Review: Girls on Fire by Robin Wasserman
Girls on Fire is a wicked, wicked novel, in both senses of the word. So rarely does a book frighten and yet compell you to go on. I've never felt so angry and yet charged with energy and electricity when reading written words. It's not very often that I scream when reading a book. It's not very often that I scream in public. But this book caused me to do both of these things. And then to look sheepish and embarrased for the rest of a very long and stuffy tube journey.
It all begins when Nikki's boyfriend kills himself. The jock. The boy who seemed to have it all. Found dead. In a wood. Holding a gun. With his brains blown out. What follows is a collision of three unexpected girls, a collision that would throw the physics and stabilisation of the hierarchical high school system into complete disarray.
Meet three girls each burning with their own problems and desires: Dex the typical, middling student - naive, ignorant to bad things, parents disappointment seeping through her every crack; Lacey the bad girl, the typical bad girl with the Doc Martins and the daddy issues and the Kurt Cobain obsession; Nikki, the popular, blonde girl with a twist, followed and adored by all, past caring about everything, likes to lie and to hurt people, gets a kick out of it. Three very different, opposite particles all pushing and rubbing against each other causing friction, fire, and catastrophe in the small Christian American town of Battle Creek.
Girls on Fire is a frantic novel changing pace and expectation faster than a teenager girls' moodswings. We leap from vital and interesting perspectives, a detailing of the events that unfold by Dex similuatenously woven with a confessional narrative by Lacey directed at Dex. It's gritty and funny and sharp like a kiss that bites. It's a darker and much more sexy Kiss by Jaqueline Wilson. The accompaniment on the novel says that this is not a novel about bad girls doing bad things. With that alone, you know from the onset that this is no ordinary novel. It is so much more than that.
It has taken me only a week to read this book. This book is a drug and it will ruin you. In a good way. This is a novel that grips you by the shoulders and rattles the teeth in your mouth. Robin Wasserman is an author that should be watched. If you like girls with attitude, if you like girls you love to hate, if you like girls who fight for girls, and if you like girls and sex and a lot - and I mean a lot - of 90s references (and a LOT of love for Kurt Cobain) then you have come to the right place. Read it. I dare you.
Girls on Fire by Robin Wasserman hits stores on 5th May 2016 - pre order your copy NOW.