Girl Gone Mad: A Novel

In middle school, Emily was part of a clique called the Harpies. This group of girls likes to torment others, but none more so than Grace. They brought her into their group, all the while treating her like dirt. Their last unkind act toward Grace, left her to try and commit suicide and the group broke up. They never spoke to each other again. But then, fourteen years later, one of the Harpies kills herself, followed shortly by another Harpy. Emily starts to see Grace everywhere and begins to wonder if it’s her or Grace that’s become a Girl Gone Mad. It seems like Grace might be back for revenge.

This was a great look into the effects of bullying, but also into how little we understand ourselves and others. Sometimes things aren’t quite what they seem and we only see one side of the story. In the beginning, you aren’t quite sure whom to feel bad for when your main characters were bullies. However, all the characters begin to develop more and more until you see that you didn’t know the whole story and begin to understand why things developed as they did. The author did a great job of showing the humanity of even the bullies, as there are always reasons why people do the things that they do. That doesn’t excuse what they did, but when you can understand that, it becomes easier to help them. I recommend you check it out.