Written by contributor Amy Jane Lehan
With just enough substance to fill out a single Netflix episode, Bad Girls with Perfect Faces left a lot to be desired in terms of being a satisfying read. Lack of world building, unique character voice, and plot holes the size of a Volkswagon are contributing factors to this teen novel falling a bit flat.
Sasha has exactly one best friend in the world: Xavier. Though recently she has begun to feel like maybe there is more between them. Before she has a chance to express how she feels, Xavier’s ex-girlfriend, Ivy, resurfaces and forces her way back into his life. Knowing full well that Ivy is a cheat and manipulator, Sasha takes it upon herself to expose the real Ivy to her best friend and free him once and for all.
Sasha is a ‘good girl’ for the most part. Whilst her mother changes personality with each new boyfriend, Sasha much prefers her own company and is completely content with being alone. She has a job at a print store, is a good student, and has exactly one best friend in the world, Xavier. They have a litany of inside jokes and are inseparable, particularly after Xavier suffers a harsh breakup. Sasha dedicates her days to just being present at his side while he nurses a broken heart, realising that this boy she once thought of as ‘average’ is anything but. Sasha is quietly spoken and quietly confident, strong in any situation. She makes the decision to tell Xavier how she truly feels about him on the eve of his birthday, until Ivy saunters back into the picture demanding Xavier’s attention.
Xavier, while physically big and strong looking, comes across as quite weak. When Ivy breaks his heart, Xavier essentially takes to his bed for a month coping with, as he says, “pills to make him happy and pills to make him sleep.” He draws silly pictures and texts them to Sasha so she can write a goofy caption, is frequently described as sweet and enjoys their mutual oddities. After having Sasha colour his hair blue, they go out for a drink to celebrate, despite being underage, and run into Ivy. He willingly leaves with her, abandoning Sasha without so much as a goodbye, to spend the night with Ivy.
Ivy is basically horrible; she does not appear to have any redeeming qualities whatsoever. She seems to be nice to her best friend Gwen at times, though indifferent at best. Xavier appears to be little more than a conquest to her, she revels in getting him to bend to her will. At the bar she merely crooks her finger and has Xavier following her to “their spot” in the woods, though he is fully aware she has brought other guys there with the sole purpose of having sex with them. She later sneaks him into her room, wakes him with sex for his birthday and then sends him on his way.
Sasha, feeling at a loss after being left behind, as well as quite a bit drunk, hatches the plan to set up a fake Instagram account with the sole purpose of proving to Xavier that Ivy is a cheat. Using old summer camp photos and a generic boy name, “Jake” is created and immediately requests to follow Ivy. Ivy and “Jake” begin to message frequently, moving to exchanging phone numbers in order to text. Despite her immense dislike of Ivy at the onset, she begrudgingly begins to feel like she is seeing what makes her tick, and that Ivy is in fact quite lonely. That is until their paths cross at a party and Ivy paints Sasha as a fool to Xavier. At this stage, in Sasha’s mind, all bets are off. She continues to suck Ivy into the Jake persona, asks repeatedly for assurances that she doesn’t have a boyfriend and eventually proposes to meet up at a local diner. Ivy readily agrees and Sasha is excited to confront her and get final proof for Xavier that Ivy isn’t all she makes out to be. Shortly before they are due to meet, Ivy contacts Jake via Instagram and alters their meeting location to her spot in the woods. From the “big reveal” onwards things spiral rapidly to the point of no return and big irrevocable decisions are made, altering the life courses of all involved.
This story is told through multiple points of view, though Xavier’s is the only one told in third person which felt disruptive to the overall flow of the book. Roughly midway through, an additional viewpoint is added, the chapters with this character’s narrative are untitled and it is shown merely by the change of font, as well as the addition of random capitalised words. It is clearly done to demonstrate the frame of mind of the narrator but truly this could have been achieved without the jarring font changes. There was little to differentiate between Xavier and Sasha, neither character had a unique “voice” which is potentially why the author chose to use different tenses. There is a distinct lack of world building, with no clue to their actual geological location given until the latter half of the book. Aside from the colour of Xavier’s hair, no one has any sort of intelligible physical description except Ivy. The interactions between Sasha and Xavier felt reasonably natural although a bit juvenile, though no one else really stands out. There is a fair amount of sex in this book, heavily implied but not described, as well as drinking and the use of drugs. It all comes across as very spoilt teenagers.
Unfortunately, no one seems to end up learning anything from the things they experience in the story, it has a very Gossip Girl meets Pretty Little Liars feel to it – teenagers doing what they want with little to no adult oversight or repercussions for their actions. Considering what transpires in the book, being a series of spontaneous acts, it is hard to believe that they would seemingly just move on with their lives. None of the girls were particularly “bad” in the traditional, intentional sense and aside from “not classically attractive” Ivy, their faces weren’t really described so the title feels a bit off. There were no big “uh huh!” moments in this story, it just rolled along in a relatively plain way. Overall, the story concept was fine though not very original. It held my interest enough I kept turning the pages and it makes a decent quick YA read – the ideal filler book, but expectations for this book were much higher than what was delivered.
Bad Girls with Perfect Faces is available from Amazon, Book Depository, and other good book retailers.
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Synopsis | Goodreads
When I looked up, his smile was wide and real. “Ready?” he said.
I faked a smile back. I had gotten so good at faking things.
I thought: You brought this on yourself, Sasha. You will have to pretend forever now.
He squeezed my hand again. He couldn’t begin to imagine what this actually was. He had no idea what I’d done. What any of us had.
When Sasha’s best friend Xavier gets back together with his cheating ex, Ivy, Sasha knows she needs to protect him. So she poses as a guy online to lure Ivy away.
But Sasha’s plan goes sickeningly wrong. And she soon learns to be careful of who you pretend to be because you might be surprised by who you become…
