Dangerous Girls Blog Tour - Review + Giveaway

I'm super thrilled to be part of this blog tour today, it's really an honor to be able to read and review a book with the sole purpose of helping get the word out, because as a blogger that's what I want for books, is for them to get noticed and read.

The blurb;

Paradise quickly gets gruesome in this thrilling page-turner with a plot that’s ripped from the headlines and a twist that defies the imagination.

It’s Spring Break of senior year. Anna, her boyfriend Tate, her best friend Elise, and a few other close friends are off to a debaucherous trip to Aruba that promises to be the time of their lives.

But when Elise is found brutally murdered, Anna finds herself trapped in a country not her own, fighting against vile and contemptuous accusations. As Anna sets out to find her friend’s killer, she discovers harsh revelations about her friendships, the slippery nature of truth, and the ache of young love.

Awaiting the judge’s decree, it becomes clear to Anna that everyone around her thinks she is not only guilty, but also dangerous. And when the whole story comes out, reality is more shocking than anyone ever imagined...

Check it out on

Amazon || B&N || Book Depo || Goodreads

The author;

Abby McDonald grew up in Sussex, England and studied Politics, Philosophy & Economics at Oxford University. She began writing at college, and graduated to work as a music journalist and entertainment critic; drawing on her loves of pop culture, film and feminism, and interviewing acts as diverse as LeAnn Rimes, The Kings of Leon, and Marilyn Manson. She is now a full-time novelist and screen-writer.

She is the author of five young adult novels: ‘Sophomore Switch’; ‘Boys, Bears & a Serious Pair of Hiking Boots’; ‘The Anti-Prom’; ‘Getting Over Garrett Delaney’; and ‘Jane Austen Goes to Hollywood’. Her work has received starred reviews, been translated into four different languages, won national awards, and been optioned for TV and movies. In 2013, she will publish her first YA thriller, ‘Dangerous Girls’, as Abigail Haas.

Abby also writes for adults. ‘The Popularity Rules’ and ”The Liberation of Alice Love’ were published in 2011 by Sourcebooks (US).

After spells in Montreal and London, Abby recently moved to Los Angeles, where she is enjoying blue skies, drive-thru everything, and an abundance of frozen yoghurt.

Find her on

twitter || facebook || her website

My review;

I hadn't really heard much about this book until right before it came out, and when I heard it was along the lines of the Amanda Knox trial I was skeptical, because I really wanted to stay out of all of that, because it wasn't my life.  There are times when I read a book and I think to myself "I could totally do this" or "wow, this character is SO whiny, I mean really THIS is their life and they're complaining" but then there are books where I'm like "yeah, I could NEVER handle that" (think The Hunger Games), and for me this was one of the later books.  It's based off of several real events that have happened within the last decade, and for me that's what makes it so scary.  Maybe not scary in a 'boogeyman might jump out from behind the door and kill you with an ax scary' but it's scary in the sense of 'this could happen to me' way, which sometimes makes it all the more real and all the more terrifying.  Some might find the way the story was told, a then-and-now time line, slightly jarring, but I think in this case it worked really well.  The fact that we didn't just get to see what happened after the murder, but how the friendship between the victim and the supposed killer began and evolved, helped the story along greatly and was a great stylistic choice.  The emotion in the novel was great, it kept me wanting to just tear through the novel, and I did, page by page, trying to piece together the puzzle and figure out how everything was going to turn out in the end.  For some reason this book really spoke to me, and not just in a "I have a strange love of novels with murder in them" way, but in a way that just kind of poked at my chest and brain and went "listen to me, pay attention to me, you can't stop reading me!"  That probably sounds super weird, but that's basically how I would describe my experience reading this book.  I would have loved to see Abigail tour for this book, because this just seems like the kind of thing that everyone should read, not just for entertainment but because it's POWERFUL and teaches a lesson.  I'll leave the less that it teaches you for you to decide, because I think everyone might take away something that's a little different.  Although I'm unable to put my finger on exactly why I feel that this novel is important, I feel that it is incredibly important, and that the world might be a better place if everyone read it.  For me this is a book to recommend to everyone, although I do need to caution you that there is sex, drinking, drugs, death, and language in the book so it's not suitable for children under the age of, I would say 15.

4.5/5 dust spirits 

The giveaway;

3 winners will each get a signed finished copy of DANGEROUS GIRLS

Open to US only | Must be 13+ to enter

a Rafflecopter giveaway

*Thank you to Simon and Schuster for providing me with an ARC in return for an honest review