Pretty Furious

What begins as a passing frustration turns into a full-fledged vigilante mission when five best friends make birthday wishes to challenge the narrow-minded viewpoints of their small Canadian town in this feminist thriller. High school seniors Maddie Carter, Jen Dalrymple, Jenny Hoernig, Louise Jantzi, and Mags Sharpe are all “good girls”; they’re active in sports and clubs, get good grades, and never step out of line. But when Maddie wishes for justice after a classmate is made a pariah for getting an abortion, the friends enact increasingly dangerous vendettas against the white alpha males who rule the school and surrounding community. Via bracingly direct scenarios depicted in the five leads’ alternating POVs, Johnston (Aetherbound) addresses themes such as class dynamics, gender identity, religious intolerance, sexual harassment, and xenophobia. While extraneous details weaken the plot’s momentum and the protagonists’ chosen retributions occasionally miss the mark, the girls’ evolving friendship as graduation looms is affecting, and each character’s determination to better their community is impactful: “I wanted to make things better, not for ‘the good old days’—because they hadn’t been—but for the days to come.” Most characters are white coded; several are queer. Ages 14–up. (Apr.)