Audiobook Review: Dead End Girls by Wendy Heard

Author: Wendy Heard
Edition: audiobook
Publisher: Hachette Audio (May 10, 2022)
Genre: Young Adult, Thriller, LGBTQIA+

Synopsis

My review of Dead End Girls

Dead End Girls is a twisty YA thriller about family and secrets, where the truth is never what you first expect.

Trigger warnings: child abuse, death, drug use, dysphoria, gaslighting, homophobia, mental illness (PTSD), abandonment, bullying, outing, sexual harassment.

I received a free digital ARC from the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest and unbiased review

A Mystery That We’re in On

It’s taken me an embarrassingly long time to write this review. But why, you might ask. Well, Dead End Girls is one of my favourite reads of the year so far. It is also a hard book to explain. I think it’s probably best to dive into this book knowing absolutely nothing outside of the synopsis…which makes writing a review really hard! But I’ll try anyway because I loved this book and I think you might too! So let me try and explain what I loved about Dead End Girls…

As a lover of YA thrillers and mysteries, most of the time, I’m guessing along with what happened. Who killed the victim? Where is that missing person? In Dead End Girls, we are in on the mystery. We know the crime is staged. It’s not a question of “what happened?” but “how did they pull it off?”. Which to me is possibly even more entertaining than a pure mystery alone!

But mind you, Dead End Girls still has quite a few open mysteries for us to ponder and even more high stakes. But mostly, we are on Maude and Frankie’s side, rooting for them to get away with their plan and be free of their family lives.

Be Gay, Do Crime

It’s no secret that I love angry, clever girls and this book delivers heavily on that front. It’s also super queer in all the best ways with a storyline about questioning your gender, which I deeply appreciated. In general, the developing relationship between Maude and Frankie was so wonderful to watch unfold. If “Be gay, do crime” was a book, Dead End Girls would be it.

Oh, and it’s kind of unhinged and is absolutely going to make you go “what?!” on multiple occasions. I have never been this delighted by things going wrong, never been this eager to support crimes and never been so happy about character arcs.

Additionally, this book doesn’t shy away from complicated and dark family dynamics and heavier topics. However, I felt it handled them all with the appropriate care. As always, please look at the trigger warnings before deciding if this book is for you!

An Audiobook Delight

The audiobook is simply phenomenal. I actually learned about this book because Natalie Naudus, my personal queen of audiobook narrators, posted about it on her Instagram! Both Natalie Naudus and Taylor Meskimen do a phenomenal job bringing Maude and Frankie to life. The alternating perspectives and interspersed news reports added a lot of rich texture to the book that truly elevated the reading experience.

As always, Natalie Naudus delights with her smooth voice that seemingly knows how to conjure just about any emotion. Seriously, her performance brings the characters to life as if they’re standing right there with you!

Taylor Meskimen is a wonderful counterpart, adding perspective and nuance to the story by taking on the role of Frankie. Frankie’s story quickly turns out to be more than it appears and I loved how she managed to portray Frankie’s softer parts without losing their edge.

Overall…

Dead End Girls is a phenomenal YA thriller of the “good for her!” variety and if you liked Ocean’s 8 and Gone Girl, this book is for you!

This book is for you if…

…you like YA thrillers and mysteries featuring smart girls with secret
…you are looking for a book with high stakes and twists to keep you gripped until the very last page

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