** spoiler alert ** *********★★★★Some Girls Are is very similar to other books by Courtney Summ

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★★★★

Some Girls Are is very similar to other books by Courtney Summers. It was sort of a Mean Girls (on steroids) meets Speak. Regina, the main character, is self-admittedly a mean girl. She, along with her group of friends are basically the Plastics from Mean Girls, but worse. They are awful to pretty much anyone outside of their group—and even pretty awful to each other. One night at a party Regina is almost raped Anna’s boyfriend, Donnie. Anna is the leader of their little group; she is probably the most awful of them all, but that’s still up for debate. For some reason, instead of going to the police or some other adult who could have helped her, Regina runs to Kara—who still (rightfully?) holds a grudge for Regina suggesting she develop an eating disorder if she wanted to be a part of their group. Kara sees this as the perfect opportunity for payback and tells Anna that Regina slept with Donnie. Chaos ensues, and Regina is ostracized from the group and bullied by her ‘friends’ among others at school—many of whom she had bullied in the past. I wanted to be shocked at how awful these kids were to one another—I wanted to be shocked that not a single adult realized that this level of bullying was going on—but after thinking about it for a bit I realized it was entirely realistic and the shock wore off. I still don’t understand why these girls got off on ruining other people’s lives, just like I don’t understand why it happens in real life. The thing that was most disappointing to me is that a teen who is experiencing something like this might pick up this book and still have no idea how to help themselves or get help. At least in Speak Melinda had someone offer to listen to her—in Some Girls Are there was basically no encouragement to reach out to an adult for help.