Review: TOXIC by Natasha Devon

 

Toxic by Natasha Green
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Llewella has straight-A grades, a lead in the school play, a prefect badge, a successful blog and a comfortable life. Despite this, she feels like a brown, chubby square peg at a school full of thin, white girls. She's never had a best friend. Could the new student at sixth form - glamorous, streetwise Aretha - be the one? Llewella and Aretha get tight, quick. Before long, Llewella is following a diet Aretha has designed for her and has abandoned her own passions to dive headfirst into Aretha's world. She's determined to be the most loyal, greatest friend she can be, even when Aretha says and does things which make her feel the opposite of great. Even when the anxiety disorder she thought was cured starts to re-emerge. Isn't that how friendships work?

—

This was one of those books I just couldn’t stop reading. I devoured it in two days, even reading until 5am because I just had to finish it.

This book tells the story of Llewella and her new friend, Aretha. And right from the start, we can see that Aretha is a toxic, manipulative friend. I love stories that look at twisted relationships, and I think this is now one of my favourite books about manipulative and toxic female friendships (my other favourite is Genuine Fraud by E. Lockhart).

The friendship portrayed in Toxic is so one-sided, and so many times I just wanted to scream at Llewella to get away from Aretha.

Llewella has anxiety and panic attacks. Aretha pretends she’s good with these, but she’s not. She undermines Llewella’s mental health struggles constantly, and then she herself claims to have bipolar, referring to it as a ‘real’ disorder—oh and she isn’t diagnosed and won’t see a doctor. My jaw hit the floor here. It seems Aretha uses her self-diagnosis as a way to excuse what a horrible person she’s being. She emotionally abused Llewella constantly and it’s so obvious to readers. I was screaming inside as I read this. I don’t think I’ve ever hated a character as much as I hate Aretha. she calls Llewella fat and gives her a meal plan. Llewella spirals into eating disorder territory because of this, but it’s Aretha doing her a favour, ‘improving’ her. Aretha takes over the blog that Llewella started and then makes her start a new brand with her. Llewella’s money goes into it, of course. Aretha wants Llewella to be dependent on her, but then she abandons her at several points, one time in London zone 1, despite Aretha having panic attacks. 

Aretha makes it clear she thinks mental illness is a conspiracy, that it’s something that means the person isn’t strong or resilient (she also is fatphobic and claims a character with PCOS is plus-sized because of lack of discipline and illnesses can’t cause it—Llewella tackles her on this, but of course Aretha turns it around so Llewella is wrong). She uses Llewella’s anxiety against her, so when we do get Aretha saying she thinks she is bipolar, that was immensely interesting. Because, she could have bipolar disorder. But still that doesn’t excuse her treatment of her supposed best friend. And she’s a horrible person. At the start of the book, Llewella is happy, a straight A* student, has an important part in a play, and has a blog and other friends. Not too long after she’s friends with Aretha, Llewella is unhappy, her grades are dropping, she’s got an eating disorder, her panic attacks worsen, she’s in therapy, she gives up the play (as Aretha says she’s got to prioritise), loses her other friends, and she basically loses who she is.  The mental illness rep is phenomenal. Half the time, Aretha is suddenly annoyed with Llewella for no apparent reason, making Llewella’s anxiety much worse. And it amazed me how whenever Aretha was mean to Llewella and Llewella tackled her about it, Aretha turned it round. Seconds later, Llewella was justifying Aretha’s reaction and blaming herself. Classic gaslighting. This is the kind of relationship you see in abusive romantic relationships, and those are covered in books a lot. But this is the first time I’ve seen it done in friendship. And we need this book. 

I really liked how Llewella has a supportive network of women (and her grandfather) around her. These women give her the strength to end the brand with Aretha and gain back some of her happiness. 

This book also tackles racial issues. Both Aretha and Llewella are mixed race, and one example is Aretha is annoyed that Llewella gets a TV opportunity that she doesn’t. She blames it on Llewella being lighter skinned than she is, and tells Llewella to turn the opportunity. Even though it’s what Llewella really wants, and she gets the opportunity because of the blog that she started, two years before she even met Aretha. It appeared to me that Aretha felt entitled to getting the TV role and when Llewella got it instead, she blamed it on racial prejudice. And yes, there could be those reasons in it too, but for me (though I acknowledge I am a white reader), Llewella clearly deserved it. It was her blog. She had done the work. And Aretha clearly didn’t want Llewella to succeed. So while this book does shine a light on the important issue of racial discrimination, it largely does this while also emphasising the toxic character that Aretha was.  But there are Black characters, such as Steph, who also encourage readers to think about race and privilege, and this is done in an unproblematic way—though of course Aretha hates Steph, disagreeing with everything she says, until she can then say the same things to attack Llewella. 

Huge thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC. This is highly recommending reading and I think it should actually be compulsory reading for teenagers in schools.

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Review: SHINY BROKEN PIECES by Sona Charaipotra and Dhonielle Clayton

 

Shiny Broken Pieces by Sona Charaipotra
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

June, Bette, and Gigi have given their all to dance at Manhattan’s most elite ballet school. Now they are competing one final time for a spot at the prestigious American Ballet Company. With the stakes higher than ever, these girls have everything to lose… and no one is playing nice.

June is starting to finally see herself as a prima ballerina. However, getting what she wants might cost her everything—including the only boy she’s ever loved. Legacy dancer Bette is determined to clear her name after she was suspended and accused of hurting her rival, Gigi. Even if she returns, though, will she ever regain the spotlight she craves? And Gigi is not going to let Bette—or the other dancers who bullied her—go unpunished. But as revenge consumes her, Gigi may be the one who pays the price.

After years of grueling auditions, torn ribbons, and broken hearts, it all comes down to this last dance. Who will make the cut? And who will lose her dream forever?

--- 

If I could give this book more than 5 stars, I would. I already loved the first book in the series and rated that one 5 stars, because it was so good--and so I wasn't expecting the sequel to be even better. But it is...

Book one ends with a pretty big event (spoilers for book 1 here): Gigi's been run over and one of the ballet dancers was behind it. This book opens a little while after this. Gigi is now recovered and returning to the school (alongside Cassie who is also returning--Cassie was absent on-page from book 1, having also been injured in the bullying). June is back at the school too but on thin ice as the school are now aware of her eating disorder and tell her she will be asked to leave if she doesn't improve. Bette is back at her family home for much of the book, having been excluded from the school who believe she was responsible for Gigi's accident--even though Bette's narrative tells us she wasn't and she's determined to find out who was.

So the stakes are immediately high in this book and it takes on almost thriller vibes at times. And it's just so tense--because the girls in this book are even more vicious than in the last book!

Gigi and Cassie team up together, which is understandable as there's no way Gigi is going to trust Bette or June. But Cassie is so, so toxic though and we see her manipulating Gigi, getting her to do things she'd never normally do (such as giving Eleanor peanuts when the girl has a severe peanut allergy). Gigi also cuts off all of June's hair, and there are numerous other things she now does without question due to the mindset that her accident and Cassie's manipulation have got her into.

And Gigi isn't the only one whose 'pranks' turn more severe. We see June also upping her game, and we see just how far Bette will go to clean her name.

Of course there's more darkness in this book--but I actually think it was handled even better than in book one. (Spoilers ahead). We've got a predatory teacher preying on Eleanor (Bette's best friend), and Bette takes photographic evidence of this. When these photos are mysteriously leaked to the students and teachers, Eleanor is blamed and slut-shamed--and then she attempts suicide too. My heart was racing at this point and I couldn't read fast enough to see if Eleanor was okay.

June's eating disorder becomes even more prominent, and she's also balancing this with the stress of the future of her romantic relationship with Jahye, as he wants her to relocate to where he's going to college, which would mean giving up her dreams of being a professional ballet dancer.

In fact, all three narrators--June, Bette, and Gigi--are worrying about their future in this book, as are all the other main characters (Cassie, Will, etc). This is their last year at the ballet school and the school only offers places to two dancers. There's this huge sense of urgency and inevitable change.

One of the reasons I really loved this sequel is because I felt Bette's character was more fully fleshed out. In book 1, she's backstabbing and manipulative--and she is in this book two, but we learn more about her. Because she's at home for a lot of the book, we get an insight to her family life that we didn't have before and we meet her father who left her. We also understand more about why she's so jealous of Gigi as she is still in love with her ex (Gigi's boyfriend). And we get a lot more insight into Bette's addiction too and how she struggles with drugs.

In fact, I think this book has more psychological insight for all the narrators--especially June. 

And, of course, it's a hugely diverse book in terms of race and disability/chronic illness. 

The only 'negative' I have about it (and I had to think hard about this one!) is the male characters, mainly the male ballet dancers. Because the female ballet dancers' personalities were so strong and so well developed, they felt flatter in comparison. I did catch myself skimming over scenes with Alec and Will, at times, purely because I wanted to get to the 'heart' of the novel where it was about the backstabbing girls pretty much plotting to murder each other.

But this has to be one of my top reads.

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Review: A DANGER TO HERSELF AND OTHERS by Alyssa B. Sheinmel

 

A Danger to Herself and Others by Alyssa B. Sheinmel
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Only when she’s locked away does the truth begin to escape…

Four walls. One window. No way to escape. Hannah knows there's been a mistake. She didn't need to be institutionalized. What happened to her roommate at her summer program was an accident. As soon as the doctors and judge figure out that she isn't a danger to herself or others, she can go home to start her senior year. In the meantime, she is going to use her persuasive skills to get the staff on her side.

Then Lucy arrives. Lucy has her own baggage. And she may be the only person who can get Hannah to confront the dangerous games and secrets that landed her in confinement in the first place.

---

AMAZING. Seriously, that's the only way to describe this book. It is truly amazing.

In the opening pages, we meet Hannah Gold. She's a confident and likeable narrator, and she's just been institutionalised. But she tells us not to worry. It's just a mistake, her being there. It's because Agnes, her best friend and roommate at summer school, is in a coma with brain damage, and Agnes's parents mistakenly believe that Hannah was involved. But as soon as Agnes wakes up or her parents talk to Jonah, Agnes's boyfriend, Hannah's name will be cleared and she'll be back out in the real world.

The writing in this book is just so compelling. I was sucked in right away, completely on Hannah's side. We're given little snippets of info at the right time to keep us reading--this is one of the best books I've read for pacing--and we gradually begin to piece together a picture of what happened to Agnes that's led a psychiatrist to believe Hannah is a danger to herself and others. Indeed, being a danger to herself and others--those exact words--becomes a motif in this book as we learn Hannah is more than a little obsessed with it. But, still, we're thinking that's fair enough. And if I was in that situation, I don't think I'd be as calm as Hannah. She's handling it all well.

Now, the rest of this review will contain spoilers--because I have to talk about these twists. THEY ARE AMAZING.

So, Hannah gets a roommate, Lucy. Lucy is a ballerina who has an eating disorder and a dark secret--she wanted to hurt one of her rival ballerinas. She wanted to push her, take away her dancing ability. And it's when Hannah meets Lucy that we begin to suspect that Hannah isn't quite as level-headed as she lets on. She becomes obsessed with Lucy, wanting to be her best friend (giving Lucy no choice) as she believes if the doctor sees how she's best friends with Lucy, they'll know she's not a danger to herself and others--and then she'll be out.

Hannah's having therapy sessions throughout the novel with Dr. Lightfoot (not the real name, named by Hannah because the doctor wears ballet slippers), and in those sessions, we see Hannah open up more and more. She is a very complex character, and we learn of her childhood, seeing the pivotal moments that shaped her into this arrogant and intelligent character: her parents took her to grown-up meetings, left her in hotel rooms, made her eat oysters as a child. And she was rewarded for acting like a grown up. She wasn't allowed to be a child.

Hannah, at the summer school, also had an affair with Jonah--the guy we are told is Agnes's boyfriend. But then we get the twists. Neither Jonah or Lucy are real. I was gobsmacked at this reveal, but they're both hallucinations. And oh my goodness, I could not stop reading this book at this point (and I'd been so addicted to it before).

I've had hallucinations myself, and this really just 'got' me. Especially how we see Hannah in denial about this--insisting her friends are real--and then coming to terms to it. She then frets about how can she know if anything at all is real? She doubts all her memories, and I just loved this. It reflected exactly my own thought processes.

We never find out the diagnosis that Hannah has--and I think that really worked in this book. Instead, we see her at the hearing as she's cleared of being the cause of Agnes's accident, and we see her leaving the hospital once she's medicated. We see her moments of doubt, her delusions, and we also meet her parents. And wow, that characterisation is incredible. The parents are so cold and calculating that I desperately wanted Hannah to go back to the hospital where Dr Lightfoot was. Because she cared more for Hannah than her own parents did. And that was heartbreaking.

This is just an incredible book. Highly recommended.


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Review: GENUINE FRAUD by E. Lockhart

 

Genuine Fraud by E. Lockhart
My rating: 5 of 5 stars


From the author of the unforgettable New York Times bestseller We Were Liars comes a masterful new psychological suspense novel--the story of a young woman whose diabolical smarts are her ticket into a charmed life. But how many times can someone reinvent themselves? You be the judge.

Imogen is a runaway heiress, an orphan, a cook, and a cheat.
Jule is a fighter, a social chameleon, and an athlete.
An intense friendship. A disappearance. A murder, or maybe two.
A bad romance, or maybe three.
Blunt objects, disguises, blood, and chocolate. The American dream, superheroes, spies, and villains.
A girl who refuses to give people what they want from her.
A girl who refuses to be the person she once was.

I went into this book, having read some of the reviews that say it's not as good as We Were Liars, and so I was a bit hesitant at first...but I have to say that Genuine Fraud is amazing. I LOVED it.

It's very different to We Were Liars, yes. It's not trying to be the same. It's standing proud to be different, and I was really hooked after the first couple of chapters.

Genuine Fraud is all about character. It's about giving the reader snippets of Jule's life and Immie's life, all from Jule's POV. It's about constructing these complex and devastating characters through spinning a sort of web around Jule--as the web increases with each chapter, so does our knowledge of what these characters really are like. Jule becomes more and more complex with each chapter, and by about the halfway point, we know exactly what kind of person we're dealing with.

Jule is a murderer. She kills two people in this book--possibly three, I'm not quite sure. She's dark and when she doesn't get what she wants, she throws a tantrum. And her tantrums always end in the same way. And yet despite this there are still twists cleverly incorporated into this--proper moments that had me literally gasping.

This is a story of friendship and what happens when it becomes obsessive. It's a story of a damaged girl who's undeniably clever and so, so cold.

I loved the writing style. I'll be honest, I don't connect strongly with books that are told in third-person. I need that closeness to the main character. Yet third person was undeniably the right choice for Genuine Fraud, precisely because it keeps Jule at a distance. We're not supposed to see right into her mind. We're supposed to be wondering who she is and what she is capable. As we read, we're trying to learn more about her, and it often feels a bit like we're a detective and Jule is the mystery. And I think that's why I liked this book so much because we're kept on the outside a little bit. We're trying to work out who this character is--a character who freely admits that she lies and makes up her 'origin story'. I still don't know which of Jule's 'childhood origin stories' are based on truth, if any are.

And (spoilers ahead), I just have to talk about this: this book shows how someone can just step into someone's life so quickly, claiming that you used to be friends at school--when in fact you weren't. And the way it's done in this book is just so amazing. Because Jule and Immie knew each other from school--and yet they didn't. Each chapter adds a little bit to the puzzle, until we realise that Immie is someone Jule has become fixated on and vowed to find a way into her life. Jule gets all these tidbits of info about Immie's schooldays (from names of classmates to what Immie was wearing at a concert), getting these pieces of information through hiding her intentions, and then 'reminds' Immie of how they were at the same school. And that means Immie has this instant trust for Jule. Trust that is her downfall. I just wanted to talk about that because that revelation that Jule's memories of Immie and their shared schooldays were constructed and not organic just blew me away. That was the point where I realised just how clever E. Lockhart is.

And each chapter does build a new layer, add a layer to the onion that is Jule, so to speak. And the timeline jumps back and forth too. We're not given things in a chronological order, which adds to the puzzle-feel of this book. And I just loved that.

As expected from any book by E. Lockhart, this one covers some dark topics: you've got suicide mentioned, murder, desperation, obsession... But this is a must-read.

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Review: ALLEGEDLY by Tiffany D. Jackson

 

Allegedly by Tiffany D. Jackson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Mary B. Addison killed a baby.

Allegedly. She didn’t say much in that first interview with detectives, and the media filled in the only blanks that mattered: A white baby had died while under the care of a churchgoing black woman and her nine-year-old daughter. The public convicted Mary and the jury made it official. But did she do it? She wouldn’t say.

Mary survived six years in baby jail before being dumped in a group home. The house isn’t really “home”—no place where you fear for your life can be considered a home. Home is Ted, who she meets on assignment at a nursing home.

There wasn’t a point to setting the record straight before, but now she’s got Ted—and their unborn child—to think about. When the state threatens to take her baby, Mary must find the voice to fight her past. And her fate lies in the hands of the one person she distrusts the most: her Momma. No one knows the real Momma. But who really knows the real Mary?


--


Allegedly is the third book by Tiffany D. Jackson that I've read, though it was her first published, and I know this is going to be a book that stays with me for a long time.

This book tells the story of a Mary, a Black girl who allegedly killed a white baby when she was nine years old. She's now 16, pregnant, in a group home, and fighting to find a way to keep her baby and clear her name. And it's... ahh, I just haven't got the words. This is a book that is dark and gritty, it's disturbing and emotional. And I was rooting for Mary the whole way...

But the ending--okay, so there's a HUGE twist (and I should've anticipated that, given Jackson wrote this). And the twist completely changes the whole story--like, literally you're in the final chapter and you learn something that means you view the whole of the rest of the book differently. And I can't decide whether I liked that twist. I mean, it was shocking and impactful, but with us only having one chapter for this twist, it made the ending feel a little rushed. I'd have liked a couple more chapters to really smooth it out and delve deeper into the implications of this twist. (A twist that I did not see coming whatsoever--and it's so hard to write about this without giving spoilers!)

Mary is a complex character. We feel her pain and desperation. She's realistic and so well written. In fact, all the characters are. But it's only once you get deep into the novel that you begin to realise just how unreliable Mary is as a narrator--yet the whole time I was willing her not to be the classic unreliable narrator. It really is such good writing.

And the twist at the end really changes the way you view Mary's mother--and both 'versions' of the mother are so believable. And that's just a sign of such fantastic writing.

I found this book addictive. I could not stop reading it. It also employs some excellent narrative devices to show other sides of the story. While Mary narrates the main narrative, we have snippets of police interviews, excerpts from books that others have written about the Mary B. Addison case, and interviews with Mary's mother and the mother of Alyssa, the baby who Mary allegedly murdered. 

It's a difficult book to read. Obviously, it deals with the murder of a baby. You've also got references to child abuse and rape, as well as a lot of discourse on racism. It is such an important read, I cannot stress that enough. But I do think I prefer Jackson's later books (which also deal with unreliable narrators and racism). Still, this is a highly recommended read.

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Review: WILDER GIRLS by Rory Power

Wilder Girls by Rory Power
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Everyone loses something to the Tox; Hetty lost her eye, Reese's hand has changed, and Byatt just disappeared completely.

It’s been eighteen months since the Raxter School for Girls was put in quarantine. The Tox turned the students strange and savage, the teachers died off one by one. Cut off from the mainland, the girls don’t dare wander past the school’s fence where the Tox has made the woods wild and dangerous. They wait for the cure as the Tox takes; their bodies becoming sick and foreign, things bursting out of them, bits missing.

But when Byatt goes missing, Hetty will do anything to find her best friend, even if it means breaking quarantine and braving the horrors that lie in the wilderness past the fence. As she digs deeper, she learns disturbing truths about her school and what else is living on Raxter Island. And that the cure might not be a cure at all... 

---

Gah, this book!!!!!

I've had it on my kindle for over a year, and I wasn't sure why I hadn't yet read it, so one day I picked it up, not expecting to be totally grabbed by it...and I didn't surface until I'd finish it. Okay, that's a bit of an exaggeration as I read it in sections across about a week. But I truly felt like I was never leaving this book every time I paused. I was so caught up in this world, and I felt like I was living in it. I couldn't stop thinking about it.

It's amazing. Even if I was reading about a pandemic during a real global pandemic... 

Hetty, Byatt, and Reese are at the Raxter school, an all-girls school, on an island, when the Tox breaks out and they're all in quarantine, unable to leave. The Tox is a brutal illness--and it marks its victims in different ways, if they survive it at all. Hetty lost an eye to it, Byatt's got problems with her spine, and Reese has got a scaled hand. And pretty much every character has some sort of disability from it. And I wasn't expecting the disability rep to be great, I'll be honest--but it really is. As a disabled reader, I was so delighted to see this. All the characters in this book are disabled and badass. I loved it!

And Miss Welch--can we just talk about her for a moment? Her characterisation is wonderful. I was really hating her (spoiler ahead--skip to next paragraph to avoid it!) and then there's that amazing reveal where all her actions that make us hate her suddenly make sense, and we learn who the real villain of the book is.

Talking of great reveals--the way we learn info about what the Tox is and what is really going on on Raxter island is just great.

The writing in this book is incredible. It's almost stream-of-consciousness in places, just sooooo immersive and beautifully written. It's told in dual POV between Hetty and Byatt, and even their narrative voices are so distinct, despite both being written in this immersive way.

And the romance. This is such a great LGBT book with romance between Hetty and Reese (I'll be honest, I didn't see that coming as there's a real closeness between Hetty and Byatt, but it felt so natural.) I think Reese is my fave character though. There's something fierce and prickly about her. She's not as easy to like, and I love that.

The only thing that surprised me about this book is the ending... Like, is there going to be a sequel??? Because the (and another spoiler here!) whole book is about beating the Tox, and that just...doesn't happen. It feels like we've got the set up for at least another book. This one finishes with Hetty and Reese escaping the island, but it doesn't feel like the story's over yet. I really hope there's a sequel.

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Review: GIRLS WITH SHARP STICKS by Suzanne Young

Girls with Sharp Sticks by Suzanne Young
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Wow. Girls With Sharp Sticks is incredible. By far the best book I’ve read this year, and that’s saying something as I’ve had some incredible reads.

Okay, so this review is going to contain spoilers. I almost want to write this as a review purely for me, to remind myself later on just how amazing this book is. Suzanne Young is incredible and I’ll definitely be getting her other books.

So, Girls With Sharp Sticks is a blend of things. It’s a contemporary boarding school story that swiftly becomes a terrifying dystopian, futuristic but so close to us. The story is set in a school where girls are trained to become the perfect women for men. We meet Mena, an obedient girl who doesn’t want to upset the men who look after her. But meeting Jackson changes everything. She’s accidentally defiant to her Guardian, and it’s this that sparks the events that lead her to “wake up” and discover the truth of what’s going on at Innovations Academy: (huge spoiler alert!) These girls weren’t born. They were created.

This story is a blend of Frankenstein (Mary Shelley) and Vox (Christina Dalcher) and The Walls Around Us (Nova Ren Suma). It’s got a touch of Teri Terry’s Mind Games. There’s so much packed into this story and it works beautifully.

This is a feminist message about girls fighting back. It exposes the sexist ideology of modern day society by exaggerating it. But it also offers a message of hope.

And not all the men are bad. Jackson and Winston and Quentin fight the girls. Jackson tells Mena that she is real though she was created, and that she does have rights—just when she’s heard from the other men how she is just a product made to satisfy.

This book really is incredible. I also truly loved how it explores the power of words and writing. The girls spread their plans for rebellion and “wake” each other up by sharing a book of poems—one of which is called “Girls With Sharp Sticks”. This book almost becomes their voice, their way of discovering the truth, and finding the strength to fight and the way in which they can. And the book was given to them by the wife of the owner of the academy—a lady, it is revealed, was once an Innovations girl. The wife, Leandra, is just like them. And it’s she who manages to get five of the girls out at the end of the story, choosing to sacrifice her own chance of freedoms so she can stay behind with the intention of saving the other girls.

All the girls are so distinguishable. That was something that really wowed me. It’s predominantly an all-girl cast, but they’re all so individual and easy to tell apart. I loved them all. Mena, Syndney, Brynn, Annalise, Lennon Rose, Marcella, Valentine, Rebecca...

And it was great that this is a YA book with no romance. Sure, Jackson is obviously the love interest for Mena, and it’s clear there will be a second book as the ending leads to the set-up for taking the academy down, but in this book, Jackson’s priority is clearly to rescue all the girls at the end, not just Mena.

So, at about the 20% mark I did wonder whether Mena and the other girls at the academy were robots. There was something that felt off about them, but I dismissed this theory because Mena just felt so real. She’s our narrator and we feel her emotions, her soul. So when it was revealed at the end that all the girls there are robotic, I was stunned—even though I had previously questioned it.

There’s some uncomfortable scenes in this book. Violence against women. Sexual abuse. Emotional and physical abuse. But the messages are so important. I’m going to be recommending this book for years, I can tell already.

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Review: GIRLHOOD by Cat Clarke

Girlhood by Cat Clarke
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I’ve been in a reading slump lately, and GIRLHOOD by Cat Clarke is the book that brought me out of it.

This book is amazing. It’s poignant, raw, and dark. And so, so emotional.

Harper, the MC, is at boarding school and is dealing with her grief and guilt over her twin sister’s death. Jenna died from anorexia, and Harper blames herself as she was the one who suggested they both went on a diet. The portrayal of anorexia is sensitively done and focuses largely on the impact that Jenna’s death has had on her twin and parents. Harper’s coping mechanisms seem realistic and authentic.

Female friendship is a huge part of this book, and Clarke tackles this in such a good way. She shows how groups of girls can turn on each other, how fragile a once-string friendship can become—and how quickly too—and really captures what teen friendships can be like: both the intensity of them and the importance of them in regards to building identity.

GIRLHOOD starts with four friends—Harper, Ama, Lily, and Rowen—when they meet newcomer Kirsty. Lily is headgirl and organises an almost initiation test for Kirsty—one that is unpleasant and somewhat dangerous. This book doesn’t shy away from how mean girls can be.

As the book progresses, Kirsty slithers further into the friendship group, and it becomes evident that she’s trying to cause trouble. She isolates certain girls, playing both the tormentor and rescuer—something that Lily is also referred to.

There are secrets and lies, jealousy and betrayal wrapped up in this complex story of friendship. But what I really liked was how all five girls pulled together and supported one another. Explanations for Kirsty’s behaviour are given—and these explanations perfectly explained her motivation for her ghastly actions and why she wouldn’t to hurt the girls. And the other girls forgive her, just as they forgive each other for other things they’ve done. Forgiveness is a huge theme in this book, and it ends with Harper trying to forgive herself for Jenna’s death.

I was really glad that this book didn’t have a love story, as so many YA books do. It would’ve detracted from the important messages this book gives.

It’s also worth noting that the cast of this book is diverse. This is the first book I’ve read where the MC is bisexual and this representation was really well done. Rowen also tells readers early on she’s a lesbian, and at least one other character appears to either be bi or lesbian too. There are also characters of colour too.

My only negative about this book is some of the characterisation. When you have a book with so many teenage girls as main characters—it’s set at a boarding school—keeping them separate in your head as you read is always going to be a challenge. And a few times, I found it hard to distinguish between Ama, Lily, and Rowen. But Harper and Kirsty’s characterisation was expertly done.

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Review: THE WALLS AROUND US by Nova Ren Suma

The Walls Around Us by Nova Ren Suma
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

On the outside, there's Violet, an eighteen-year-old dancer days away from the life of her dreams when something threatens to expose the shocking truth of her achievement.

On the inside, within the walls of the Aurora Hills juvenile detention center, there's Amber, locked up for so long she can't imagine freedom.

Tying their two worlds together is Orianna, who holds the key to unlocking all the girls' darkest mysteries…

What really happened on the night Orianna stepped between Violet and her tormentors? What really happened on two strange nights at Aurora Hills? Will Amber and Violet and Orianna ever get the justice they deserve—in this life or in another one?

In prose that sings from line to line, Nova Ren Suma tells a supernatural tale of guilt and of innocence, and of what happens when one is mistaken for the other.

—-

I’ve just this moment finished The Walls Around Us by Nova Ren Suma, and I have to write about it.

This book, simply, is incredible. It’s haunting and deep, moving and disturbing. Suma lures us into a dark tale of murder, guilt, and justice, gives us more than one unreliable narrator, and fills us with lyrical words, images that just claw at us, and a twisting storyline.

I knew this book was going to be good, I just didn’t expect it to be THIS good. Really, it is.

Told from the dual perspectives of Amber and Violet, the novel focuses on these two girls and how they’re connected by a third, Orianna Speerling, who’s been imprisoned for murder. Violet is Ori’s best friend from before her arrest, and Amber is her new cellmate. Both narrators are amazingly unreliable; they both draw you in, and right away, we know something’s not quite right with each of them. We know not to trust them. Yet we want to. I particularly wanted to root for Amber.

The characterisation is brilliant. Seriously brilliant. I felt like I really knew who each of these girls was. I felt their pain.

The lyrical writing was probably my favourite part of this book—though the plot and characters are simply great too! But the writing itself is beautiful. Evocative, pure, and disturbing.

The ending? Wow. I was speechless. It was both cathartic and hypnotic, alluring and moving.

This is an addictive read, a modern ghost story, a book about friendship, betrayal, and murder. But it is also so much more than that. It speaks deeply to its readers, it grabs our souls and refuses to let go.

I’ll definitely be picking up more books by Nova Ren Suma.