Some Girls Are Review

Title: Some Girls Are
Author: Courtney Summers
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
Published Date: January 2010
Price: Amazon ($9.99)
Synopsis:

Climbing to the top of the social ladder is hard--falling from it is even harder. Regina Afton used to be a member of the Fearsome Fivesome, an all-girl clique both feared and revered by the students at Hallowell High... until vicious rumors about her and her best friend's boyfriend start going around.

Now Regina's been "frozen out" and her ex-best friends are out for revenge. If Regina was guilty, it would be one thing, but the rumors are far from the terrifying truth and the bullying is getting more intense by the day. She takes solace in the company of Michael Hayden, a misfit with a tragic past who she herself used to bully. Friendship doesn't come easily for these onetime enemies, and as Regina works hard to make amends for her past, she realizes Michael could be more than just a friend... if threats from the Fearsome Foursome don't break them both first.

Tensions grow and the abuse worsens as the final days of senior year march toward an explosive conclusion in this dark new tale from the author of Cracked Up To Be.

Review: 

 

Some Girls Are…NOT fluffy, cotton candy girls riding the Ferris wheel. Courtney Summers creates a mirror, cracked and grafittied on, of bullying, rumors, gossip, and takes backstabbing to a new level. Every pain and emotion, including the sweet but bitter taste of revenge of not only Regina, but also all the secondary characters is felt by the reader. Every punch to the stomach, every hurtful accusation, and every want for understanding and love.

The Fearsome Five, the elite, but meanest clique of the school, casts out of one of its members, Regina Afton, wrongly accused of sleeping with her best friend’s boyfriend. Vicious rumors, hard-core bullying, and being outcast as a pariah and a slut, creates a whole cycle of cruel accusations and harassment. Regina Afton is far from the perfect friend, not your usual heroine who keeps her head down and tries to make the world a better place. Ok, so you know how everyone says if you go for revenge, you’re going to hurt yourself, but rarely have we wanted to heed to this wise advice. This is why all the characters seem realistic, even though they all come off as mean and villains. Regina doesn’t just want to sit tight and wait for a higher heavenly force to punish the gang, but does it herself and laughs like a hyena (really, she does that a lot) afterwards. However, Regina isn’t just a mean girl; she’s a pack of emotions, a range of personalities, nice, and mean. There were so many times when I wanted to strangle her neck for being so stupid and mean and ARGH, but then there were a lot of times when I want to pat her on her back and sympathize with her. All of the characters, even Kara, who instigated this whole rumor, you hate them because they’re so cruel, but you feel sorry for them because once upon a time, they were victims too of the high school horror.

I don’t know how to really describe this book. This book is just beyond words for me. Emotionally, it really just changed my perspective of what bullying is. And the heart-wrenching romance and relation between Michael and Regina was just…wow. The language Summers creates the characters, the first point perspective of Regina is an emotional turmoil.

One thing I have to complain is the ending. Not that it needed a sequel, but it was way too rushed. The climax happened and then it leaped to the resolution without any real development. I felt that there could have been some filler in between.

Plot: 4/5

Characters: 5/5

Cover: 3.5/5

Funny story is when I found the cover in other blogs I thought it was a barn with the red color and the book was about farming. Lol. I like the red locker and it relates to the story due to its symbolic significance. But it isn’t a cover I would have picked up on my first look.

Overall: 5/5

The book doesn’t really need to be constituted in words. It’s just that emotionally traumatic, and for me, personally, it opened my eyes to how scary high school teenagers are and what bullying is, even though we are always warned by teachers to report bullying. If you’re up for an emotional journey (and please be warned that you WILL get addicted…I was carrying this everywhere while I was shopping), Some Girls Are is for you.