BAD GIRLS CLUB Review

Crazy mothers have become something of a staple in contemporary fiction. Think White Oleander by Janet Fitch. Think Nora Eisenberg’s The War at Home. In her debut novel Bad Girls Club, the first young adult title from Austin indie publisher Blooming Tree Press, Judy Gregerson once again takes up the theme.

As in the previously mentioned books, the narrator is a teen-aged girl. Her name is Destiny, and her mother, like White Oleander’s Ingrid, is an artistic type. On page one, Destiny expresses her desire for independence – she wants to get a job and buy a car but her father tells her that she must help her mother at an upcoming arts festival:

Dad stares at me. “I can buy you a car. And you can help your mother. That’s your job, and I don’t want you to forget it and go off on some stupid idea. We’re a family. We look out for each other. But you seem to drift, Destiny.”

By page five, any semblance of normality melts away. Mom starts screaming when Destiny’s little sister, Cassidy, gets a bit of tomato sauce on her shirt, and then tosses some pills into her mouth. For the rest of the novel, Destiny strives to protect her sister from their mother and to try to keep things together at home, while her father buries himself in work.

Although Fitch’s Ingrid is presented as charismatic and seductive in the beginning, at least, Destiny’s mother is terrifying from the get go. Unlike many authors, Gregerson does nothing to romanticize mental illness. She does, however, paint a harrowing and realistic portrait of what it’s like to live in a family ravaged by disease. Destiny gradually withdraws from her best friend, whose mundane concerns are aeons apart from her own. She also finds it difficult to get close to Joshua, her new boyfriend. After all, her mother is always telling her that she is a “bad girl.” How could Joshua love someone like that? Later in the book, Destiny begins to show signs of mental instability herself.

Bad Girls Club is not an easy read, but Gregerson is to be applauded for her honesty. At the end of the story, she offers a ray of hope, followed by a list of resources for readers who might have found that the situation in the story hit a little too close to home.

Reviewed by Suzanne Kamata
Author of Losing Kei

Summer Reading Buzz!

If you're like me, you plan on spending some of your time catching up on all those great books you've been meaning to read. Well, did you know that for every four books you read, a children's book will be donated to communities in need?

Head on over to Scholastic's Summer Reading Buzz. Every book you read and log feeds the reader meter. For every four books you read, one book will be donated to the Reading is Fundamental program.

So don't delay. Pick up a book. Read it. Log it. And know that you're helping children in communities everywhere.