Week 31 Review: The Female of the Species

From Goodreads:
Edgar Award–nominated author Mindy McGinnis delivers a dark and riveting contemporary YA novel that blends the unflinching honesty of Laurie Halse Anderson's Speak with the relentless pacing and alternating perspectives of Gone Girl. A stunning, unforgettable page-turner.

Alex Craft knows how to kill someone. And she doesn't feel bad about it.

Three years ago, when her older sister, Anna, was murdered and the killer walked free, Alex uncaged the language she knows best—the language of violence. While her own crime goes unpunished, Alex knows she can't be trusted among other people. Not with Jack, the star athlete who wants to really know her but still feels guilty over the role he played the night Anna's body was discovered. And not with Peekay, the preacher's kid with a defiant streak who befriends Alex while they volunteer at an animal shelter. Not anyone.

As their senior year unfolds, Alex's darker nature breaks out, setting these three teens on a collision course that will change their lives forever.

My Review:
This book wasn't an easy one. It dealt with rape and murder, of violence to those who had committed some pretty horrific crimes. And that violence, since it wasn't real, we could understand and root for, and in real life, we're torn between "those people got what they deserved, the law couldn't/wouldn't work" and "you shouldn't take the law in your own hands." Yeah.

I enjoyed these characters, Alex with the broken family and the violence, Peekay or Claire, the Preacher's kid who was raised with good values and is testing the limits, Jack, knowing he hasn't always made the best decisions, but is trying to do better!

The depictions of the kids dealing with these subjects, rape, assault, and these situations was genuine. I could see teens acting like that in real life, it felt real. And the way that the adults acted with the subject, was intelligent and I hope there's more of these people in real life!

There were some really hard parts to read in this book. How some people were treated, but mostly, for me, the cases at the shelter. The animals were either mistreated, abandoned, or killed. And that was just horrible-I love my dogs, I plan to adopt from shelters, and yeah, those parts were hard to read!

I guess I should've known that there wasn't going to be a happy ending. After all, it starts with Alex killing someone. But on the whole, the world was better in the end then in the beginning, if missing a vital piece, it's still going on, and there's more awareness and understanding, less double standards, and girls sticking up for other girls! So that was great!

Absolutely loved this book, another fantastic Mindy McGinnis book, and I can't wait to read the next one! (Though I still have to read In a Handful of Dust!)

Author: Mindy McGinnis
Read: July 23rd, 2016
Source: Edelweiss
Reason Why: Love her writing! And it's a SAC 2016 Book and a WoW Book!
Publisher: Katherine Tegan Books
Expected Publication: September 20th 2016

5/5 Hearts

5/5 Books

5/5 Stars