Dead Girls

I highly recommend this book!

"Because Billie was my best, true, forever friend." That's 11-year-old Thera Wilde, who narrates the novel, speaking. The story begins before Billie goes missing. We get to know them as friends at school and at play right up until she's missing and is found raped and murdered. "Dead Girls" is an unusually intimate mystery with sustained suspense and strong subtext. It brings to mind "The Lovely Bones" but "Dead Girls" is better.Thera is wise beyond her years but not always; she's unusual but believable. The circumstances of Billie's death and subsequent events force her to deal with a new normal that's sad, frustrating and confusing to her. To sustain a believable first-person narrative by an eleven-year-old requires talent and skill, and Tarttelin has plenty of both. I'd never heard of the author before but now I've ordered her much-acclaimed novel "Golden Boy.""Dead Girls" can be a tough read. Whatever your history, this is no breezy mystery and the more you've literally been man-handled the harder it is. Which is all the more reason to push on, as Thera does through her heartbreak and bewilderment. It was hard enough trying to keep her Nano pets alive, watching out for her baby brother and navigating the challenges of playground politics and her first crush. Now she's been forced into a new normal, trying to wrestle with grief, guilt and questions about Billie's rape and murder; Thera's pre-pubescent sexuality; the objectification of girls; fear; loss of innocence about the wider world; and the introduction of ambiguity into a life that wasn't without problems but used to make sense. And she's dealing with even more than that, but I'm not telling.Tartellin has made Thera's determination to solve and avenge Billie's death credible. And she's surrounded her with a diverse group of children and adults, most of whom mean well, some of whom mean harm in varying degrees and many of whom confuse her, as all 11-year-olds are naturally confused by things beyond their understanding. The stakes are high for Thera because Billie has been desecrated, and they get a lot higher as the story unfolds. Thera is serious and clever and age-appropriate. She grasps some things very quickly and others not at all. This reader cared deeply about her and about the dead girls of the title, who I won't discuss so as not to spoil that part of the story.The book is superb. Tartellin is a great writer who has pulled off a compelling mystery -- albeit a solvable one, but with smaller mysteries folded in -- that tackles big issues. Another result of her new normal is that Thera quickly comes to regard every young boy and man in her world with suspicion and fear and the reader does along with her. Before "Dead Girls" I hadn't thought much about the effects on innocent males, something many books ignore. We also see through subtext some of the effects on Billie's family and Thera's, on her other friends, the kind policewoman assigned to work with her and more.I've never read anything quite like it and that's meant as high praise. I'll never forget Thera. She's a small, smart and imperfect child who Abigail Tarttelin alchemizes into a panoramic lens through which we see much further than Thera can. Her story is not ours, but her pain is.

What if Alice Sebold's LOVELY BONES started a preteen version of Lisbeth Salander from GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO? You'd get this book, that's what. Wow, this book was creepy-- in the best possible way. DEAD GIRLS takes place in England, in the 90s, and is about two girls who are best friends: Thera and Billie. Thera is the clever one who thinks up all their games, and Billie is the pretty, bold one who goes along with everything. They're opposites, but nothing can separate them-- except for murder.When Billie goes missing, Thera's small village is filled with paranoia, suspicion, and curfews. Suddenly, all the adults keep throwing around words like "pervert," without really explaining what that means, or why Thera should fear them. She comes to the conclusion that a pervert is a type of man who likes to hurt young girls, and decides to take it upon herself to find her friend's murder and avenge her death. It seems endearing and harmless, until, suddenly, it isn't, and the reader can't help but wonder how far and to what lengths Thera will go to find out what happened to Billie.I really enjoyed this book. It's actually similarly titled to another mystery about young girls I read recently, called THE DEAD GIRLS CLUB, and like TDGC, DEAD GIRLS also has a supernatural element to it. Or does it? That's what I love about both books-- they follow the traditional missing girl formula, but then add a supernatural (or not) twist that makes it the perfect October read. Of the two, I think I actually liked DEAD GIRLS better because it does such a great job capturing the vibe of what it was like to grow up in the 90s. On the one hand, you have Spice Girls, S Club 7, and Nanos (as in, the digital pets on key chains, not the iPods), but on the other, you have the fear of stranger danger paired with an unwillingness by authority figures to talk about sexuality and abuse.DEAD GIRLS will definitely appeal to genre readers, but I also think anyone who enjoys stories of suspense with morally grey hero(ines) will enjoy the book as well. I'm not giving it five stars because the ending wasn't entirely satisfying (and not just for the obvious reason-- there were some loose ends I won't go into because spoilers, although it involved the "supernatural" element), and I felt like it was a little too obvious whodunnit (to me). It was still a fun read and passed the time, though, and what more can you ask of a creepy book in the creepy month of October? Exactly.Thanks to the publisher for sending me a copy in exchange for an honest review!4 out of 5 stars

I absolutely adored Abigail Tarttelin’s novel Golden Boy and since then she has become an author whose work I will actively seek out and – in the case of Dead Girls – pre-order.Dead Girls is the story of Thera and her best friend Billie. Thera is eleven years old, on the brink of going to high school and so very close to beginning the journey into adolescence. However, Thera has bigger things to deal with when the body of her best friend Billie is discovered. Her best friend has been murdered.Since the murder, Thera has been visited by the spirits of Dead Girls – including Billie – and Thera sets out a vigilante mission to find and destroy those who committed the crime. With the adults in her life keeping secrets from Thera, she really begins to doubt who she can trust – even down to her own parents.If I am being completely honest, I don’t know how I feel about Dead Girls. I know that it made me feel uncomfortable which is great because some books are meant to do that to the reader. They are meant to challenge you but I can’t be sure how I feel about it as a novel. I don’t know if I enjoyed having a child protagonist. I just don’t know.Give it a read and let me know what you think.Dead Girls by Abigail Tarttelin is available now.

An excellent story very different to any others I have read. Keeps you engrossed from beginning to end with the central character, a young girl, determined to find out the truth about her special friend.

A fantastic book which really kept me interested throughout. My favourite thing is that the end of the book has a section which contains suggested reading group questions. These questions really made me think about the book in a different way.

I really enjoyed this book i felt sorry for the young girl, most of her problems may have solved with a little help from the adults in her life. Yes give it a read. I ask you the question, how far would you go for your best friend ?????

Mid 90's 11-year old English girls playing 'Japs' and 'Huns' and hunting Nazi spies from their den while spouting dialogue straight out of Nickleodeon or some Disney tosh!!!.There isn't a shred of credibility in this entire book.Adults are cartoon cyphers and the kids...11 going on 6.. .and a tree died to produce this

The usual quality one expects from Abigail Tarttelin.