Rating:
I seem to be in the minority here. Weirdly enough I don’t think I’ve ever looked at a majority of reviews and just thought: “nope I don’t see it.”
Dangerous Girls is entertaining and gripping at best. I was never bored, annoyed/frustrated at parts sure, but never bored. Given my busy schedule it’s a miracle I read the majority of this in one sitting, so despite the problematic details I’ll be delving into, I have to give credit where credit is due: Dangerous Girls is indeed a fun and quick read.
However, I’m confused as to why so many reviewers are ignoring the fact that the majority of this book appropriates the real-life murder case of Amanda Knox? This wasn’t inspired or influenced by the case. No, this book straight up takes details from Knox’s murder trial and dresses them up under different names. This may be a personal issue, but ethically speaking, I just can’t get on board with that.
Amanda Knox had to waste years away in a foreign prison where she was forced to face media scrutiny, biased prosecutors, blatant sexism, and slut-shaming amongst other things, and for the author to just appropriate her story and actually profit off her misfortunes– No, that just doesn’t settle well with me. You could argue that there are definitely some differences between the book and the case (although most of them just being the last 20-30 pages), but there aren’t nearly enough for me to give this book a high rating under good conscience.
Placing morality aside, which I completely understand is a grey area, this book just did not seem realistic. I’m seeing readers praise it for its “maturity” and portrayal of teenagers, but as a young adult myself I found it to be poorly written. There were moments in which the dialogue didn’t align with teen slang or just speech to be frank. Not only that, but the way the prosecution, defense, trial, etc was handled just did not seem plausible to me. The way the prosecutor presented himself, or even the judge herself, was not realistic nor were their terms in the court room.
Lastly, (this doesn’t bear any weight on my rating) I figured out the ending way too early on in the book. Maybe I’ve just read or watched too many mysteries, but I somehow managed to figure out the culprit and motivation before half of the way through.[ Also, how did they not find the necklace? Better yet, how did she manage to hide it?]
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