I found an digital copy of DEAD GIRLS DON'T SAY SORRY by Alex Ritany on Libby. All views are mine.

I felt uncomfortable with this book almost from the outset, which is the point the audience learns that one of the two fmcs, Julia, is already dead. Ritany does finally provide an explanation of Julia's death at the end of this four hundred page book, but her death has nothing to do with the plot. It barely registers in the narrative. Both are pretty much devoted to Nora's complaints about how terrible her friend Julia is.

At first, it's not even that clear what Nora's on about. The abusive exchanges dont seem that serious. Over the course of the book, the author escalates the abuse Nora experiences at the hands of Julia, but the developmentdoesn'tmake much sense. For one thing, the abuse dynamic wouldn't play out  in this way in an established relationship. Escalation is for new relationship. I shouldn't have spent the first two hundred pages wondering which of these girls needs intervention.

Also, if Julia has untreated NPD or BPD and it's affecting her and other characters' lives, she should probably at least get realistic representation. That's the author's responsibility, to prevent growing stigma attached to mental illness– not bait the audience into wanting the mentally ill character dead. Ritany reveals in her afterword that Julia is based on a past real life friendship of the author's. Not research, which I recommend when writers are trying to manage characters with complex mental illness.

Was this one of those times a writer decided to work out revenge in their fiction? Ritany literally killed off a friend who hurt her feelings decades before. Julia's death doesn't even serve the plot. Also, this should go without saying, but here I am: mentally ill people (and characters) don't deserve to die because they're inconvenient, difficult, or even hurtful.

Reading Notes:

Three (or more) things I loved:

1. With the exception of the constant trios of descriptor—Impulsive, charismatic, head-turning Julia p1— this is beautiful writing. Smooth and sticky, draws you right in, like warm caramel.

2. I like Julia and Nora, the fmc's dynamic. It's a little mean and untrustworthy, just the right believable amount. It both reminds me of my teenage girl friendships and makes for great story tension.

3. I often complain about alternating timelines because this technique is rarely done well, especially when combined with alternating POV. When done poorly, alternating timeline/POV creates serious clarity problems and a pile of work for the reader in the form of backtracking and rereading. In DEAD GIRLS, Ritany elegantly utilizes the alternating timeline. It was always clear whether the reader was in one timeline or the other, because in one, a character was alive, and in the other, she was dead. More than time separates the two perspectives, but an entire book's worth of differences. Loved enjoying this element!

Three (or less) things I didn't love:

This section isn't only for criticisms. It's merely for items that I felt something for other than "love" or some interpretation thereof.

1. This is a pretty slow moving plot, but it reads like a slow burn because of all the character tension.

2. I'm not a fan of how Ritany presents her central theme, toxic relationships. The first person narrator sum FMC Nora tells the reader about many abuses Julia perpetrates on all her friends. Especially Nora. But the behaviors the reader gets to actually witness from Julia are frustratingly vague. I was starting to feel my heart sink. “Are you happy for me?” “Should I be? Are you happy?”  ...“Yeah. I’m really happy.” I heard running water on the other end of the line, then Julia sighed. “Then yes. Yeah. I’m happy for you.” She wasn’t. Why? Why couldn’t she let me have this? Nora tells us Julia isn't happy,  but *Julia says she is.* So which speaker is unreliable? I hope I come back to this with an edit. *edit but not the kind I hoped for. The author escalates the abuse Nora experiences at the hands of her friend, but I still hate how Julia is written. If she has untreated NPD or BPD and it's affecting her and other characters' lives, she should probably at least get realistic representation. That's the author's responsibility, to prevent growing stigma attached to mental illness– not bait the audience into wanting mentally ill characters dead. Ritany reveals in her afterword that Julia is based on a past friendship. Not research, which I recommend when writers are trying to handle characters with complex mental illness. Was this one of those times a writer decided to work out revenge in their fiction? She literally killed off a friend who hurt her feelings decades before. Julia's death doesn't even serve the plot. Also, this should go without saying, but here I am: mentally ill people (and characters) don't deserve to die because they're (in)convenient, difficult, or even hurtful.

3. The plot really struggles. The two girls are really nonsensical sometimes and as a result the plot wanders. But honestly, I remember acting like this as a teenager. And I knew lots of girls who acted like Nora or Julia. We made no sense to the outside world either.

4. The denouement is confusing, in part because the author introduces new characters and expands a couple of flat characters way more than is necessary or good for the narrative at this point. It's basically fifty pages about the romance subplot, which isn't needed, but which the author was clearly invested in.

Rating: 🚘🚘 /5 revenge car crashes
Recommend? Not really
Finished: Sep 9 '24
Format: Digital, Libby, Kindle, Alexa
Read this book if you like:
🩰 YA drama books
👭🏽 teenage girl friendships 
👩🏻‍❤️‍💋‍👨🏽 young love
💇‍♀️ girl's coming of age 
👤 mental illness - NPD and BPD