Dangerous Girls
Abigail Haas's 2013 YA thriller has accumulated, in the years since publication, the kind of cult reputation usually reserved for adult crime novels. Anna Chevalier and her best friend Elise are private school seniors on a spring break trip to Aruba with their boyfriends and a small circle of friends. By page two Elise is dead in a pool of blood in the rented villa, and Anna is in custody. Haas tells the story in cross-cut chapters, courtroom scenes from the present in which Anna is being prosecuted and dragged across the international tabloids alongside her boyfriend Tate, against memories of their friendship from middle school onward. Tightly plotted and built around a final-page reveal that has fueled a decade of breathless reaction videos, the novel is a foundational title for readers who later devoured A Good Girl's Guide to Murder.
Where Dangerous Girls keeps showing up
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What you might want to know about Dangerous Girls
The questions readers send us most often, answered without spoilers.
On spring break in Aruba, Anna's best friend Elise is found dead in a vacation house. As Anna becomes the prime suspect of an international media circus, the novel cuts between trial, friendship history, and the night itself.
Yes. Dangerous Girls is a YA psychological thriller about a teenage girl tried for the murder of her best friend during a spring break trip in Aruba. The novel is loosely inspired by the Amanda Knox and Natalee Holloway cases. It is widely cited for its twist ending.
No. Dangerous Girls is a standalone YA thriller by Abigail Haas. The author also writes adult fiction under the name Abby McDonald.
Dangerous Girls was written by Abigail Haas, published in 2013 by Balzer + Bray.
Dangerous Girls is 394 pages in standard print editions, though page counts vary slightly between hardcover, paperback, and large-print formats.
At an average reading pace of about 250 words per minute, Dangerous Girls takes most readers 6 to 9 hours to finish.
Dangerous Girls is available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats from Amazon, Bookshop.org, ThriftBooks, and most major bookstores.
