Dangerous Girls by Abigail Haas

It’s Spring Break of senior year. Anna, her boyfriend Tate, her best friend Elise, and a few other close friends are off to a debaucherous trip to Aruba that promises to be the time of their lives. But when Elise is found brutally murdered, Anna finds herself trapped in a country not her own, fighting against vile and contemptuous accusations.

As Anna sets out to find her friend’s killer; she discovers hard truths about her friendships, the slippery nature of truth, and the ache of young love.

As she awaits the judge’s decree, it becomes clear that everyone around her thinks she is not just guilty, but dangerous. When the truth comes out, it is more shocking than one could ever imagine…(Goodreads)

I am not even sure where to begin with this review. I stared at a blank page for about 10 minutes before leaving the page open for a few hours and walking away from it. Now I am back again and I still have no idea where to begin. This is probably my own fault because I should have learnt my lesson reading Dangerous Boys and I should have known that this book would also leave me flailing for the words to describe how I feel/how I felt ending this book. Betrayal is the biggest feeling I have toward this book. I spent the entire book thinking and believing one thing to then be told something completely different. Again, Abigail Haas has managed to give us a story that shows some major issues within society today while still blowing us away with the story itself.

One of the big issues within this is how media in general can sway the opinion of the general public. By constantly showing negative or positive images within the media and then having some form of ‘professional’ person back up these images, public opinion is swayed whether what they are shown is the truth or not. Normally the media is more interested in selling a story and therefore show a negative image of someone going on trial for murder – for example. The consequences of such allegations on the people who are then found innocent is almost incomprehensible.

We are also shown that the judicial system is not always fair and is, in some cases, even corrupt. A lot of the circumstantial evidence held against Anna throughout the book are images taken from her social media websites. I am pretty sure that absolutely everybody could be found guilty of something if photo’s like this were taken and twisted out of the context of which they were taken. It also shows us that the people within the judicial system can tamper with evidence for the sake of their career or for other reasons, E.G. money.

Of course, we are also faced with the teenage issues that would stop most parents ever letting their children out of the door again! Alcohol and drug abuse are predominate factors within this book – a book in which a bunch of teenagers go on holiday on their own without any supervision. We obviously face the other angsty teenage issues of friendships and relationships and just how far those boundaries go after certain events have taken place. I felt extremely sorry for Anna after she was abandoned by her friends in Aruba and after Mel changed her statement toward the end.

After reading a couple of other reviews on this book, I saw a lot of references to the Natalee Holloway and Amanda Knox cases. Of course, I had to go and google them since I was a bit young when they took place; however, I think that, if the author actually took both cases and mixed them up a little bit to create the story, she has done it very well.

I need a third book. Anything from this author! Both Dangerous Boys and Dangerous Girls are very psychologically chilling and it makes you wonder if these sorts of things actually happen. I think from both of the books, Dangerous Girls has to be my favourite! I gave this book 5/5 stars.