The Wicked Girls by Alex Marwood Published by Sphere on February 1, 2012
Genres/Lists: Fiction, Mystery/Thriller
Pages: 378
Read synopsis on Goodreads
I received this book for free from NetGalley.
Buy the book: Amazon/Audible (this post includes affiliate links)
I know, I know. My Boston roots are showing in the title of this post. But The Wicked Girls really is wicked awesome. I have, once again, to thank Jen at The Relentless Reader for stumbling across this book and sharing it with the rest of us. Without her, I never would have requested this one.
The Wicked Girls by Alex Marwood is about two girls who, at the age of 11, murdered a younger girl. The brutality of the murder was such that the two lived in infamy and were labelled by the press as The Wicked Girls. After aging out of separate juvenile detention centers and barred from speaking to each other ever again, the girls assume new identities and live their lives the best they know how. Kirsty becomes a journalist while Amber works at a local amusement park. Twenty years later, however, the two women inadvertently come face to face when a string of murders occur in Amber’s hometown and Kirsty is sent to cover them as part of the media circus. All too familiar with how the media can prey on victims, Kirsty is forced to weigh her conscience against her career.
To say that I raced through this book is an understatement, but I did have some difficulties with it. Set in England, the author used an incredible amount of local slang that I didn’t understand. I’ve read a lot of British literary fiction and this was the most “difficult” read I’ve encountered. The tense also changed at seemingly random times. One paragraph would be “he/she” and the next “I” so it took a while for me to get used to it.
Luckily, the story propelled at such a fast pace that I was able to easily skim over the slang and keep up with the changes. I should also point out that because this is a galley, I’m not entirely sure that the story hopped around as much as it seemed to. In a print book, there are ways to break up sections that are a lot easier to identify, so I’m not going to hold the format against it because it really is a great story. Plus it raises a lot of questions, which instead of answering I’m going to ask you!
What do you think?
How much does upbringing affect a child?
Are some people just born evil?
How far is too far for the media?
Can you really start over?
