I loved this Heathers-ish spoof!! What a fun yet dramatic read. The murder paired with steep personal growth and fluctuating friendships made for the perfect concoction of thriller and coming of age YA. I loved the characters, the tension and antagonism, and the culminating catastrophe of the ending.

There's quite a bit to unpack from this dark and dangerous story of female friendship similar and very different which feels like [book:The Female of the Species|25812109] mixed with a little [book:Cheer Up: Love and Pompoms|55711045] and everything in between. It's about two friends who are close and when one seemingly leaves their tightknit friendship for the cheerleading friendship of the three Chloes, things get real real fast and it's not good. There's a murder. And plenty of therapy afterward.

It's also got a little Kit Frick in it and feels menacing that many would love to dig in to as readers.

"The Falling Girls" by Hayley Krischer deals with the intense friendship between Shade and Jadis and how once they become friends with other people, it starts falling apart. There's cheerleading, three Chloes and a murder to solve!

I fell in love with Krischer's writing style. The writing is moody and sets a dark-ish atmosphere right away. It reminded me of how Nina LaCour's novels make me feel: sad, devastated, but always intrigued. I read this book in just a couple of hours, because I literally needed to keep turning the pages. That's a big plus point for a mystery, I'd say!

There's Jewish (Shade) and sapphic representation (Jadis and her girlfriend are lesbians). I feel like the matter concerning the pressure of having to come out to be in a queer relationship (re: Jadis' girlfriend) could have been handled a little better though.

I think one of the book's main messages is that friendships can be toxic and unhealthy. That's a good thing for teens to realise.

I did, however, not always enjoy the portrayal of women in this book. Almost all mothers are presented negatively, they either don't care about their children or push them into eating disorders. Shade's mum was presented as a pretentious feminist, who isn't able to take care of her daughter they way she deserves to. I feel like there could have been a bit more variety.

But then again, I loved that there was no romantic subplot for Shade. It wasn't necessary for the plot at all (romance is never necessary!) - it was refreshing to have the focus on other topics.

In the author's note, Krischer mentions the awful practices of racism and sexual harassment that oftentimes occur in cheerleading, but unfortunately the novel itself doesn't really comment on those issues. There's a lot of criticism of the lack of safety measures and the demand for people to be thin in cheerleading - so why stop at that?

I think "The Falling Girls" is an interesting and beautifully written novel that you should give a chance if you're into mysteries.


Thanks Prhinternational for the free book.

This was unfortunately a DNF for me. I was hoping for something dark like Heathers. This was just far too slow for my liking. It spends a lot of time describing the cheerleading practices but I did not find those scenes interesting at all.

4/5 stars, not what I was expecting!

<i> Thank you Penguin Teen for the arc through Netgalley and the physical copy in exchange for an honest review! </i>

The story of this book was a lot different than what I was expecting, but I think that's actually a good thing. I only went into this knowing it was about a group of girls on the cheerleading team, and detailing their time on it. It's a story about murder, jealousy, hate, complicated friendships, and the threats of young adulthood.

The story follows Shade and Jadis, two best friends who are literally everything to each other. So when Shade makes the decision to join the school cheerleading team, a dream since she was little, Jadis can hardly recognize her best friend. Shade loves the feeling of falling into the group, and is finding herself drawn to the three Chloes--the three insufferable girls who run the squad. Their leader's dark side is just as compelling as it is her public side. But Jadis doesn't want her friend to go as easily, and when one of the cheerleaders dies under mysterious circumstances Shade is determined to get to the bottom of her death.

My shock from the story going a separate way from what I was thinking might have to with me not reading the full synopsis. I have gone out on a limb in the past year with a few ARCs, (advanced reader copies), as I wanted to expand my reading tastes. This was one that I just wanted to try out but I am generally glad I did. As I said before, it was a lot more than what I was expecting.

There were just a few things I had problems with, one being the pacing at some parts of the book. For the majority, it felt very compelling and I wanted to keep reading. But there were a few moments in the story I just, did not feel invested. Plot points seemed to jump out and then the pacing of the mysterious aspects leveled out. I think that this is something that comes with practice though, and for a debut novel it really wasn't that bad.

Most of the characters were very interesting to read about, Shade was pretty much your average teenage girl but she had a drive to her I admired. Even the three Chloes, the obvious heathers of the story, were compelling and had layers to them. Jadis was a bit cliche, and I really didn't like her as a person but acknowledged her traumas & what she went through. I think everyone in this book had a little bit of a splinter in them, of trauma or discomfort in the general lives. Which is usually how real life goes, so I appreciated the representation of that being so real.

A few of my favorite things about this book include the descriptions of her cheerleading practice, and the author's show of toxic friendships. I am a dancer myself so I can always relate to other athletes, and I really enjoy seeing how others do things. I read a book earlier this year about cross country runners, and now this, and one thing we all seem to have in common is the feeling of adrenaline. When the authors describe it through the characters, I know exactly what they mean, which is really nice to relate to, even if it seems boring to some. There is also an abundance of toxic friendships in this book, and the author addresses that towards the end. You can love someone and they can be bad for you, so sometimes you must love them at a distance. That's something that happens all to often in real life and I did appreciate the author sending that message.

Overall, an okay story one that I had a fun time reading. I probably won't think about it that often in the future, so I might have to bring the rating down. And yet I did enjoy my time reading it when I really got into it.

[TW: alcohol use, drug use, death of a friend, death of a parent, being drunk, head injuries, overdosing]

Shade and Jadis are best friends who don’t fit the mold of being “popular.” When Shade decides to join the cheerleading team, Jadis is shocked. Shade falls into the orbit of the Three Chloes: the girls who rule the cheer squad. Suddenly Jadis is feeling threatened.

The Falling Girls delves into the sometimes toxic relationships that teenage girls endure while trying to fit in. It also touches on the importance of healthy relationships, and how the people you surround yourself with can shape who you become. The story is a slow-burn. It picked up the pace for me during the second half, which is when a cheerleader dies and her death is a mystery. Keeping track of the Three Chloes got confusing and at times took away from the story, in my opinion. Overall, The Falling Girls was an enjoyable YA read, but I was wanting a little more mystery and intrigue.

NUTSHELL:
Two best codependent best friends struggle to keep their friendship when one tries out for cheerleading and the other becomes a suspect in a cheerleader's murder.

REMINDS ME OF:
"Heathers" directed by Lehmann meets Netflix's "Cheer"

PLUS SIDE:
+ The characters were all so interesting (like seriously intriguing, I think I'm obsessed with one, guess which one) and had really realistic (if, toxic) relationships with each other and their family members.
+ The social media presence of this novel was really well done. It actually felt like real posts and real viral videos that could actually have occurred around a scandal like this one.
+ The author obviously did her research on cheerleading terms and stunts because the writing was very vivid and precise.... and there is an entire plot point that requires the author to have chosen the correct stunt where a specific error would cause a very specific outcome she needed to happen within the plot. She nailed it right on the head!

NEGATIVE SIDE:
- I think it was a little too obvious what the outcome would be by the time the ending (slowly) rolled around, but she did have me guessing a bit at the initial incidence of the death.
- The ending really did seem slow. The death didn't even happen until halfway through the book, but the first half still felt a lot more action-oriented and fast-paced than the last. Maybe it was the inevitable void left behind from the death of a wonderfully dynamic character.
- I found it highly unbelievable that it took so long for a video to be procured of the stunt gone awry. I know it is a small incident considering the entirety of the plot, but I feel like that injustice, in today's constantly vlogging world, would have been uncovered and rectified LONG before it was.

It’s no secret that friendships can be tough at times. For Shade, the protagonist in The Falling Girls, her closest friend is a girl named Jadis, someone who knows Shade like the back of her hand. They trust each other implicitly, so much so that though they are only in high school, one of their favorite things to do is come up with and give each other new stick-and-poke tattoos. Change can often make or break things though, and Shade has just made what seems like a very out of character decision for her–to join her school’s cheer-leading squad. Jadis is certain she has heard her best friend wrong, cheer-leading is so not their scene. Shade seems really into her new hobby though, and it is soon clear that she isn’t going to quit any time too soon. Even when she doesn’t get super welcoming vibes from the rest of the squad, Shade is determined to enjoy herself and do well at the sport. Teenage girls can be nasty to each other, and Shade sees this first-hand many times throughout the book. Especially when it comes to the “three Chloe’s”, three girls all with the name Chloe and all on the cheer squad. Shade is already dealing with the stress of having her friendship with her best friend be on the brink of disaster, so when the school dance comes up and Jadis says she is planning to go, Shade is hopeful that maybe her bestie is coming around. Then something unimaginable happens at the dance and Shade begins to question all of her friendships and wonder if there is anyone she can trust.

Review of a Digital Advance Reading Copy Provided by the Publisher

I really enjoyed the concept of this book! Not only was I hooked by the first chapter, but the personalities and dialogue between the characters really kept me turning pages. I think a lot of readers will be able to relate to the concept of friendships between teenage girls in this novel; it seems to be a universal experience.

When I first starting reading this book I was really scared I wasn't going to like it. It just didn't seem like my type of book once I started it... but man oh man, how wrong was I. I devoured this book in little under three hours in one sitting. Once I started, I just couldn't stop. There is just something about the Choles that just sucked you in. Such a strange dynamic but its so fascinating. It states clearing in the blurb that there is a murder, I spent half the book with theories as to who it was going to be. But it was obvious. It had to be her. Hayley does a fantastic job of twisting the story around so you are questioning everything. Who did it. Why? What happened?

And there is so much character development between Jadis and Shade, at the very beginning they are 'the same people, just with different hair' and they are so tightly woven together that you don't know where one starts and the other begins. This book is a master at giving you an insight to what could happen to two people too tightly twined together. The hurt and the betrayal and the questions.

I wish I could read it again for the first time, just to experience it again. This book is like a song with a pumped up beat, but darrkkkkkk lyrics and I loved it.

(Also always a fan of another Hayley, even if they do spell it a little differently thank I do lolol)

I think this book realistically portrayed the dynamics of female friendships/relationships and how toxic they can sometimes become, The characters were well developed, and there was a definite twist figuring out how Chloe died.

'The Falling Girls': 4⭐

(Unpaid Review: thank you to @netgalley, @hayleykrischer and the publishers for allowing me to read this eArc copy in exchange for a review.)

I can describe this book in just a few words: HeAtHeRs, female representation, queer representation and the importance of female relationships.

I mean, when you were a teen in high school, didn't you have that best friend, who was a girl and you looked up to her like she was everything you wanted to be? If you say no, I don't believe you! A very important YA to be read in every mood, in every season!

Thank you to Netgalley and Penguin Teen for an arc of this book.

When Shade decides to join the cheer team, her best friend, Jadis is not happy with her change of tune. But things quickly get weird as the three Chloe's begin to encompass more of Shade than just her afterschool time. When The Chloes, Shade, and Jadis all take molly at the homecoming dance, it's supposed to be a way for them to bond. Instead, it ends in someone's death...but whose fault was it.

Whooo this is a dark book about Cheerleading. I loved reading about how utterly toxic all these girls were and how all-encompassing everything that happened to them was. It is so incredibly dramatic and so fun to read. Really interesting true case of murder that this was inspired by, too!

I really liked the character depth in this one! Honestly, all of these characters are disasters but I loved reading about them. Shade is especially interesting! Great book.

Content Warnings
Graphic: Drug abuse, Drug use, Toxic friendship, Murder, Death, Injury/injury detail, and Bullying

There’s something about the paradoxical camaraderie and competitiveness of a cheerleading squad that makes them attractive to novelists. The Falling Girls is a compelling novel about young women’s friendships wrapped up in a cheerleading/mystery package.

Shade and Jadis are so close they’re like “the same person but with different hair.” But Shade has always been fascinated by cheerleading and decides to join the squad even though Jadis is not interested and is less than supportive. Shade quickly gets swept up by the tight world of the cheerleaders, in particular the alpha trio of three girls called Chloe.

Shade and Jadis’s friendship begins to crack as Shade devotes herself to becoming a flyer. Meanwhile Chloe Orbach, the alpha Chloe, takes up Shade much to the displeasure of the other Chloes. But after the homecoming dance in which Chloe Orbach dies under mysterious circumstances Shade wonders whether it really was an accident or did someone want her dead?

The author does an excellent job of capturing those breathlessly overwrought teen girl friendships as girls transition from their families into their adult selves. The whispering secrets, the gutwrenching overanalysis of a single text or comment, the intensity of the need for your best friend to always be your best friend has its reward in the closeness of the friendship and its agony in any threat to it.

I enjoyed the inside cheerleading passages about different poses and positions. The author doesn’t explain them all and I had to look them up but it felt authentic and an entree into this much maligned world. The girls are tough on themselves and each other but there’s no overt eating disorders or bullying. Their need to succeed and their desire for respect come through clearly.

But all of these good things need a plot to hang themselves on and that’s where I felt the novel fell a little short. The mystery feels just a bit too much like something that happens in a book and Shade’s urge to get to the truth didn’t quite ring true. For my money Kara Thomas does this sort of girl-on-the-edge focused novel just a bit better, but this is certainly worth your time.

Thanks to Razorbill and NetGalley for the digital review copy.

The Falling Girls, a cross between the Heathers and Bring It On, is a fast pace teen drama that explores the deeply obsessive and unhealthy friendship of BFF’s Jadis and Shade. The novel scrutinizes high school, competition, and ultimately murder. A fun read!

** I received an electronic ARC from NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review of this book.

Toxic (and even obsessive) relationships between teens are especially necessary to address in the age of social media. It definitely plays out in the classroom as well as after school activities. I read THE FALLING GIRLS with great interest and appreciated the nod to "Heathers" with The Chloes. However, something about this story (or perhaps the writing) never drew me in. I didn't feel the intensity I expected based on the book's premise. Perhaps it's not for me because I'm not a teen, but this book is not one I'll be using or recommending in my creative writing classes.

Oh, one other note: the hints at queerness of side characters felt like an attempt to include a trend or reach an additional audience. However, it felt a lot like the queer baiting on TV shows. Because of this, I absolutely will not recommend it to my LGBTQIAP+ writing groups.

The Falling Girls is what happens when friendships get a little too intense and jealousy rears its head. Shade has always wanted to be a cheerleader but she knows her best friend Jadis won't be happy. The squad is run by three girls named Chloe who can both make you feel special or bring you to tears depending on the day. When a cheerleader dies suspiciously, Shade starts doubting everyone around her.

I couldn't put this book down. At first, I thought it was just a coming of age sort of book where Shade was finding herself, but then a cheerleader died, turning it into so much more. I loved how you could imagine more than one of the characters being the murderer since they all had one reason or another. There was a lot of juxtaposition between Shade and Jadis, especially with their family situations and how they deal with their problems. I found myself so frustrated at times with how Shade's friends acted and wished she had just one normal one to keep her grounded. The fact that there were three Chloes but I could always tell which one was which was so cool, their differing personalities really helped bring them to life. It was strange to feel sympathy for each of them but also get so annoyed with them. I honestly didn't predict the ending, I had been tricked into thinking someone else was responsible. For me, this was a 5/5.

If you like murder mysteries where everyone has motive, want to see who stabs who in the back, or have ever wanted to get matching tattoos with your best friend, this is the one for you.

I received a digital copy of this book free from Penguin Young Readers Group and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This book had potential. Cheerleader murder mysteries always sound fun. But this was so boring. So predictable. So contrived. There was nothing that made this stand out to me. It’s heathers meets mean girls meets 2010 Wattpad novel—but I’ve enjoyed things I’ve read on Wattpad much more than this. I didn’t like Shade. I didn’t like any of the Chloes. I didn’t like Jadis. I couldn’t get myself to care about any of the characters, none of them had real motives, and the killer was extremely predictable and also really didn’t make sense as the killer except for the fact that the “foreshadowing” was really just making it so obvious that it was that person. None of the characters had personalities, motives, goals, or lives outside of the cliche roles they played.

I also had an issue with the writing. It was painful for me to read. I think that’s more about it not being my style than a fault of the author. At least 80% of the story was told through internal monologue and narrative summary from Shades POV with very little dialogue or like, active action. Which not only do I find boring in general when books are narrated this way, but because I didn’t like Shade’s character, it became borderline intolerable at points.

Also, Shade had so much chemistry with every girl she became close to. She kept saying she was straight, but I kept expecting her to hook up with Jadis and/or Chloe Orbach the whole first half of the book. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, it was just a weird strand of the story that was never elaborated on at all—I’m not sure the author even did it on purpose.

So, would I recommend this book? No. I didn’t enjoy it, but if you think it’s something you’d really enjoy and the things I pointed out don’t bother you, it could be worth a shot.

*Special thanks to Turn the Page Tours and Razorbill for providing me with a finished copy of The Falling Girls!*

This book was such a wild ride! I didn't expect it to be nearly so dark, but it actually had some mystery vibes and could almost be considered a thriller. It dove deep into exploring adolescent friendships between girls and the darker, all-consuming side of these relationships. This book dealt heavily with toxic and codependent friendships, which was a little hard for me to read about at times; it is a very important topic, though, which I haven't seen much in YA literature, so I'm glad that this book tackled these issues head-on. I also found the cheerleading aspect of this story really interesting! This book gave an insider's look into the world of high school cheerleading, exploring both the positive and problematic aspects of it.

The characters were very interesting, although I unfortunately can't say that I liked any of them (except for sweet Zoey!). I felt like our protagonist, Shade, was slightly boring and frustrating sometimes. However, this book did do a good job of portraying her experience with the difficulty of navigating unhealthy relationships. The three Chloes were the most interesting characters to read about, mainly because they were so audacious. At first they seemed very similar, almost the same person, but over the course of the first half of the book their differences were revealed and I began to view them as three separate people. The author did a good job of making them different enough from one another that they could be told apart, despite having the same first name.

​This book had lots of surprises and tackled many important issues. There were many moments when I was suspicious of nearly all the characters! Some things that happened were genuinely shocking. Additionally, I enjoyed the author's notes in the acknowledgements about her inspiration behind many elements of this story.

Thank you to Penguin teen and Netgalley for an eARC in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

In a similar vein to The Heather, The Falling Girls explores female friendships, how these relationships can become codependent/unhealthy and how the end of such formative relationships affects them.

I really thought this was going to be a cutesy little romance/contemporary story. What a got was a lot darker than that. This even borders on a thriller at times. What I know for certain is that this book blew my expectations out of the water and took me on a ride I wasn't expecting.

I loved the focus on female friendship, how important friendships are and how ugly it can get when those relationships turn bad or end. This book centers several friend relationships and I loved seeing how all of them were explored. Shade was such a great narrator. I loved how we saw her grow into herself and become more confident after she joined the cheer team. Cheerleading is absolutely a sport and I will fight anyone who says differently.

This book also has very little romance. The only romance is between side characters in relationships. I liked that friendship got the spotlight here compared to romance. It's such a nice switch for a YA contemporary.

Rep: female MC, lesbian female side character, sapphic female side character, Indian-American female side character, Black female side character.

CWs: Alcohol consumption (underage), blood, body shaming, bullying, death, drug use, drug overdose, emotional abuse, fatphobia, gaslighting, grief, injury/injury detail, murder, toxic friendship/codependency.