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likeagilmoregirl's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Grief, Murder, Toxic friendship, Death, Emotional abuse, Drug use, and Bullying
Moderate: Child death, Death of parent, and Abandonment
mediocremasen's review against another edition
emotional
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
3.5
I liked the flow of the book, the mystery was well done, and the characters were interesting. I liked that the mystery wasn't the whole book, you know something's coming but not exactly what or when it'll happen.
I think it does a really good job of showing the different kinds of unhealthy platonic relationships there are out there and how easy it can be to not know you're in one.
The parents are a bit flat, but I think it adds to the story that's being told by a teenager.
I probably would have rated this higher due to how it captivated me but there were a few character interactions that were just confusing. Characters would say things that didn't make a lot of sense and didn't add up to much in the story either. I'm not sure if they were tied to something more before some editing and just weren't cut out or if I'm just misunderstanding what's supposed to be the point of it/how it makes sense from a character perspective.
I think it does a really good job of showing the different kinds of unhealthy platonic relationships there are out there and how easy it can be to not know you're in one.
The parents are a bit flat, but I think it adds to the story that's being told by a teenager.
I probably would have rated this higher due to how it captivated me but there were a few character interactions that were just confusing. Characters would say things that didn't make a lot of sense and didn't add up to much in the story either. I'm not sure if they were tied to something more before some editing and just weren't cut out or if I'm just misunderstanding what's supposed to be the point of it/how it makes sense from a character perspective.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Toxic friendship
Moderate: Body shaming, Emotional abuse, Drug use, Bullying, and Eating disorder
notlikethebeer's review
adventurous
mysterious
fast-paced
- 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
This wasn't bad, it just wasn't... much? It felt a bit empty, that's the only way I can describe it! I liked that it used cheerleading as a setting to explore teenage female friendships, I thought that had a lot of potential, but it didn't use it? And there was a lot of cheer terminology that completely lost me!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Toxic friendship, Drug use, Emotional abuse, and Death
Moderate: Death of parent
rainb0wreads's review against another edition
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
- 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
This book was incredibly captivating. Yes, just like these girls seemed to have these extreme chokehold on their friendships, this book had a chokehold on me. I was intoxicated with how intoxicated they were with each other. Toxic relationships can start with those that we have with our family’s, but it can also start with the way we treat our friends. Girls are taught to socialize and be social creatures but aren’t warned at a young age of the severity we will hold onto those relationships. With morbid twist this book finds a fantastic way to capture just how badly girls get wrapped up in each other and each others lives and emotions so instantly and intensely.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Grief, Murder, Toxic friendship, Death, and Gaslighting
Moderate: Drug abuse and Drug use
Minor: Body shaming and Dysphoria
cyan_altaria's review
emotional
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
This book had phenomenal characters but had issue with plot. The characters, and the relations with each other where deep and layered. Everyone had motives for doing what they did, even when they were doing terrible things. The friendships and animosity between the girls where complex and compelling. But, the dynamic between Shade and her mother felt shallow. The plot in the beginning was quite good, but I felt like it started meandering after the murder. The ending also felt rushed, and the conclusion didn't have enough of a leadup. All in all, a solid book that shines with it's multifaceted characters..
Content Warnings
Graphic: Toxic friendship
Moderate: Bullying, Death, Drug use, and Murder
Minor: Eating disorder and Gaslighting
arthur_ant18's review against another edition
challenging
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- 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
Content Warnings
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
kitstbr's review
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
5.0
Content Warnings
Moderate: Drug use, Death, Bullying, and Body shaming
melaniereadsbooks's review
dark
emotional
tense
medium-paced
- 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
Thank you to Netgalley and Penguin Teen for an arc of this book.
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.
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.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Drug abuse, Drug use, Toxic friendship, Murder, Death, Injury/Injury detail, and Bullying
thesaltiestlibrarian's review
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
- 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
Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.
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!
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!
Content Warnings
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
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- 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
Thank you to Penguin teen and Netgalley for an eARC in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.
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.
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.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Alcohol, Blood, Body shaming, Bullying, Death, Drug use, Fatphobia, Gaslighting, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Toxic friendship, and Emotional abuse