Beware That Girl by Teresa Toten

Female antiheroes have been around for a while but Gillian Flynn made them popular - if you look at the blurb for this book, you'll see that it's compared to both WE WERE LIARS and GONE GIRL - and now this trend is extending to YA. Normally comparisons like this make me cringe because they tend to be wildly inaccurate, but in this case there is some foundation for the GONE GIRL comparison. The protagonist of BEWARE THAT GIRL is calculating, and willing to do anything to get ahead.

Kate O'Brian grew up in terrible conditions. She had to claw herself out of the gutter to get where she is now: an elite NYC school for the rich and successful. Kate knows that if she's going to succeed, she needs to get herself a meal ticket: one that comes in the form of the popular but troubled golden girl, Olivia Sumner.

A problem prevents itself in the form of the new head of fundraising, Mark Redkin, a sexy, charming man who instantly wins the hearts of female students and faculty. He has a sinister side that nobody but Kate seems to register, and when he turns the full force of his attention onto Olivia, he threatens to compromise everything she's accomplished and reveal the dark secrets of her past that she's tried so hard to hide.

The plot of this book kind of reminded me of a sexed-up version of the Losing Christina series by Caroline B. Cooney. Losing Christina was about a sinister private school on the east coast where two members of the faculty - a principal and teacher who were also husband and wife - got off on psychologically breaking their students. It's really interesting to see how YA is changing; authors are less afraid to be edgy and controversial. The genre is growing up and getting a taste for big girl pants.

I liked BEWARE THAT GIRL. The promised twist at the end wasn't really all that shocking, but the build-up of tension and the atmosphere of dread and suspense was well done. I kept having to remind myself that this was being marketed as YA because it seemed way too dark to be a book for teenagers. Anyone who enjoys dark tales about girls gone wild will enjoy this book.

3 out of 5 stars.