Girls on Fire: A Novel

Girls on Fire by author Robin Wasserman takes place in a small town in Pennsylvania during the ‘90s. Hannah Dexter had managed to stay under the radar at high school until her senior year when a humiliating encounter with popular girl, Nikki Drummond, brings her to the attention of Lacey Champlain. Fueled by their mutual hatred for Nikki, they form a strong but unequal bond. Lacey takes over Hannah’s life, renames her Dex, changes her style from nondescript to grunge and introduces her to casual sex, binge drinking, the music of Kurt Cobain, and a couple of bad boys suspected of dabbling in drugs and Satanism. Dex’s mom has misgivings about the relationship between the two girls but her father seems to enjoy his daughter’s new show more rebelliousness and her new friend – perhaps a little too much. Running in the background is the story of the suicide of Nikki’s boyfriend, Craig, the previous Hallowe’en, an event that has raised a lot of questions and created some hysteria in the small town about Satanism.

Girls on Fire is a well-written, compelling and suspenseful YA novel. It is also almost unceasingly dark. The narrative is divided between Lacey and Dex as they give us their own separate stories, an Us section in which we get their shared perspectives and a Them in which we get the perspective of others. Wasserman does a fascinating job of showing how toxic teenaged relationships can become as the story and their relationships move towards what can only be a bad ending for everyone. She has created some extremely unlikeable characters doing increasingly disturbing things and somehow makes us care how it will turn out. A definite high recommendation from me.

Thanks to Edelweiss and Harper Publishing for the opportunity to read this novel in exchange for an honest review show less

Much like Lacey’s beloved Kurt, Girls on Fire is a brutally raw story of friendship, particularly of the obsessive nature of them. Neither Dex nor Lacey are particularly likeable; one is too manipulative, and the other is too submissive. If Anne Shirley and Diana Barry are the quintessential example of kindred spirits, then Dex and Lacey are their antithesis. Yet, the two work well together and manage to form a bond that is difficult to break.

Dex is the Every Girl and represents all of us who have been swept off our feet by the attention of someone more exotic than us. In Lacey, she finds someone so at odds with her own upbringing that her attention is not just welcome but desired. In fact, there is a subtle erotic tone to their show more friendship that adds tension to later scenes. Building upon this layer of semi-sexual tension is the fact that Dex struggles with Lacey’s sudden but very welcome attention. She simultaneously craves it and yet fears the real reasons behind her friendship. It is the truth behind Lacey’s actions which supply much of the drama and suspense within the story, confirming fears everywhere that sudden attention from someone new is never a good thing.

Alternating between Dex’s and Lacey’s perspectives, readers eventually get the whole, ugly, and strangely beautiful truth behind their odd friendship. With these girls, Ms. Wasserman shines the spotlight on the dysfunction that passes for high school female friendship and the idiosyncrasies which are unique to female friendships in general. Dex and Lacey, for all of their faults and individual as well as collective issues, prove that true friends will stick together through thick or thin. Yet, this total acceptance comes with its darker side.

Girls on Fire is like the entire grunge movement – angsty, angry, unimpressed, isolated; reading it will evoke all of these feelings and more. Robin Wasserman expertly captures what it was like to come of age in the early 90’s. In Dex and Lacey, she portrays our profound apathy and social isolation and our fierce need to differentiate ourselves from the bright and overly stylized 70’s and 80’s. She does such an excellent job at representing this era that in many ways reading Girls on Fire is like stepping back in time to that age where life was at once hopeful, with the end of the Cold War, and hopeless, with the World Trade Center bombing and the rising awareness/acceptance of global warming, and where we expressed our confusion and despair at the future through grunge and self-mutilation (in the form of tattoos and piercings). In a world where Gen-X holds no sway because we are too small a generation to drive much of anything, Girls on Fire reminds us of who we are and what we have overcome. show less

Hannah is essentially a "good girl", if a bit of an outsider. Lacey is the "bad girl" in school, who seems to throw her indifference in the faces of all who would question her place in society. These two girls somehow find themselves thrown together into a severely co-dependent relationship (think Thelma and Louise hyped up on some of Cobain's "teen spirit"). Hannah lacks any self-identity and simply transforms into what people expect of her. Lacey christens her under the new name of "Dex" and recreates her into her own goth image.

Then you have Nikki, the privileged mean girl in school who everyone follows as if she were the pied piper of vicious teenagers. The school is sent into a bit of a spiral by the suicide of the school jock, who show more was Nikki's longtime boyfriend. The pair were high school royalty.

Then there are the parents. The ever-embarrassing parents who never seem to "get" their troubled teens. Dex comes from a normal home with parents who care, while Lacey comes from a screwed up home life with an overbearing step-father and an alcoholic and dispassionate mother.

The story switches between the perspectives of Dex and Lacey (Us), and occasionally that of the parents (Them). Sometimes switching perspectives like this can be difficult to follow, but the author really handled it well and it was a useful tool and quite enlightening. It is interesting to see an act through the eyes of one person, and then to see the same act through those of another person. What may have first seemed cruel or selfish or self-motivated could actually have been motivated by compassion or fear or even love. And even an act motivated by love can be evil or cruel.

My final word: This book is marketed as the author's first "adult novel", yet check Goodreads and you'll see the number one genre classification by readers is "young adult", and I have to agree with that. This book really took me back to my teen years. I could see a bit of myself in Dex and my friend in Lacey. There's a hard edge to the story and quite a bit of graphic sexuality and some violence, so it is not for the younger crowd. But it definitely fits into the young adult niche. I enjoyed the author's writing, which is very easy to read and engaging. The characters are well drawn and defined, and her technique with the ever-changing perspectives was expertly handled. There is a twist at one point that left me thinking, "Well, I did not see that coming!" Moments made me cringe, some made me angry, others made me ache for the individual. Overall this is one damn fine read! show less

I like the darkness in this story.

Robin Wasserman is incredibly good at that, and it’s why I like her writing. I’ve yet to read one of her books that make me feel good – there are no happy endings. But they are dark and gritty and filled with characters who are hurt or broken to the point of ugliness. The writing is good, and Girls on Fire is a car crash you can’t look away from.

And this is a complicated one to recommend. Every turn the characters take leads them deeper into the dark. Characters are denied basic help. Parents are selfish, flawed, blind. Everything that happens is to the greatest extreme. There’s a lot of books like this out there, and it comes down to whether you’ve already got your Broken Girls story that show more you enjoy. It comes down to whether you love the writing style.

Robin Wasserman makes me love the characters, and want to stay far away from them at the same time. Lacey and Nikki and Dex are all different kinds of messes. The more they interact with one another, the worst they become. The more they shatter. The writing is pretty enough to make you feel, but not so pretty that it’s distracting from the shock value of the story itself.

And I wouldn’t say the story itself is surprising. As soon as you meet the girls, you know something horrifying and illegal is going to happen at the end. The midpoint, Lacey’s stint in the ‘Come to Jesus’ camp, was the real indication of how extreme Girls on Fire would get. Hannah Dexter is the clay, and Nikki and Lacey fight to form her in their own images and create a monster.

Storytelling-wise, I think the only things that should have been cut are the POVs of the mothers. I see what Wasserman was trying to do, creating perspective and allowing an outside view on what is otherwise an intense story… but they broke the flow for me and I found the pause frustating. I liked the flip between Lacey and Dex’s POV, and I think Nikki’s POV could have been interesting as well, particularly because she’s such an unreliable narrator. I’m such a sucker for unreliable narrators – I never quite know what they are thinking and I love that, especially in a suspenseful contemporary like this.

So while I’m not sure I could recommend Girls on Fire in general, it was a good experience listening to something so raw and painful. I don’t know if I’d read it again, just because it’s so heavy, but I’m glad I read it in the first place. show less

It is no wonder this book is so highly acclaimed by a variety of media sources. I can honestly imagine it becoming the next Girl on the Train, in its popularity among adult and later aged young adult readers. It is gritty, raw, honest and completely and utterly addicting. I honestly haven't read a book this hit so many 5* points in quite some time. It was truly one I could not bring myself to put down. From start to finish, the girls were in my head and I needed to know where everything in their young, grunge styled lives would lead, especially with the disconnect they had with most people, especially those there age.

Having been a youngster who had a similar disconnect, was bullied and had a regrettable home life, I found this book show more resonated with me on a whole new level. It reached right in and squeezed my heart, had me shaking my head and even brought laughter or a wee tear to my eye at points.

The characters are perfection. Wasserman got the girls lives, personalities and even clothing down to a T. It almost made me feel as if she knew them, was like them or at the very least did her in depth research to create whole, believeable people. This meant I was connected to them and invested in their outcome, from the very first page.

The pace was excellent. When something happened that needed a swiftness to it, to show the urgency of the outcome or the buildup, we were given it. Most of the time the pace matched their young, grunge life. It was laid back, just flowing by and happening, but when they took action it flew and it really sped right to the result. They we quick, excitable and wanted things to come to a head, and they did.

Overall, this book is dark. Be prepared. However, it is one that teenagers and above will love and need to read. It shows life from so many angles, for so many people, all at different places and stages in life. It has good lessons and is one that will truly touch you.

**I received this book for free and voluntarily provided my honest and unbiased review. show less

Hannah Dexter was just a bland girl going through the motions until Craig decided to kill himself and through their small town into chaos. After feeling the burn of humiliation at the hands of Craig's love Nikki Drummond, she bonds with fiery newcomer Lacey and they become inseparable. Lacey dubs Hannah Dex, giving rise to a persona who cares about music, experiencing life, rejecting the norm, and Lacey's approval. Dex is suddenly somebody, but is it the person she wants to be or the person Lacey wants her to be? Lacey is pretty clearly hiding something and won't share with her best friend no matter how close they get. Her secret threatens to destroy their relationship and their small town.

Girls on Fire is an intense read that takes show more place in the early 90's featuring teenage girls in the most dramatic point in their lives. Everything is about surviving the horrific landscape of high school where one wrong move can destroy you. While I like aspects of these girls, each of them is so steeped in manipulating others and projecting a socially appropriate or a socially disastrous image that they become desperate and willing to do terrible things. Hannah is pretty bland and fine with doing well in school, but then Lacey turns her life upside down. Lacey introduces her to drugs, parties, Nirvana, and not caring what others think of her. Lacey's approval means everything to Hannah and she will do anything to keep it. Lacey has her own issues and secrets. Her whole persona is designed to be rebellious. Hannah makes her feel powerful because Lacey molded her new persona and manipulates her when it suits her. To Lacey, she's being benevolent and protecting her, but it's clear she just wants to control something in her life when she controls nothing. Her home life is horrible with an alcoholic mother and a controlling, religious stepfather. Nikki Drummond, on the other hand, is the golden girl externally, but the queen bee mean girl underneath. She can manipulate anyone to do exactly whatever evil move she wants and come out looking like a paragon. All of them choose to be cruel to each other and all of them come out with scars they try to hide from the others.

The format of the book is interesting. The "Us" sections are Lacey and Hannah's alternating points of view. The "Them" sections show other people's point of view like Hannah's, Lacey's, and Nikki's mothers. It shows that absolutely everyone has inner depths beneath what they project to the world no matter what their age or experience. We see their true selves and their inner thoughts. Everyone tempers themselves to fit in to whatever society they are a part of. Every character has something to relate to and thoughts and feelings they would never share with anyone else. At first I thought it should have been a teen book, but the violence, the sex, the grey morality, and the honest and multilayered depiction of each character is much more adult.

Girls on Fire is a magnetic read that I couldn't put down. Robin Wasserman's amazing writing crafted a complex story that was masterfully revealed through multiple points of view. Craig's suicide story loomed in the background of the entire narrative until all is revealed in the final pages. The only flaw I found was the ending. I just didn't quite believe it, but it had an interesting symmetry with the rest of the plot. I look forward to the next book Robin Wasserman comes out with. show less

Girls on Fire by Robin Wasserman is a disturbing exploration of the darker side of teenage girls’ friendships.

Hannah Dexter is an ordinary and wholly unremarkable teenager who is essentially friendless until befriended by newcomer Lacey Champlain in the aftermath of popular classmate Craig Ellison’s inexplicable suicide. Lacey is the quintessential bad girl who easily transforms good girl Hannah into rebellious Dex. Throw in resident mean girl (and Craig’s girlfriend) Nikki Drummond into the mix and it is just a matter of time before the story takes a very sinister turn.

After suffering an extremely humiliating experience made much worse by Nikki’s involvement, Hannah is bewildered but thrilled when Lacey takes her under her show more wing. The two girls are soon inseparable and Hannah, who Lacey renames “Dex”, eagerly follows wherever her new friend leads. Dex is an enthusiastic participant as Lacey introduces her to underage drinking, encourages her to experiment with drugs and prompts her to explore her dormant sexuality. Engaging in increasingly risky behavior, events at a party quickly spiral out of control and Dex finds comfort from a very unlikely source.

Worshipping at the altar of Kurt Cobain and his angst-ridden lyrics, Lacey takes the small town of Battle Creek, PA by storm. Ignored by her alcoholic mother and scornful of her pious stepfather, Lacey challenges authority and takes teenage defiance to a whole new level. Lacey is manipulative and seductive and underneath her rebellious exterior dwells a very troubled young woman.

Nikki is popular but bored and no one wants to get on her bad side since she is also cruel and calculating. Surprisingly, she is type of girl whose meanness is not easily recognized and her reputation is never damaged by her bullying. But beneath her sickly sweet persona lurks plenty of dark and menacing secrets that Nikki will go to great lengths to keep hidden.

While the premise of Girls on Fire is certainly interesting, the story quickly becomes bogged down in superfluous details and rambling, repetitive inner monologues. The overall pacing is a little sluggish and although the brief glimpses of an illicit relationship are intriguing, the slow trickle of details is frustrating and tedious. The time period, the small town setting and references to the news of the day are absolutely spot on and provide an interesting and perfect backdrop for some aspects of the storyline.

Dark, violent and sexually charged, Girls on Fire is a gritty and sometimes overly dramatic novel that delves into the intricacies of toxic relationships. While not always an easy story to read, Robin Wasserman does an excellent job keeping the storyline unpredictable and the novel’s conclusion is rather shocking and completely unexpected. An overall unsettling story that I recommend to mature readers. show less