genre is owned and flourishing through female authors. ... It’s memoir sifted through institutional neglect and sexism.”

“Katherine Dykstra takes a different, more thoughtful, approach to Paula’s story, examining how stifling community standards, antagonism against interracial relationships, and assumptions about “bad girls” worked in tandem to condemn Paula and bury her story.”

“A vivid, unflinching account, with its share of rage and sensitivity, equal in power and tenderness, WHAT HAPPENED TO PAULA is the story of the daring task of living in a female body. It is an urgent and troubling meditation on a life without resolution and the wiping out of a woman’s existence, a hidden truth common to a large segment of this country. This deeply moving investigation is required reading for anyone who is or knows a woman.” ”

“WHAT HAPPENED TO PAULA is a book like no other. A murder mystery. A powerful exploration of what it means to be a vibrant woman in this cold, unfeeling, and somehow, still wonderful world. Debut author Katherine Dykstra will blow your mind.”

“The missing girl narrative can create a sort of pleasing cleanliness around the idea of violence against women: a heinous act, an innocent girl, all to be properly vilified and mourned. WHAT HAPPENED TO PAULA upends and unpacks all the smaller subtler scarier violences that live inside of this: what of all the ways the girl wasn’t innocent, what of all the ways none of us are?”

“Dykstra casts a searing light on racism, sexism, and the stigma of being a ‘bad girl.’”

“Combining memoir with true crime, à la I’LL BE GONE IN THE DARK, and with social history, like in Becky Cooper’s WE KEEP THE DEAD CLOSE, Dykstra follows many leads, but, rather than solve the 50-year-old cold case, she seeks to examine ‘the bigger mystery of how society could have allowed her to die.’”

“Thoughtful and thought-provoking.”

“What Happened to Paula is sobering, insightful, and a highly recommended addition to both true crime and women’s issues collections. ”

“A sharp and seductive investigation into the unsolved death of a young woman fifty years ago becomes, in Dykstra’s telling, an investigation into the genre of dead-girl true crime itself—of our fascination with vanished women and of our nation’s willingness to allow their deaths to remain unsolved. Unflinching about the role the murdered girl plays in the nation’s psyche, and how it shapes the way living girls come to understand their place in society, WHAT HAPPENED TO PAULA reveals what it really means to be “good” and “lucky” in America, not to mention safe. A bracing and powerful book, unsentimental and sleek, and a roadmap for actual change.”

“The most chilling thing about WHAT HAPPENED TO PAULA is that although she died 50 years ago, her story could be that of a teenage girl in 1990 or 2000 or today. Katherine Dykstra’s intimate investigation takes us inside the dark side of the American dream: divorce, poverty, race and, most crucially, the seemingly endless risks of being born into a female body. In clear, captivating prose, Dykstra reveals not just the details of Paula Oberbrockling’s short life, but how the world that let her die so tragically has scarcely changed in two generations. This is essential reading as gripping as any thriller. ”

“Paula’s story is riveting not only for her time but our own. This book is fascinating, heartbreaking, and empowering all at once. ”