Book Review: Those Girls

Book: Those Girls by Lauren Saft

Source: Borrowed from Publisher/NetGalley for an honest review

Publication: Available now

Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers: Poppy

Description:

Some girls will always have your back, and some girls can't help but stab you in it.

Junior year, the suburbs of Philadelphia. Alex, Mollie and Veronica are those girls: they're the best of friends and the party girls of the school. But how well does everybody know them--and really, how well do they know one another? Alex is secretly in love with the boy next door and has joined a band--without telling anyone. Mollie suffers from a popular (and possibly sociopathic) boyfriend, as well as a serious mean streak. And Veronica just wants to be loved--literally, figuratively, physically....she's not particular. Will this be the year that bonds them forever....or tears them apart for good?

Lauren Saft masterfully conveys what goes on in the mind of a teenage girl, and her debut novel is raw, honest, hilarious, and thought-provoking, with a healthy dose of heart.



Rating: 1 star

Review:

Who doesn't enjoy reading books about mean or bad girls every now and then. This should have been a fun read instead it felt like the author was trying too hard to make it edgy and shocking instead of a good read. This was also poorly written because the characters are extremely one-dimensional, they each fit into one little box. Alex is the mean stoner wannabe band girl who has a crush on her stoner male best friend, Mollie is mean and willing to do whatever she can to keep her loser boyfriend Sam, and Veronica is mean and will have sex with any guy regardless if she likes them or not.

This is a such a shallow and boring book with extremely unlikeable characters. I found it hard to connect with any of the three main characters Alex, Mollie and Veronica. Dare I say this is worst than the Gossip Girl books because at least with the few book that I've read from that series they were at least interesting to read. 

Those Girls follows three "friends" who are juniors at a private girls school. The term friends should be used loosely because these girls are anything but friends because they are extremely cruel and mean to each other. When these girls are not dealing with friendship drama they are doing nothing more than hooking up with guys, drinking and getting drunk, smoking and nothing much else.

There was no real point to this story other than trying to be shocking, from the way the story is written to how the characters interact, it's all for shock value. There were no personalities written for these characters actually they are completely interchangeable. The characters were the same from the first page to the last, nothing really changed. There was nothing to make you feel anything for them or care what happens to them. Even when bad things happen, with the way the story is written it's hard to muster any feelings for them. I left this story feeling absolutely nothing.

Also, none of the so called issues the characters had for instance Molly's eating disorder were dealt with instead the story chose to focus on nothing that moved the story along. There were so many major issues shown in this book from underage drinking, drugging someone, promiscuity and rape that were all shown as being irrelevant.

This is one book I really wish I had never read, it was a complete waste of time. I kept reading this awful book hoping the characters would have some sort of redeeming quality in the end, yet it never happened.