Dangerous Girls by Abigail Haas
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
This one is tough to rate. I had a chance to read it last year through the Pulseit program, but my browser crashed while I was reading it, and it was past the open read period, so I couldn’t finish. I read the excerpt, which was still available, and I was intrigued enough to keep an eye out for it. The ebook was awfully expensive, so I turned to the library. No joy there, until last week, when it became available at one of the branches near me. I picked it up in the evening, and was done by the end of work the next day–it’s that engrossing of a read. For that, I’d like to give it five stars.
But…
THAT ENDING. The ending screwed up the whole book for me. All the pieces are in place for it to happen; it’s not an out of nowhere resolution. But it just didn’t seem in character to me. The writing pulled me in, but when I got to the end, I actually flipped back a few pages to make sure I hadn’t missed anything. I don’t usually do this, but the library hardback copy I received had a pretty serious misprint: it was missing pages 311-326. I was able to read most of those sixteen pages via Amazon’s LOOK INSIDE feature, but four pages were missing in that preview (I understand why they do that, but ARGH), so for a while at the end I thought that there had been another misprint. But no–that’s the way it ends, and I was left just thinking, “huh.”
The author does a great job of making you care what happens to these rather unlikable characters. For that she deserves to be read; but the ending to this book is super polarizing. The parallels to the Amanda Knox trial are obvious; in either case, it’s doubtful if we’ll ever really know what happens. Theoretically in DANGEROUS GIRLS we discover who the killer is, but we don’t actually find out the motive, or how the killer went about the murder. Sure, that’s gory stuff, but I feel like that’s part of the resolution for most of the crime dramas on tv nowadays, and the lack of knowing the truth makes the ending dissatisfying to me. I also feel like the various other trails of possible killers aren’t examined. Once the killer is revealed, I suppose those other trails don’t matter, but I guess all the procedural dramas out there have me asking questions.
I really would recommend reading this book if you can brace yourself for the ending. For some people, the ending is well done and wraps up the story. Unfortunately, it leaves me wanting to know more. I suppose that reflects on the current state of justice today–facts can be twisted if you know how to act, money begets freedom, and perhaps most terrifyingly, any person can seem a criminal if seen from only one point of view. Five stars for the writing, three stars for the ending, so I’ll average it to a four. I can’t see myself reading this one again though. I don’t think I’ll have to, because of that ending being seared into my brain.