The Payback Girls

February 1, 2025
After their cheating boyfriend ends up in a coma, three girls team up to avoid an attempted murder rap. Scholarship student Meghan Landry hoped senior year at a new school would be different, but even as star basketball player Nate Walker's girlfriend, she's friendless and a target of racist attacks. Meghan is happy with Nate, however, until a pep rally brawl reveals that he's three-timing her with his supposed exes, the only other Black girls in their class, Robin Ellison and Bria Kelly (Nate is "half-Black" and identifies as biracial). After an attack leaves Nate in a coma, the three girls, initially wary of each other, must work together when they become the investigation's prime suspects. But the appearance of a newGossip Girl-esque Instagram account leaves all three doubtful whom they can trust. Travis prioritizes drama to the detriment of plot, characterization, logic, and the exploration of the heavy and important topics the story introduces. Meghan and Robin explore a potential relationship with one another while Meghan weighs staying with Nate, but both these threads are underdeveloped. Themes of PTSD, intimate partner violence, gender, and race are also underexplored in this unevenly paced work that crosses several genres. The author attempts to shine a critical light on the racism Black women experience, but she does so with a heavy hand, flattening Black and white characters alike into stereotypes and missing nuances within the spectrum of Blackness. Well-intentioned but undermined by a lack of depth and focus.(Thriller. 14-18)

COPYRIGHT(2025) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

March 1, 2025
Grades 9-12 Meghan, a scholarship student at Burke High School and one of a handful of Black students, is constantly bullied and harassed by her boyfriend Nate's friends. Nate is the star of the basketball team, and his friends think that Meghan is "the wrong Black girl" for Nate. They also weaponize secrets from her past to bully her. Things turn tenuous when Meghan finds out that Nate never actually broke up with his two ex-girlfriends, Robin and Bria. The three girls couldn't be more different. Robin is a star athlete--the cocaptain of the field hockey team. Bria is the polished, outspoken, and focused school council president (not to mention openly hostile toward Meghan). Still, they form a tentative alliance to get revenge on Nate. But then Nate is assaulted and in a coma, with three potential weapons nearby, each pointing to one of the girls. They shift their alliance to finding out who hurt Nate. Meghan, the first-person narrator, is engaging and bright, and the plot is tightly written. Avid mystery and thriller readers will gobble this one up.

COPYRIGHT(2025) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

April 18, 2025

Gr 9 Up-Meghan is doing her best to fit in at a new school after a traumatic and disastrous junior year at her old school. This is easier said than done; she's attending a wealthy private school as both a scholarship student and one of the few Black students in the school. She thinks that dating star athlete Nate Walker will make things easier, but it only makes her a target of the wealthy, white "in" crowd. Then it comes out that Nate is dating two other girls as well. Not long after, Nate turns up unconscious and each of the girls are suspects. Meghan wishes she could rule herself out, but she doesn't have a clear memory of the last time she saw Nate. The girls end up having to work together to clear their names and figure out who took out their shared boyfriend. This novel has a compelling plot and cast of central characters, but unfortunately suffers from clunky transitions, hastily integrated plot points (some of which go nowhere), and undeveloped supporting (and somewhat interchangeable) characters who float in and out of loosely sketched scenes. Strong points of this debut thriller include integrating the subjects of racism, colorism, and classism in a way that adds extra tension and depth to the story. A queer romance that blossoms between two characters adds a fun spin on a typical narrative. VERDICT An optional purchase for school or public libraries looking to satiate increased demand for YA thrillers.-Joanna Harris

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