Those Girls

by Lauren Saft

[Joséphine]

Note: I received this book for free from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

Initial thoughts: Anyone who considers reading Those Girls should be made aware of the following massively huge caveats:

1) Whoever blurbed this book must have read a really early draft without bothering about the final manuscript. Honesty is not a word that deserves to be part of the blurb. There's so much deceit in the book, "honesty" is a foreign concept. That "healthy dose of heart" was completely absent too. This book does promote healthiness in any form — not of the heart, the mind, the soul, the body or relationships.
2) The YA classification is terrifyingly off base. The amount of sex and profanity puts the NA books I've read (admittedly few) to shame.
3) In fact, Those Girls is so warped, I'm sure the moral compass points way south. Nay, the needle never stops spinning because even pointing south doesn't portray the gravity of this level of questionable morality. This book has no victims. Everyone is a culprit. No exceptions.

Having said all that, I think Lauren Saft has what it takes to be a good author if she publishes other books — any story but this one from her I would have very likely enjoyed. She writes well, and evidently knows how to craft characters that are believable.

You know how everyone hating an especially terrible villain in a movie is a testament to good acting? I think this applies to this book in some ways too. I hated every single character by the end of the book. Not because Lauren Saft created uninterestingly flat characters. These characters had fire. But they were evil and I hated them. Like I said, this book has no victims; only culprits.