cover image Those Girls

Those Girls

Lauren Saft. Little, Brown/Poppy, $18 (336p) ISBN 978-0-316-40366-5

Junior year is starting, and Alex is auditioning for a band, Mollie is taking Plan B, and Veronica is flirting with everyone, teachers included. The three are long-time best friends, but backbiting, secrecy, and trashing are the norm for them; Alex and Mollie have no problem calling Veronica a “slut” to her face, and Veronica is dating Alex’s crush and hooking up with Mollie’s boyfriend. Debut author Saft can be funny, but it isn’t evident how she really feels about the snobbish, drugs-and-alcohol-infused, joylessly sexualized culture she’s portraying. No one is happy, yet the awfulness is normalized in a way that makes an alternative hard to imagine. The girls switch off as narrators, and Saft wants readers to root for them, but it’s not easy (Alex is the most multidimensional, while Mollie and Veronica are reduced to snide and bewildered). It gets even harder when Mollie and Alex do something cruel and dangerous, then essentially get off scot-free. The act is something of a wake-up call about the results of deceiving themselves and others, but it’s too little, too late. Ages 15–up. [em]Agent: Kirby Kim, Janklow & Nesbit. (Aug.) [/em]