The Falling Girls is a dark, raw thriller about the complexities of teenage female friendships.
It's not easy being best friends with Jadis Braff. Shade Meyer shares everything with Jadis, whether it's a toothpaste or a bed, and the high school juniors mark each other with "stick and poke" tattoos. But Shade wants to prove to Jadis (and herself) that she can do something on her own. She joins the cheerleading team (which Jadis finds "archaic") and befriends the "Three Chloes": "the in-your-face tight circle that heads the squad," whose own friendship is starting to fray. Shade brings Jadis and her new friends together at the Homecoming dance, but when the night is cut short by the mysterious death of one of the Chloes, Shade is left grappling with how far Jadis would go to keep Shade tethered to her.
In The Falling Girls, Hayley Krischer (Something Happened to Ali Greenleaf) thoughtfully scrutinizes the complex layers of teenage female friendships that can fuel intense, unhealthy bonds, revealing insecurity, resentment and jealousy at the core. Krischer expertly uses underlying tension from her characters' toxic friendships and broken mother-daughter relationships--in which the daughters feel abandoned by their self-absorbed moms--to create a feeling of unease that carries through the whole book. Perfectly paralleled with these codependent partnerships is the "manic spirit" and grueling practice of cheerleading, which exemplifies the beauty and ugliness of both the sport and these friendships. An absorbing, intimate exploration of teenage female relationships. --Lana Barnes, freelance reviewer and proofreader