Scan barcode
A review by liralen
The School for Dangerous Girls by Eliot Schrefer
4.0
So here's what I love about Schrefer's books*: These characters are black, white, Hispanic, Jewish, fat, thin, average, meek, criminals, complicated. Sometimes they're sympathetic; sometimes they're not; they aren't always meant to be sympathetic. They're mostly straight, and they'd rather have more boys around, but the book doesn't end with the narrator riding off into the sunset with a boy. The girls rely on themselves.
This should not be exceptional. But it is, because the trend in YA fiction is towards straight, white girls with thin or average bodies -- unless sexuality, race, or weight is a major theme of the book -- who ultimately end up with a sweet, smart, save-the-day boy. So I loved this for not only breaking with the trend but for doing it casually -- the characters' races and body types and gender identity and financial status (etc., etc.) influence them, but each of those is just one facet.
Plot-wise, I did want more. I wanted to know what happened when gold-thread students graduated (or purple-thread students, for that matter); I wanted to know what happened to the school in the end; I wanted to know more about the mystery surrounding Heath. I suppose I wanted the breeding group to be more nefarious. I wanted to learn more about the girls who were in the gold thread. It's probably a three-and-a-half-star book for me, if that were possible here. But for what it is, shoot, I'm sold.
*Bearing in mind that I've only read two of them so far.
This should not be exceptional. But it is, because the trend in YA fiction is towards straight, white girls with thin or average bodies -- unless sexuality, race, or weight is a major theme of the book -- who ultimately end up with a sweet, smart, save-the-day boy. So I loved this for not only breaking with the trend but for doing it casually -- the characters' races and body types and gender identity and financial status (etc., etc.) influence them, but each of those is just one facet.
Plot-wise, I did want more. I wanted to know what happened when gold-thread students graduated (or purple-thread students, for that matter); I wanted to know what happened to the school in the end; I wanted to know more about the mystery surrounding Heath. I suppose I wanted the breeding group to be more nefarious. I wanted to learn more about the girls who were in the gold thread. It's probably a three-and-a-half-star book for me, if that were possible here. But for what it is, shoot, I'm sold.
*Bearing in mind that I've only read two of them so far.