The Baddest Girl on the Planet

Evie Austin is The Baddest Girl on the Planet. Or is she? Told in a series of vignettes, this book tells a story of a young woman dealing with everything from the birth of her son to the death of a mother figure. Author Heather Frese paints visceral pictures of the bright days of North Carolina’s Outer Banks and the dark times within them. The story itself felt jagged and I wondered what the point was. However, Frese’s storytelling really is beautiful. She’s capable of bringing the reader into the pages, breathing in the air swirling around the beaches, and feeling the itching restlessness raising within her heroine. I didn’t feel that Evie was particularly “bad” in any form of the word. She just seemed like a woman on the edge of whatever disappointing decision she made at the time. I didn’t feel like rooting for her although the descriptions of her feelings and surroundings felt so painfully real they bled off the pages. It was enough to carry me through the book but only just. By the end, I was ready to close the covers and walk away.