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2.0 out of 5 stars
Mean Girls meets superheroes, with mediocre results, November 1, 2009
This review is from: Bad Girls (Paperback)
Brittany, Destinee, Tiffany and Ashley are petty, vain and arrogant teens who rule their high school. Lauren is the nice girl who's new in town and Ronald is the nerd who accidentally gives them all superpowers.
It's pretty much the cliches of teen films like Heathers or Mean Girls mashed up with the cliches of superhero books. Not a bad idea but the book never manages to realize its potential.
The 'bad girls' never manage to be more than cardboard cliches, the plot is loaded with comic booky science and logic, and the dialogue is OK but not memorable.
Jennifer Graves' art is stylish and a nice break from the usual comic style but is not enough to make this book worth your time.
Tween and teen girls might find this worthwhile but that's about it.
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3.0 out of 5 stars
Beautiful artwork, but..., April 7, 2010
This review is from: Bad Girls (Paperback)
I absolutely love Christine Norrie's artwork. I've loved it ever since I picked up my first copies of
Hopeless Savages. I've never had the chance to be exposed to Jennifer Graves or Steve Vance, but I figured hey... I love Norrie & I've yet to be disappointed by any project she's been attached to. Unfortunately this book just didn't grab me like I'd hoped it would.
New girl Lauren figures that she'll have better chances of fitting in at her new school because well, its literally a new school. As in "everyone's the new kid". Unfortunately she still has a hard time making more than one friend & the clique made up of the hottest girls in school? They still ignore her. To make matters worse, the school brain has a humongous crush on her while the guy she likes seems to have an interest in someone else. It isn't until Lauren accidentally blows up the chem lab that the clique takes an interest in her & it isn't until they drink a mysterious substance that the school brain is studying that these "Bad Girls" take on a slew of super powers... & begin to abuse them!
The story had promise. It really did. Its just that the story didn't deliver on what it promised. The characters are never fully fleshed out & by the story's end, none of them really do anything to redeem themselves. I'm not going to fault the mean girls for being shallow & I'm not even going to fault Lauren for her shallowness either- after all, I remember what it was like to be in high school & want to be part of the "in crowd". Its just that at the end of the story all of the characters just do almost a complete 180 & it just doesn't really fit any of the characters at all. I can tell that Vance was really trying to go for that teen movie feel as far as the story line goes. (Teen movies aren't typically known for their stupendous story lines.) Its just that at some point I grew really tired of the idea of the story & wanted something a little more from the book.
I'm giving this book 3 stars because in the end, I did enjoy the artwork from the book (both from Norrie & Graves) & again, the idea of the story was what kept me going. Its just that in the end, none of the story was particularly memorable. I honestly can't tell you any of the character names beyond Lauren's & I just finished reading this about 4-5 hours ago. If the characters had just been fleshed out more, this would have been a spectacular book. It just didn't deliver. If you are looking for a better "mean girls get powers" type of book, I recommend
Queen Bee. I don't know if Chynna is ever going to finish it, but hands down- she manages to get the same type of story & execute it better than this did.
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