What Happened to Paula

On the Death of an American Girl

By: Katherine Dykstra

Narrated by: Nan McNamara

A riveting investigation into a cold case asks how much control women have over their bodies and the direction of their lives.

In July 1970, eighteen-year-old Paula Oberbroeckling left her house in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and never returned. A cold case for fifty years, Paula’s story had been largely forgotten when Katherine Dykstra began looking for answers. A woman was dead. Why had no one been held responsible? How could a community give up and move on? Could there ever be justice for Paula?
 
Tracing the knowns and unknowns, Dykstra discovers a girl who was hemmed in by the culture of the late 1960s, when women’s rights had been brought to the fore but had little practical bearing on actual lives. The more she learns about Paula, the more parallels Dykstra finds in the lives of the women who knew Paula, the lives of the women in her own family, and even in her own life.
 
Captivating and expertly crafted, What Happened to Paula is a timely, powerful look at gender, autonomy, and the cost of being a woman.

*Includes a downloadable PDF of Notes and the selected Readings from the book

Heartbreaking and inspiring

I highly recommend this book! It is so much more than just an investigation into the murder of a young girl. It’s a deep dive into why and how a young girls death could be left unsolved for so many years.

Paula’s Story is Not Really About Paula at All

Let me start out by saying that I rarely write a review but this book I really feel like I need to warn potential readers. The book is entitled, “what Happened to Paula” but after the first four hours this became a book more about the author’s family and other irrelevant information. The story could have easily been shortened by several hours if you really wanted to just hear Paula’s tragedy.