Publishers Weekly
04/27/2015
Junior year is starting, and Alex is auditioning for a band, Mollie is taking Plan B, and Veronica is flirting with everyone, teachers included. The three are long-time best friends, but backbiting, secrecy, and trashing are the norm for them; Alex and Mollie have no problem calling Veronica a “slut” to her face, and Veronica is dating Alex’s crush and hooking up with Mollie’s boyfriend. Debut author Saft can be funny, but it isn’t evident how she really feels about the snobbish, drugs-and-alcohol-infused, joylessly sexualized culture she’s portraying. No one is happy, yet the awfulness is normalized in a way that makes an alternative hard to imagine. The girls switch off as narrators, and Saft wants readers to root for them, but it’s not easy (Alex is the most multidimensional, while Mollie and Veronica are reduced to snide and bewildered). It gets even harder when Mollie and Alex do something cruel and dangerous, then essentially get off scot-free. The act is something of a wake-up call about the results of deceiving themselves and others, but it’s too little, too late. Ages 15–up. Agent: Kirby Kim, Janklow & Nesbit. (Aug.)
From the Publisher
Praise for Those Girls:
"In this debut novel, Saft gives readers a look at the complicated relationships between high school girlfriends. The female characters she crafts are complex."—SLJ
"Saft has captured the darker side of female friendship and the redemption of forgiveness. Hand to fans of edgy chick lit."—Booklist
"I read Those Girls the way you accidentally binge-watch a great TV show - I always had to know what happened next. Lauren Saft's debut novel is smart, funny, and raw, and I can't wait for more people to read it so we can talk about it."—New York Times bestselling author Sarah Mlynowski
"Those Girls spills over with secrets, backbiting, and messy, messy love. Saft doesn't back away from the ugly truths and the beautiful complexities of female friendships. She simply tells it exactly like it is."—Siobhan Vivian, author of The List
School Library Journal
02/01/2015
Gr 10 Up—Alexandra and Mollie have been friends for as long as they can remember. In middle school, they befriended the risqué but adorable Veronica. The three of them now attend a posh, private all-girls school. Once Mollie starts dating high school jock Sam, the dynamic of the trio changes. Alex spends more time with Drew, her platonic best friend and unrequited crush. Veronica becomes promiscuous and gets a reputation for it. Alex, the frizzy-haired rebel of the group, decides to join a band in order to pursue her musical interests and establish a separate identity for herself. As the new school year begins, Veronica throws a massive party at her often-empty house. She eventually begins an innocent flirtation with Drew, which her friends notice, and secretly hooks up with Sam on the sly as well. With two different love triangles developing, tensions mount as feelings between all invested parties threaten to break beyond repair. In this debut novel, Saft gives readers a look at the complicated relationships between high school girlfriends. The female characters she crafts are complex. Mollie is upset by Alex's decision to join a band without talking to her first, but has neglected her for years due to her tumultuous relationship with a boyfriend she doesn't even seem to like half the time. While the subject matter may seem innocuous and even vapid, the drama between the girls combined with their first-person perspectives proves to be a delightful, guilty read. VERDICT Fans of Cecily Von Ziegesar's "Gossip Girl" series will no doubt love this more nuanced story.—Ryan P. Donovan, Southborough Public Library, MA
Kirkus Reviews
2015-04-01
Three best friends alternate narration of their junior year of high school as they explore sex, romance, and independence. Each teen clearly represents a high school stock character—Alex: tomboy with a secret crush on her best male friend; Veronica: proudly promiscuous; and Mollie: willing to sacrifice her sense of self to keep her athlete boyfriend. Outwardly each teen embraces her role in the trio—Veronica's quick laughter at the slut-shaming jokes her best friends lob at her is actively painful. But the characters transcend stereotypes when their private narrations reveal each girl's discomfort with her assigned social position in the trio and in the school's social hierarchy. Their inner musings about the secret jealousies and hurt feelings that exist among the trio combine with the girls' independent and collective confusion about acceptable sexual roles for women for a disheartening window into modern teens' identity dilemmas. Unfortunately, after creating interesting characters, Saft forces the trio into a soap opera of secret sexual dalliances with one another's boyfriends. Eventually a revenge plot involves two of the girls slipping their friend a roofie, after which she is almost sexually assaulted by a teacher. This chilling attempted sexual violence is too easily dismissed during the girls' quick reconciliation. Saft's debut develops admirably complex characters but then fails to deliver a plot worthy of them. (Fiction. 14-18)
