Ugly Girls

Hunter (Don’t Kiss Me) has written two collections of gritty, often grotesque, flash fiction populated by downtrodden characters slogging through depressingly marginal lives, her first full-length novel traverses similar territory. Pretty but trashy Perry and her butch, smack-talking best friend, Dayna (aka Baby Girl), spend most days cutting class and most nights sneaking out, going for joyrides in stolen cars, and antagonizing the waitstaff at Denny’s. The hours at home are equally dreary—Dayna’s stuck caring for her mentally handicapped brother who was hurt in a motorcycle accident while Perry does her best to ignore her perpetually drunk mother and beaten, ineffectual stepfather. Circumstances get slightly more titillating when Jamey, a supposed newcomer to the area, starts flirting with them online, but the competition over him inevitably causes tension. Not surprisingly, his mysterious online persona is far from the creepy reality, and, in a final showdown readers will see coming, everyone gets their comeuppance—especially Jamey. The world of pick-up trucks and trailer parks Hunter’s characters inhabit is already relentlessly bleak; a gratuitous scene at the end involving Perry and a forced sexual encounter (not involving Jamey) renders the plot intolerable. (Nov.)