Scan barcode
A review by astarions_bhaal_babe
Dangerous Girls by Abigail Haas
4.0
“How much do you love me?”
HOLY FREAKING JESUS ON A BICYCLE.
The actual review is here.
And, in case you're wondering, no, I don't feel any better, today.
Consider this book as a twisty mystery novel, consider it a YA psychological thriller, consider it what you want, but
don’t
ever
underestimate
it.
I mean it. Don't.
[a:Abigail Haas|6551240|Abigail Haas|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1377257031p2/6551240.jpg] apparently likes to screw up with people's head. And, be careful, because she's really good at it.
To be honest, I jumped into this after a series of disappointing novels, and I didn't expect much from it.
I was looking for something light but that could also shake me a bit.
Oh boy, if only I'd known what I was getting myself into, I'd have armored and shielded myself.
Or my heart.
Or both.
Dangerous Girls is the papery confirmation that you should never judge a book by its cover.
Did I like it? I loved it.
Did I regret reading it? Not an inch.
Did it make me feel things? Yes, and they all rhyme with pain.
I highly recommend it to all those people who are in for a challenge.
Not because this story is hard to get through, but because it will leave you empty and numb for days and days after you've finished it.
Not everyone can cope with that; but, if you feel like you are not afraid to let a book ruin your day
I forgot to mention that it will also make you question your whole friendship history. This book should come with a warning sign. And a therapist trimestral subscription.
In short, Elise and Anna are friends. The best of friends, the matchy-matchy, sharing clothes and sleeping over, kind of friends.
One day, while they’re on vacation, Elise gets murdered and Anna gets accused of being the killer.
The journey inside her head begins, and so does this story.
I could go into details, on and on, about how this book also presents a substantial amount of subplots, or how it narrates about other characters, as well, because the author clearly doesn’t want you to miss out on anything, but I’d be dwelling. And lying.
Dangerous girls revolves around a murder.
Wrong.
It revolves around a friendship.
Simple, you might say.
There's nothing simple about this novel.
We all have been there.
We all have had someone, during our teenage years, for which we would have hiked a mountain, for which we would have stolen a bag of chips at the store. Someone for which we would have killed, without having second thoughts.
Anna and Elise’s relationship finds its roots in all of this. It baths in love, a love so torrid and deep, nobody else can understand. Nobody else is allowed to understand.
Not even their group of friends. Not even Tate (especially not Tate), Anna's boyfriend.
When you think about it properly, you'll realise it's not even an equation, it's never been one, because other people can only gravitate on the surface of these two best friends' bubble, and never on the inside. Never too close.
Elise and Anna become friends almost by chance, almost by destiny. There’s something that pulls them together, even when they should be miles (miles and miles, because I'm still too much into this book) and virtual worlds apart, they can’t help but collide, and melt together.
They wrap each other and themselves together in a blanket made of obsessive affection, of morbose domesticness. White lies, slow glances and sharp teeth become their favorite weapons.
“Elise and I fall into friendship like gravity.”
According to the Cambridge Dictionary, gravity is the force that attracts objects towards one another, especially the force that makes things fall to the ground.
Did you see that? That is what I like to call foreshadowing at its finest.
The story flows perfectly. I read it all in one sitting. I also might have stress eaten a whole pint of mint chocolate chip ice-cream, because of it, but that's not important.
What's important is that this book is not just decently hyped over, it's not just fabulously carried out; this book is pure evil disguised as pure goden.
Abigail Haas's style is simple, but it has something to it that puts you in your place with a few sentences. I think it most of all teaches us that a writing style doesn't need to be pompous and polished to go straight to the heart.
AND THAT FUCKING ENDING.
I'm still shaking. Did you hear that noise? That was me, one day after, yelling into the void, because of this novel.
The writing digs deep and through Anna’s mind. It mocks you, it takes you by your hand and shows you facts that you need to know, even when you’ll feel like you don’t want to. It gives you a version of a story you can’t help but see as the truest one.
It introduces you to Anna and her unreliable narration. She’s young, pathetic, jealous, mean, and real. So real you’ll find yourself embracing her anxieties and doubts as your own.
The structure of the novel brings you back and forth into a spiral of past and present situations that are there to help you solve the mystery.
But, at the end of the day, the point here is not even about solving a mystery.
It’s about friendship, and the things you’d be willing to do for it.