Review – Bad Girls Don’t Die by Katie Alender (4/5 stars)
Reading Level: Young Adult
Genre: Horror/Supernatural
Length: 352 pages
Publisher: Disney-Hyperion
Release Date: June 22, 2010
ISBN-13: 978-1423108771
Stand Alone or Series: 1st book in the Bad Girls Don’t Die trilogy
Source: Swapped Through Paperbackswap.com
Rating: 4/5 stars
“Alexis thought she led a typically dysfunctional high school existence. Dysfunctional like her parents’ marriage; her doll-crazy twelve-year-old sister, Kasey; and even her own anti-social, anti-cheerleader attitude. When a family fight results in some tearful sisterly bonding, Alexis realizes that her life is creeping from dysfunction into danger. Kasey is acting stranger than ever: her blue eyes go green sometimes; she uses old-fashioned language; and she even loses track of chunks of time, claiming to know nothing about her strange behavior. Their old house is changing, too. Doors open and close by themselves; water boils on the unlit stove; and an unplugged air conditioner turns the house cold enough to see their breath in.
Alexis wants to think that it’s all in her head, but soon, what she liked to think of as silly parlor tricks are becoming life-threatening–to her, her family, and to her budding relationship with the class president. Alexis knows she’s the only person who can stop Kasey — but what if that green-eyed girl isn’t even Kasey anymore?”
I have had this book on my shelf to read for some time. This ended up being a well done YA horror mystery with a heavy supernatural element to it.
The story was engaging and I breezed through it in one night. Parts of it were a bit predictable but it was still entertaining. The story never gets too gory or scary but is pretty creepy at times.
There are a lot of high school elements in the story as well (mean girls, bullying, etc). However the majority of the book does focus on the mystery behind what is happening to Alexis’s sister Kasey and the history of the house they move into.
Alexis was easy to engage with as a character. The writing flowed really well and the dialogue was written in a way that was snappy and natural sounding. This was just an easy book to get drawn into and read. The story wraps up nicely and doesn’t leave the reader hanging; this makes a good stand alone book (even though it’s the first of a trilogy).
Overall I enjoyed this YA horror mystery. I am not a huge fan of horror but I enjoyed both the mystery and supernatural elements to this story a lot. I would recommend to young adult readers who love creepy ghost stories and don’t mind some high school drama in their books. Right now I am uncertain as to whether or not I will pick up the rest of the books in the series; I enjoyed this book but I have a lot of other books to read right now.
This book goes towards the following reading challenges:
– Mount TBR Reading Challenge
– You Read How Many Books? Reading Challenge
