Last time I read something by Lynn Weingarten was 3 years ago and it was Suicide Notes from Beautiful Girls. It was an ok book. Nothing amazing but it was entertaining. I saw that Weingarten had another book out and I was intrigued to see whether her writing style had developed and what new thrilling plots she would come up with this time. So I dived right in to Bad Girls With Perfect Faces…

No one is good enough for Xavier. Not according to Sasha, his best friend. There’s nothing Sasha wouldn’t do to protect Xavier from getting hurt, especially by his cheating ex Ivy, who’s suddenly slithered back into the picture. Worried that Xavier is ready to forgive and forget, Sasha decides to do a little catfishing. She poses as a hot guy online, to prove cheaters never change.

But Sasha’s plan goes wrong fast, and soon the lies lead down a path from which there’s no return

THIS IS SUCH A DARK PSYCHOLOGICAL THRILLER! It’s just craziness the whole way throughout and it gripped me from the very first line to the very last, and I think I read it in a couple of hours (it’s only a short book as well!)

When I finished the book, my initial thoughts were that it was messed up and just weird. There’s a huge portion of the book which is Sasha cat fishing Ivy which is just PLAIN WRONG, and then there’s a big part of the story that deals with emotional abuse in a relationship… There was just so much going on.

I’ve read some reviews which say that the characters are pretty straightforward and I’ve read reviews that say that the characters are complex. To be honest, I don’t know what to think of them. At some points in the book, I would agree that the characters are basic and that they don’t have that much depth to them, but then there’s instances where Weingarten delves into their character… So I don’t know. I guess that the characters are a bit of both.

“Life messes us up in so many ways, messes all of us right the hell up. And when we fumble and bumble around, crashing into one another, stepping on toes and hearts, it’s not on purpose. Being a person is nearly impossible.”

― Lynn Weingarten, Bad Girls with Perfect Faces

The first half of the book is basically building the foundations for the second half (which was also THE MUCH BETTER HALF). This is where the cat fishing takes place and the mysteries are presented to the reader. The focalisation of the story was really all over the place in this one. You’ve got 1st person POV from Sasha, which in the second part briefly changes to 2nd person; then you have 3rd person POV from Xavier and then 1st person POV diary-entry style from an unnamed character. That’s not to say that the focalisation  was bad and that having all of the POV’s interrupted the story, because they really didn’t. I found that they added a necessary depth to the story and to the characters.

I can really appreciate what Lynn did with the second half of the story as well as how she handled such a very tough subject of manipulation. If anything, the second half of the story is where it shines best. I’ve seen a lot of mixed thoughts about Xavier and while I do understand why some people may not like him, there is more to him that a weak character. Keep in mind, he has been manipulated by Ivy so many times that he is willing to forgive her even after she does something bad. That is pretty common in cases where a person is being controlled by their significant other. I also admire Weingarten for exploring an abusive relationship where the female is the one doing the abusing. It isn’t that often that YA explores female abusers, it’s mostly men abusing women in one way or another.

There are so many twists and turns throughout this novel, and there were a few reveals that left my mouth hanging open and my head reeling. I know that my initial reaction to this book was a 3 star, but after writing this review, I’ve come to realise that – even though the story is MESSED UP – I really did enjoy reading it. So I’m going to up my rating to 4 stars; and I do think that Bad Girls With Perfect Faces is better than Suicide Notes From Beautiful Girls.

Disclaimer: this book was sent to me by the publisher in exchange for an honest review