Andrews McMeel Publishing Sad Girls

I had high expectations for this book. I'd seen a lot of hype touting the book as an accurate portrayal of living with anxiety, and as a poignant but exciting coming of age story.Yeah, no.The main problem I had with Sad Girls, is that it fundamentally fails at saying anything interesting because all the characters get what they want without having to try. One minute they're kids on the brink of that confusing, painful yet wonderful time at the end of adolescence, the next they have successful careers and are living independently in very comfortable surroundings. It read like a childish fantasy of what post high school life is like, a series of unbelievable opportunities falling into their laps as and when needed. There is no growth or character development in between. Leav repeatedly creates problems for her characters and then quickly explains them away without having to delve into the consequences. Candela's downward spiral for example - the possible lesbian subtext of her relationship to Ana is never explored and seems to only function as a lazy plot device to make us more sympathetic to Audrey moving in on Rad, Ana's boyfriend before her death. It's conveniently forgotten when Leav needs to use Candela for another purpose - her wedding to her now miraculously clean ex-junkie boyfriend that forces Audrey to come back to Australia.It's not just Candela who serves as a one-dimensional prop for the improbable trajectory of Audrey's narrative either. All the supporting characters are flat and undeveloped. Lucy's only purpose seems to be to parrot information through dialogue that a more skilled writer would find a more subtle way to communicate to the reader, besides having a rich uncle of course. Gabe teaches Audrey to drive during her time in Colorado, and then politely exits her life after he has served his purpose without a hint of anger or resentment towards her. Read the book if you want to find out what happens to poor Freddie.Then there's the question of Audrey's anxiety. She is shown to suffer from crippling panic attacks, but they conveniently go away unless needed to play on for sympathy. Any meaningful exploration of anxiety disorders becomes completely buried by the convoluted narrative to the point that it makes up nothing more than a forgotten subplot. Audrey never conquers her demons or achieves any realistic recovery. It seems like anxiety is just a buzzword attached to the novel to appeal to its target audience, the chronically mentally-addled millennial.The lie which frames the entire novel almost seems like an unnecessary conceit in the context of understanding Audrey’s anxiety. Without it Sad Girls would have a much better shot of being an authentic examination of the growing pains of post adolescence; Audrey doesn’t need to be secretly responsible for the death of her love interests’ girlfriend to have a lot going on inside her head. As it is, we’re confronted with the characters’ unconvincing reactions to Audrey’s very dubious lie.It didn't make any sense to me. Instead it serves to facilitate the Bonnie and Clyde plot twist at the end, which leaves a very bitter taste after the nonsense you’ve already endured. Rad and Audrey do not deserve their happy ending, although I sense that Leav wants us to accept it as justified by her callous attitude to Ana in the diary entry at the end, in which she is a portrayed as sneering and promiscuous.Honestly, by the second half of the book I was just hate-reading it. I give it two stars though because despite the incredible plot twists and terrible characters, it wasn't horribly written and parts of it were really quite lovely.

I've been a long time fan of Lang but the plot of this book is awful. No character development, the secondary characters are just plot devices. There was no real explanation for the lie and the ending was just a whole WTF situation!! The protagonist doesn't even get real consequences from her actions. Really disappointed with the story. I expected more.

We bought this book for our book club after seeing a review of it somewhere. None of us wanted to finish it - the writing is terrible and juvenile, the story non existent. I wouldn't recommend this to anyone.

Bow down to Lang!! Im in love with this book and all of langs books because wow.

From the first page right through i found this novel gripping. Lang Leav creates such an amazing image of these characters and settings through her use of words. Read this book 5 or 6 times and will never ever get bored of it. Definitely one of my all time favourites.