So, there’s nothing wrong with Katie Alender’s novel Bad Girls Don’t Die. It’s the story of Alexis, a high school student who takes photos, thinks her doll-loving twelve year old sister, Kasey, is kind of annoying and goes out of her way to distance herself from just about everyone at her school. Alexis is smart and Alender does a terrific job of capturing her voice from the very beginning of the novel. Although like many teens, Alexis takes herself a tad too seriously sometimes, she’s also self-deprecating and intelligent.

Alexis has a lot on her plate. Her parents are generally absent from her life and she is often left in charge of the household and her sister, who starts acting weirder and weirder. Added to all this, Alexis finds herself drawn to a new student at her school.

Bad Girls Don’t Die is a ghost story (think Jane-Emily rather than Stephen King).  It’s not particularly scary, although there’s enough of a  creep-factor to get younger teens huddling together with the lights on. 

I think my reading of it suffered from having recently finished The Hunger Games – which is a kick-ass book. Bad Girls Don’t Die pales by comparison.