The design and UX isn't done, Rob and Abbie, okkurrrr! 😌
notlikethebeer's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
2.75
Graphic: Toxic friendship, Drug use, Emotional abuse, and Death
Moderate: Death of parent
rainb0wreads's review
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.75
Graphic: Grief, Murder, Toxic friendship, Death, and Gaslighting
Moderate: Drug abuse and Drug use
Minor: Body shaming and Dysphoria
aqulia's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
Graphic: Toxic friendship
Moderate: Bullying, Death, Drug use, and Murder
Minor: Eating disorder and Gaslighting
arthur_ant18's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
Graphic: Drug abuse, Drug use, Dysphoria, Murder, Emotional abuse, Toxic friendship, Body shaming, Bullying, Death, Misogyny, Sexism, and Fatphobia
Moderate: Abandonment, Death of parent, Injury/Injury detail, and Lesbophobia
greengablesdiaries's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
5.0
Moderate: Drug use, Death, Bullying, and Body shaming
melaniereadsbooks's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
When Shade decides to join the cheer team, her best friend, Jadis is not happy with her change of tune. But things quickly get weird as the three Chloe's begin to encompass more of Shade than just her afterschool time. When The Chloes, Shade, and Jadis all take molly at the homecoming dance, it's supposed to be a way for them to bond. Instead, it ends in someone's death...but whose fault was it.
Whooo this is a dark book about Cheerleading. I loved reading about how utterly toxic all these girls were and how all-encompassing everything that happened to them was. It is so incredibly dramatic and so fun to read. Really interesting true case of murder that this was inspired by, too!
I really liked the character depth in this one! Honestly, all of these characters are disasters but I loved reading about them. Shade is especially interesting! Great book.
Graphic: Drug abuse, Drug use, Toxic friendship, Murder, Death, Injury/Injury detail, and Bullying
thesaltiestlibrarian's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
NOTE: I've changed my disclaimer because it was too long to keep typing it every single time. What was I thinking?
People of the book world, take my advice. Put aside your pre-judgments before you read books--or at least before you read books that sound slightly out of your interest range. I love YA, and when this got compared to Holly Jackson (love), I couldn't resist. Mainly because I thought, "Oh, REALLY? That's a tall order, person who wrote the blurb."
But I don't usually do contemporary. Lately I've been trying to incorporate different stuff into my literary diet, and I've been enjoying for the most part. (Side-eyes BEWILDERMENT.) So I said to myself that I can deal with this. It's YA, it's thriller, it's dark academia. Shut up and drive. So I drove.
I have no regrets.
THE FALLING GIRLS starts us out with Shade and Jadis--BFFLs and anti-conformists--watching their high school's pep rally for the start of their junior year. Shade is fixated, can't take her eyes off the stunts and athleticism of the cheer squad. She was a gymnast when she was younger and kept up the skills on her own. Jadis is bored and posting TikToks throughout, mocking and casting aspersions on the entire concept of cheer. Then Shade decides you know what? No, I want to do something of my own, outside of Jadis. And she kicks ass in her cheer audition, making it onto the team as a flyer.
Here's where my pre-judgments came in: I was convinced that we'd get a Mean Girls-esque romp through teen Dramaland. Instead, we got complex characters, real-life bouts of envy, and friendships that broke up, changed, transformed into other levels of complicated. Especially when one of the three head cheerleaders ends up dead on Homecoming night.
The relationships are what made this book spectacular. Jadis and Shade are in that enmeshed type of friendship where they can safely say, "We're the same person with different hair." They have to learn what it means to grow apart and become their own woman, and that's a painful process. Krischer writes about this kind of truth in an empathetic and tender, but inevitably painful, way.
Shade's relationship with her mom is also difficult and frustrating and complex, but still filled with love. All these little moments they have in coming to understand each other were sometimes uncomfortable to read; it felt like we the reader were staring in through a window on this private moment of tension, and that was a good thing. Her mom is this free-spirit feminist type, who has artist friends from around the world crash at their house for poetry readings and informal wine tastings (well, drinkings). Then her daughter wants to become a cheerleader, and Shade knows that'll annoy her because it's "serving the Patriarchy," but all Shade wants is to push herself to her physical limits and defy gravity. Their journey toward embracing each other and changing was a hard one, but man, Krischer killed it.
Real characters can also be creepy and frustrating, and in this age of social media, it can be even more so. Krischer says in her afterword/acknowledgements that she based some of the tension in this squad after a real murder case where a 16-year-old girl was killed because the two perpetrators "didn't like her." (I'll leave a link to the fantastic article by Holly Millea right here for your convenience.) So the psychology is there, the facts are there, and the execution of it in a novel is fantastic.
I'm so glad I picked this one up, and it's more than likely something I'll be adding to my personal library. Read it!Â
Graphic: Toxic friendship, Gaslighting, Emotional abuse, Cursing, and Drug use
Moderate: Death, Death of parent, Body shaming, and Lesbophobia
Minor: Suicidal thoughts
foreverinastory's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Rep: female MC, lesbian female side character, sapphic female side character, Indian-American female side character, Black female side character.
CWs: Alcohol consumption (underage), blood, body shaming, bullying, death, drug use, drug overdose, emotional abuse, fatphobia, gaslighting, grief, injury/injury detail, murder, toxic friendship/codependency.Â
Graphic: Alcohol, Blood, Body shaming, Bullying, Death, Drug use, Fatphobia, Gaslighting, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Toxic friendship, and Emotional abuse
sarahmreads's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
Shade and Jadis have been as close as sisters for as long as they can remember. They've never really separated from each other, that is until Shade chooses to join the school's cheerleading team and befriending the hierarchy that is the Chloes. Will Shade and Jadis's friendship survive in this near feminist retelling of Heathers?
I should have expected this book to have as much drama as it did. You couldn't go a page without there being some kind of argument or internal debate from Shade about said arguments. And some of it felt really petty, like the ones that girls from high school hold on to for years afterwards. Which leads me to one of the disappointments about this book, that being the dialogue. There are so many moments that build up to be this big, memorable argument or discussion that could really help turn the tides of the novel, but they get cut off halfway through the dialogue like that was the end of it. There could have been so much more development if that were extended longer.
Speaking of longer, this book needed at least 50 or more pages. This story was only 320 pages, and as a result felt like it missed out on a lot of good opportunities to either make commentary about the modern cheerleading world or to develop the characters. In the author's note, Krischer discusses the blatant racism in the sport and how there is also a lot of sexual harassment towards cheerleaders because of what they do. But is any of this featured in the novel? Nope. It's cast aside to make room for, you guessed it, more drama. If the author had more pages, it would have helped make this a more well-rounded novel.
In terms of characters, I was REALLY hoping for two characters to get together and it never happened. There was a LOT of queer-coded language in the first half of this novel that I really wished it would have played through but got severely disappointed when it didn't. Yeah, Jadis is gay herself, but you can't read this and tell me that some of the other characters aren't gay. Otherwise, it was hard to connect myself to them, mostly because of the amount of drama as well as the fact that I have never been a cheerleader.
However, I will add that I think the toxic relationship aspect of this story was done in a decent manner. Wanting to stay with the "friend" even though they hurt you in the most ways possible, still wanting to cling on to what you have, even though it's a thread at this point. I've been in a few of these and it was nice to see it play out this way.
The mystery aspect of this story did need more development and nuance to it, in my personal opinion. The main mystery doesn't occur until 50% through the book, and it nagged at me how simply solving the mystery just ended. It could have had more build-up, and I for sure guessed who the killer was. It was very obvious.
If you like Heathers or just love drama, The Falling Girls is for you. However for me, The Falling Girls ended up falling short.Â
Graphic: Toxic friendship and Drug use