Review| Vicious Little Darlings, by Katherine Easer

After her grandmother caught her having sex, Sarah Weaver has two choices: go to the college of her choice but pay for it on her own, or go to her grandmother's alma mater on her grandmothers dime. She chooses the later and finds herself at Wetherly College, and all-female school. There she meets Madison, her new roommate, and Agnes, the bizarre best friend.

Maddy is your quintessential beauty. Everyone seems to just love her. Worship her, even. There is a darker side though. Her initial quirkiness starts to take on a sinister edge. Agnes is Maddy’s best friend and bank account. Agnes is intensely loyal to Maddy, and her undying affection keeps her blind to the truth.

Sarah comes from a broken home, and all she wants is a family to call her own. She finds one in Maddy and Agnes. So enamoured she is with the new home they’ve created that she overlooks or accepts all the weird and crazy things that happen. The lies and deceptions, she rarely questions. Some of the deceit she even takes a compliment! She is very immature and irrational in this way. And as things spiral out of control, she just goes along for the ride. It’s infuriating at times. I found myself wanting her to just grow up, to just take charge of her situation.

Sarah is promiscuous. She refuses to get into relationships, citing her parents’ failed marriage. She feel love inevitably fails, that she might not even be capable or worthy of it. She has sex with Maddy’s boyfriend Sebastian on their second meeting, and with Reed on their first. With Reed, however, things are different. She feels that she can love him. She does love him, in fact...after about two meetings. Their love is that instant, shallow variety that features entirely too often in young-adult novels. It’s revolting. Reed often drops that “do you even love me” bomb typical of a unhealthy relationship. And our immature little Sarah accepts this as well.

Another bizarre element to this novel is the supernatural. All three girls believe in it and cite it frequently. Psychic intuition and gypsy readings are all taken to be real by the girls. It’s hard to tell if the reader is supposed to believe that supernatural elements are a true part of the novel’s world or just something the girls believe in. For instance, a ritual is spoken of as completely crazy, and yet a spell is used as a legitimate explanation of certain actions. The novel seems confused in this regard, like the author couldn’t decide how far into the realm of magical realism she wanted to go.

I wasn’t going to mention this initially . . . but how could I possibly leave out the deer? It’s a phenomenally absurd situation, unlikely to ever happen in the real world. Wanting to nurse a deer back to health is reasonable. Hiding one in your dorm and then at the St. Regis hotel is completely crazy. The only explanation I can come up with is that the author threw it in to show how unhinged these girls are. Yes, that has to be it.

Katherine Easer’s Vicious Little Darlings, despite its flaws, is an engaging read. Once I started, I was hooked. I wanted to see just how far these girls would go, how low they would sink. I had to know how things would resolve themselves. If you’re into young adult novels and don’t mind some absurdity, you may want to check this one out. It’s definitely a fast, fun read.

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Review| The Glimpse, by Claire Merle

The Glimpse, by Claire Merle, is a dystopian young adult novel in which society is divided and controlled by its government. The method of their subjugation? Mental health as determined by a DNA test. If that sounds ridiculous, it’s because it is. And Merle knows that. She has created a post-collapse world where the people are struggling for order, willing to put their trust in anyone with an answer. Que the Pure test. It claims to detect mental illness, and weeding these “defective” people out seems to improve society... at least for a privileged few, the Pure. And so, people buy into the big lie. I found the use of mental illness effective, and not at all offensive. It’s acknowledged pretty early in the novel that the test is a sham, that the ability to test for mental illness in DNA isn’t possible. The segregation of the people, ruling them with fear, is the real reason for the tests.

Ana, the protagonist, has her Pure status revoked when a certain anomaly comes to light. Now her future is in the hands of Jasper. She needs to bind with him or she’ll be cast out among the Crazies. Having been raised in a Pure community, she believes what she has been taught of them: they are violent, aggressive, unpredictable. When Jasper goes missing, Ana is determined to find him, to solve the mystery of his abduction. Out in the real world, far from the safety of her community, Ana learns the truth of the Pures and the Crazies, of the tests and the treatments her government issues. Her world is thoroughly rocked, and she will never be the same. Ana is a strong character. She rises to the challenges thrown at her. She has doubts and fears, but she does her best and uses her head.

At times, though, the highly improbable happens. This is a work of fiction, sure, but suspension of disbelief can only go so far. She played a lawyer and won based only on some reading she did? Really? With just a haircut and a pair of contacts, she went completely unrecognised? Ugh. No. Another problem for me: the instant-love. Ana meets Cole. Sparks fly. They love one another. Forever. Um, bite me. That sounds like a crush, like lust. The word “love” is used, though... am I to believe thats what it is? If that is love, then it is of the shallow variety. That magical Disney love that takes no time at all to manifest itself. It’s a fairy tale wedged into a dystopian novel, and it drags down the quality of the story for me.

Last major bone of contention for me: the glimpse itself. From what I gather of this ill-explained phenomenon, the glimpse is a look into the future that only certain people get. This entire concept seems so completely random to me! Why throw this little paranormal tidbit into the book? Nothing else in this novels world-building hints at anything psychic or supernatural, so why is it included? It seems to me that the only purpose for it is to push Cole and Ana towards one another. An attempt to make that little fairy-tale-love seem more believable, more real. It falls completely flat, though.

Despite these flaws, I’d still say The Glimpse is well written and engaging. Merle is clearly talented. The actual flow of the story was smooth; Ana, well drawn. As a dystopian novel, though, this isn’t one of the strongest I’ve read. If you like YA sci-fi in general, especially those with a strong element of romance, then The Glimpse may be right up your alley.

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