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A review by hayleybeale
The Falling Girls by Hayley Krischer
3.0
There’s something about the paradoxical camaraderie and competitiveness of a cheerleading squad that makes them attractive to novelists. The Falling Girls is a compelling novel about young women’s friendships wrapped up in a cheerleading/mystery package.
Shade and Jadis are so close they’re like “the same person but with different hair.” But Shade has always been fascinated by cheerleading and decides to join the squad even though Jadis is not interested and is less than supportive. Shade quickly gets swept up by the tight world of the cheerleaders, in particular the alpha trio of three girls called Chloe.
Shade and Jadis’s friendship begins to crack as Shade devotes herself to becoming a flyer. Meanwhile Chloe Orbach, the alpha Chloe, takes up Shade much to the displeasure of the other Chloes. But after the homecoming dance in which Chloe Orbach dies under mysterious circumstances Shade wonders whether it really was an accident or did someone want her dead?
The author does an excellent job of capturing those breathlessly overwrought teen girl friendships as girls transition from their families into their adult selves. The whispering secrets, the gutwrenching overanalysis of a single text or comment, the intensity of the need for your best friend to always be your best friend has its reward in the closeness of the friendship and its agony in any threat to it.
I enjoyed the inside cheerleading passages about different poses and positions. The author doesn’t explain them all and I had to look them up but it felt authentic and an entree into this much maligned world. The girls are tough on themselves and each other but there’s no overt eating disorders or bullying. Their need to succeed and their desire for respect come through clearly.
But all of these good things need a plot to hang themselves on and that’s where I felt the novel fell a little short. The mystery feels just a bit too much like something that happens in a book and Shade’s urge to get to the truth didn’t quite ring true. For my money Kara Thomas does this sort of girl-on-the-edge focused novel just a bit better, but this is certainly worth your time.
Thanks to Razorbill and NetGalley for the digital review copy.
Shade and Jadis are so close they’re like “the same person but with different hair.” But Shade has always been fascinated by cheerleading and decides to join the squad even though Jadis is not interested and is less than supportive. Shade quickly gets swept up by the tight world of the cheerleaders, in particular the alpha trio of three girls called Chloe.
Shade and Jadis’s friendship begins to crack as Shade devotes herself to becoming a flyer. Meanwhile Chloe Orbach, the alpha Chloe, takes up Shade much to the displeasure of the other Chloes. But after the homecoming dance in which Chloe Orbach dies under mysterious circumstances Shade wonders whether it really was an accident or did someone want her dead?
The author does an excellent job of capturing those breathlessly overwrought teen girl friendships as girls transition from their families into their adult selves. The whispering secrets, the gutwrenching overanalysis of a single text or comment, the intensity of the need for your best friend to always be your best friend has its reward in the closeness of the friendship and its agony in any threat to it.
I enjoyed the inside cheerleading passages about different poses and positions. The author doesn’t explain them all and I had to look them up but it felt authentic and an entree into this much maligned world. The girls are tough on themselves and each other but there’s no overt eating disorders or bullying. Their need to succeed and their desire for respect come through clearly.
But all of these good things need a plot to hang themselves on and that’s where I felt the novel fell a little short. The mystery feels just a bit too much like something that happens in a book and Shade’s urge to get to the truth didn’t quite ring true. For my money Kara Thomas does this sort of girl-on-the-edge focused novel just a bit better, but this is certainly worth your time.
Thanks to Razorbill and NetGalley for the digital review copy.