If you like your Mean Girls very mean with a side of cheating and drugs, you'll enjoy this one. It's thrilling.

The Accidental Bad Girl is unfortunately not for me. I had tried this book and set it down in hopes of one day coming back to it, but now it is time to mark as DNF.

This sounded like such a far-fetched concept even to begin with, and unfortunately the ridiculousness continued into the novel itself.

I LOVED this book. I went in totally blind and absolutely fell in love. I definitely thought it was going to be a typical YA book, but it ended up being a fun action/thriller novel. I highly recommend this one.

I wanted to like this book... I *tried* to like this book but it just was not in the cards for me. I went in with rather low expectations and still walked away disappointed - that's just sad. One major contributor to that decision was the insane amount of slut-shaming that took place. I figured there would be some with the title and blurb, but it was done in such a way that did not sit right with me. Granted, Kendall's character was not going to apologize for anything (and she shouldn't have to) but she just always rubbed me the wrong way. I couldn't get behind her and I wanted to.

Another thing that lead to my decision to not like this one was how plot heavy and driven the story was. I'm okay with a good mix of plot and character driven, but this story was all plot, all the time. One plot revelation would be made, and another, and another, and another, and you get it. It was becoming comical and ridiculous.

Simply put: this book had zero idea what it wanted to be when it grew up. It was as if it was going off of a check list of ideas that would be cool, but instead of picking one or three, *every single one was checked*. Mystery/thriller? CHECK. Contemporary? CHECK. Coming of age? CHECK. Action? CHECK. It absolutely did not work. It needed to pick one, maybe two, and stick with that.

This book sucked me in from the beginning. I’d consider it mature YA - it deals with slut shaming women and there are a lot of mentions of drug use. I appreciated that it dealt with more mature subject matter that teens deal with nowadays.

Kendall's experience reminded me a lot of my own high school experience. It's terrible to have people think something about you when it isn't even true. This book hit so close to home.

Damn! What a book! When I requested this novel, I was expecting a fun typical YA novel. What I was not expecting was the amount of depth this baby carried. There was a large amount of current issues covered in this book such as; slut shaming, drugs, rape and more. I also want to add that I think the cover is just as badass as the book! I highly recommend this one!

I don't know what I was expecting, but it certainly wasn't a book so deep as this one. It's a scathing indictment of society featuring a badass young woman that is perfect for the times in which we live. Highly recommended!

Our 'hero', begins her senior year without any friends, having been kicked out of the popular gang after being caught very publically making out with her best friend's ex. This is only the beginning of her troubles, as she gets framed for stealing from a drug dealer. Suddenly, she's a "bad girl", trying to deal with new friends, enemies, detectives and the underbelly of drug culture at her private school.
This was a really fantastic book, which tackled issues from drugs and friendships to slut-shaming and rape culture. It's like an edgier version of Mean Girls, and doesn't take the direction you expect. It showcases the way that no one is fully 'good' or 'bad', There are some really fun characters and great friendships in this book, and some thoughtful takes on gender inequality. A really interesting read.

3.75

The Accidental Bad Girl by Maxine Kaplan is an entertaining, action packed YA contemporary that has a lot to say. After reading the blurb and the first few pages of the story, I thought I knew the type of book it was going to be and the direction it was going to take, but I couldn't have been more wrong. Maxine isn't your stereotypical "bad girl," and the focus of this novel is much more than "mean girls" and bullying. It brings up a variety of serious topics relevant not just to the young adult audience of the book but to society in general. 

Don't worry though, there isn't a heavy or melancholy feel throughout the novel. The characters provide lots of entertainment, laughs, and heartwarming moments that make the story feel lighter than it might have otherwise. At times, this book actually seems  a bit over the top and unrealistic, but that contributes to the milder atmosphere of the novel as well. Before going in, you need to be prepared to suspend disbelief, but if you can, there is a lot to appreciate about this story. 

Kendall is a part of the popular crowd at  school until she's discovered by her classmates in a compromising position with her best friend's ex-boyfriend. Cue the mean girl behavior and slut shaming from friend and company, but that's not all! Kendall's Facebook has been hacked. 

Her mysterious hacker manages to get her into some hot water with a local drug dealer. Someone stole some of their product, and now that the finger has been pointed in Kendall's direction, she's being blackmailed into working for him by helping to find out who the actual thief is and delivering his product. It doesn't take long for things to spiral out of control, or for Kendall to find out she's in much more danger than she ever realized.

The constant action and mystery involved in the story sucked me in, intrigued me, and had me questioning everything until the very end. The uncertainty of not just the situation but the characters themselves kept me flipping the pages long after I should have gone to bed. The ending was wild! I don't see how anyone could put the book down after a certain point. My curiousity would never allow me to leave myself hanging like that. Lol 

Who hacked Kendall's Facebook? Is that who stole the drugs in the first place? What kind of drug is she actually delivering anyway? Is everyone really who they say they are? Who can she trust? Can she trust anyone?

The Accidental Bad Girl tackles slut shaming, gender double standards/sexism, sexual assault, rape culture, bullying, friendship, drug abuse, and self acceptance. It does it in a manner that doesn't weigh you down, but the author doesn't shy away from getting serious when the story requires it. 

The only place I was disappointed was in the romance department. I wasn't thrilled with the way that aspect of the story went, but I admit that I see how it makes sense for the book. Some people might actually find it refreshing! 

Overall, this was an enjoyable read that was easy to get into. I admire the way the author was able to put so many great messages into one book. It's a lot to try to juggle, and I think that she did a pretty good job of it for a debut author. I'll definitely check out more of her work in the future. 

YA fans, I recommend this one to you!

The Accidental Bad Girl by Maxine Kaplan was a surprise read. I never expected to like it so much and also wasn’t aware that this book deals with some important issues like slut-shaming and drug intake. I thought it to be some high-school based teenage drama but this book was more than that.

This story is about Kendall Evans. Her start of the senior year in high school is already rocky because of an incident that took place in the Junior year. She was caught in the school half-naked with her best friend’s ex-boyfriend, Grant. Now everyone has made the distance from her even her best friend Audrey. Then she comes to know that her Facebook profile has been hacked and in the process of finding the hacker, she finds herself in the middle of some shady drug dealers. Mason, the drug dealer starts blackmailing her to find out his missing drugs or he will make sure that Kendall doesn’t attend the Space program which was her dream. She made friends with Simone and Gilly in this whole mess up and with their help, she tries to get out of this situation and to recover her image of "bad girl".

** I really liked Kendall’s character. She is a badass female character, the one who refuses to be labeled by the gossip surrounding her. She somehow reminded me of Serena from Gossip Girl 😀 Kendall is not always an easy and likable girl. She is mean and at times she even doesn’t realize that. Even though she intentionally doesn’t try to be mean, she if often the part of it because she doesn’t try to stop her friends from being mean to others.
** I really loved that Maxine Kaplan never tried to prove the character of Kendall as a good one. She was as flawed as her so-called friends. Initially, I was not sure that whether she would be able to get out of her circle and would redeem herself. But in the end we get to see that how despite making bad choices one after another, she wasn’t an unlikeable character.
** I loved Simone. Meeting and befriending her was like a turning point for Kendall. She started seeing the things from a different angle and rocked her image of the bad girl, with the newly found new girl, fantastically.
** This book centers around drug dealing and Kendall’s involvement in it. It shows the real issue that our teenagers are facing these days. This drug issue is a real threat this book highlights how a teenager gets involved in this circle.
** Apart from drug use, there is also a lot of thoughtful discussion on rape and rape culture, during the second half of the book. Surely, I never thought the story to contain this, but it definitely works as an advantage to the story.
** The best thing that you can take from this book is the thing that as much as girls/women feel independent, there is always this stigma of jealousy and making others feel low. In this male-dominated world, girls cursing others, fighting over boys and even slut-shaming, is the thing that needs to be avoided.
** The slut-shaming issue is also an important issue which many girls have faced. While the boys get a free pass, it’s always the girl who has to suffer from the consequences.
** This book also focusses on the misuse of social media and tries to make aware the readers to ensure the safety of their accounts.
** The mystery thrown in the story is quite good. I kept it guessing till the end that who the real culprit was. I was really shocked to know the person behind hacking Kendall’s profile.
** Mason was a perfect villain this story needed. He was charming, witty and manipulative and knew his ways to make anyone believe him.
** With so many strong characters, character development is definitely the strongest point of this book. We see so many changes in almost all the characters journey and I loved seeing how they evolved throughout the story.
** The story was super fast and well written, so it doesn’t give you time to get bored.


** The biggest problem that I have with this book is that there was so much going on. This story was too plot-heavy. I love a story with a good plot, but here sometimes I felt that there were so many things going on and that too in a fast pace and I was unable to grab all the details.
** Also, we can see that because of this fast-paced thing, the ending got little disruptive. Though all the things bound up nicely, I wish it was little slower for the better understanding. there was too much info to gather.
** The romance was clearly not done in the best way. But I think that because the focus of the story was different, it is okay.

Overall, The Accidental Bad Girl was a great read and it exceeded my expectations. It is a story about one girl’s journey into finding herself and accepting who she is without thinking much of what others say, and it is well-executed. With so many issues talked about, Maxine Kaplan has done a wonderful job and we can see that her writing is fierce and unapologetic. I definitely recommend this book.

You know when you read a book blurb and you think ok yeah this seems kinda fun and then you read it and you are completely blown away. That just happened!

I mean I was expecting that I would enjoy it but I didn’t realise that I would fly through it in two days desperate to find out what happened next, cursing when I had to put it down for work or sleep, or that it would have some pretty relevant messages.

Let’s start with Kendall, she’s not your typical goody two shoes or badass at the beginning, she’s a girl with flaws and vices but as the story progresses she finds out what she is capable of and how to use what she has to get what she needs. Even though she ends up doing some dodgy things she still has a moral compass and is often trapped between knowing what she should do and how that’ll affect other people.

I loved her, she often references the girl in the picture (which you will understand if you read the book) but I liked how she could essentially become anyone she wanted and she realised that it wasn’t a mask as such but just a different side to the same person.

Simone is another amazing character, she’s unapologetic even though she gets written off by the rest of the school. She has this amazing self – reflection that bolsters her confidence and her strength is unbelievable. Even though he is not the good guy at all I also liked Mason, his charm, wit and manipulation, he knows he’s not a good guy but can lull you into a false sense of security and I liked how he sparred with Kendall.

The writing was snappy and didn’t feel too overly dramatic, which I feel can happen sometimes in YA and the story was super fast paced and involved a lot more than I expected. There were some pretty important messages about slut-shaming not only towards other people but reflecting that back on yourself, the inequality between boys and girls and how other people perceive them and the injustice of how that effects judgment. As well as the thrilling aspect of who is framing Kendall and what she’ll have to do next.

There was only one bit that I was a little let down by and that was the event at the end, there had been a fairly constant pace throughout the whole book but the ending sped up a bit and what happened came a little out of the blue. Not that it affected my enjoyment I just felt maybe it was one step a tiny bit too far.

I absolutely loved this book and I am so glad that it came under my radar, I will most definitely be looking out for any future Maxine Kaplan books.

BOOK REPORT for The Accidental Bad Girl by Maxine Kaplan

Cover Story: Rizzo Vibes
BFF Charm: Yay
Swoonworthy Scale: 6
Talky Talk: Straight Up
Trigger Warnings: Rape, Drugs
Bonus Factor: Feminism
Relationship Status: Girl Gang

Cover Story: Rizzo Vibes

I’m always fond of covers that eschew typical stock photography in favor of bold type and even bolder symbolism. The color a girl chooses to paint her fingernails should have no bearings on her values, and yet red nail polish has become some sort of dog whistle for promiscuity. Here, the black and hot pink combined with the nail polish bottle are giving me strong Betty Rizzo vibes, and drawing inspiration from the queen of bad girls? Well, there are worse things a book could do.

The Deal:

Kendall Evans is hot, she comes from a well-to-do family, she makes good grades at her Brooklyn prep school, and she’s popular. At least, she was popular. Until the tail end of junior year when the entire senior class walked in on her hooking up with her best friend’s ex, Grant Powers. No one cared that Grant was hooking up with his ex’s best friend, but Kendall is starting her senior year completely ostracized. The one thing keeping her head above water is that she’s been accepted to an elite astronomy school and cannot wait to bail from Howell High in December to spend her final semester of high school in Texas.

But when someone hacks into her Facebook account and frames her for stealing drugs, Kendall finds herself in the middle of a tangled web of Ecstasy dealers, led by a Columbia student named Mason who is intent on turning Kendall into his protégé – even if he has to blackmail her to do it. Kendall has to tap into a side of herself she didn’t know existed, fueled by her anger at how she was treated after the Grant incident, to survive. Being the bad girl is surprisingly refreshing, until Kendall realizes she might be involved in something far worse than she ever imagined.

BFF Charm: Yay

When the school year starts, Kendall is a bit withdrawn. She’s so nervous about what people will think of her, fidgeting with the buttons on her cardigan because even the sight of cleavage will fuel the slut-shaming she’s received since hooking up with Grant. But once Kendall realizes that she doesn’t have to be ashamed, that she can be strong and confident and bad ass and angry—THAT Kendall DNGAF and shall henceforth have all my BFF Charms. There are few things as satisfying as watching a girl who has every right to be angry accept that anger, rip up all her cardigans, put on a pair of skin tight black jeans and dark red lipstick and face her damn day like a boss.

Swoonworthy Scale: 6

With few people to turn to in her new life as an outcast, Kendall suddenly starts to notice similar outcasts, including Michael Gilbert, or Gilly, who is a bit of a surly nerd and can usually be found in the dark depths of the auditorium, acting as stage manager for the theatre department. Gilly has long harbored a crush on Kendall, which makes him both a little resentful of her and a little cute around her. I had mixed feelings about Gilly. He was both a good friend to Kendall and, at times, just like Grant and Mason and every other guy in this book who felt he had some sort of ownership over her. Did that stop their swoony moments from being swoony? No. Well, not totally, at least.

Talky Talk: Straight Up

In form, The Accidental Bad Girl is your typical female-first-person contemporary. It’s fast-paced, fun, and has all the tenants of a good contemporary: a little bit of swoon, the formation of an awesome new friendship, familial ups and downs. But what makes this book surprising is its darkness and heavy subject matter. Maxine Kaplan is a private investigator (how cool is that?!), so the unexpected noir aspects of this book have a serious authenticity. This is a book that manages to give you both the things you love about contemporaries but also turns tropes on their heads, for a refreshing spin that will keep surprising you until the final pages.

Trigger Warnings: Rape, Drugs

While it’s probably obvious that this book deals heavily with drug usage, mostly Ecstasy, there is a lot of conversation about date rape drugs, and a plotline in which a character is drugged and raped, and that rape is videotaped. Discussion of rape is not a trigger for me and I still found it hard to read, so please tread lightly if these topics are triggers for you.

Bonus Factor: Feminism

Imagine, if you will, a book that takes a long, hard look at the way girls are treated for having sex, especially in comparison to the way that boys are treated for the same totally natural feelings. The Accidental Bad Girl tackles those issues head on and without apology. I kept highlighting passages that made me want to pump my fist in the air, like this one:

“What really killed me about this whole mess was that everything I was, everything I had ever been—athlete, honor student, class officer, friend, smart, social, responsible, funny—had been wiped out the second I had sex.”

Relationship Status: Girl Gang

Book, you’ve got moxie and a strong message that I’m 100% on board with. Let’s start a girl gang. I’ll get us matching jackets, if you’ll let me borrow your brass knuckles. We’ll do cool stuff like look out for each other and be supportive of one another’s goals. It’ll be so bad ass.

The Accidental Bad Girl will be available May 15, 2018.

I went into this one thinking it would be about a girl repairing her damaged reputation with a realistic fiction twist. However, the more I got into it, the more it seemed like a mystery as Kendall tries to figure out who is after her reputation and the deal she makes with Mason, the drug dealer. It was tough for me to get into the characters on this one. The relationships were a bit superficial, in my opinion. I didn't get to really know Kendall enough to care about her or what happened. I liked the concept of the book, but I think the description didn't match what the book was actually like.

I would probably give this book more like 2.5 than 3 stars. It was overall an okay read. My biggest problem was with Kendall at the beginning of the book, where the plot was set up. She was hacked, beaten up, and threatened by drug dealers for supposedly stealing some of their "doses," and then she was drugged and left outside her school by said drug dealer, and she said nothing to teachers or parents or friends. AND THEN she was blackmailed by the drug dealer to work for her to find who actually stole the doses, and so she actually does work for him! It got a bit better throughout, but I still found some parts a little too unbelievable. Despite this, Kendall is actually a kind of compelling, semi-likable character who seems more pretty realistic in other ways. She deals with identity and who gets to define her, friendships, her feelings toward sex and the double standards that society enforces on different genders, and how to move forward when things are not going well at all.

MY REVIEW OF THE ACCIDENTAL BAD GIRL

There was a lot about this book that I liked! So, first off: YES, this did have a VVV: very Veronica vibe. Kendall was snarky and funny. Like Veronica, she was also a popular girl turned social outcast, as she’s caught hooking up with her friend’s ex-boyfriend in a spectacularly public fashion. There was no love triangle with two troubled rich guys, but there was an intriguingly unexpected love interest. And there were teenagers involved in some very shady business.

READING THIS DID MAKE ME THINK ABOUT THE WHOLE “ACCIDENTAL BAD GIRL” CONCEPT.

I didn’t see Kendall that way, possibly because the story never really sets her up as a “good” girl. She was just a normal person who made choices, and, like all of us, some of her choices were better than others. The book does point out the very unfair double standard that, after getting caught with the friend’s ex, Kendall is branded as a slut, while the guy is cheered on. And when Kendall finds herself being blackmailed by a drug dealer, she begins to move in that world so comfortably that even the drug dealer seems surprised. I wouldn’t call her “bad” — she’s confident and fearless in a way that was great — at times.

There was another aspect to Kendall’s character that also would have been great … if it had been better integrated into the story. Early on, we find out she’s an aspiring astrophysicist who has been accepted to an elite semester program in Texas. I’m all for smart STEM girls in books, but this fact seemed to just be stuck in there to serve two plot points in the book. Kendall actually seemed to be an indifferent student who was constantly in danger of getting suspended or completely kicked out of school. If astronomy and astrophysics were really so important to her, I’d have liked to see that better reflected in the story. (For comparison, check out my review Starry Eyes, about a girl who is convincingly interested in this stuff.

But aside from that, The Accidental Bad Girl was a fun story with a Veronica vibe that raised issues about gender double standards. I liked the writing style and will definitely keep an eye out for this author’s future books!

I wanted to like this and I think it's a matter of expectations getting in the way. I just thought this would be something different than what it ended up being and I ended up not being invested in the story at all. For whatever reason, this one just didn't work for me. I read it about a week ago and I can't really think of much to say in this review, which I feel like says enough about my feelings on it.

*I received this book through Netgalley in exchange for an honest review*
2 stars

I don't exactly know how I got through this book. I was hoping for some mystery or a good girl fumbling through being a bad girl with some trusty sidekicks, but that isn't really what happens. So, I suppose me getting through it shows that it is somewhat gripping and written well.

I feel like even if I talk about the characters I'll be giving spoilers away, so let me just say I liked Simone (side character), but no one else... well, Mason, but I always like an interesting bad guy. Liking the main character is a huge point towards liking or disliking a book, so since I didn't truly like her, it didn't help the book. The thing is, I don't think we are supposed to really like her-- or thinking deeply about her might make the reader uncomfortable, I know looking at her has made me look deeper at myself. So, I didn't like it, which didn't help the book, yet she is such an interesting, real character.

The plot was okay, but I do wish she had listened to Gilly's advice in the beginning. The talk on slut-shaming, gender differences/inequalities, and rape is handled... mostly well, I think.

One thing I am happy about? The romance. I was so worried about who she would end up with, that the ending was refreshing.

Not sure who I'll recommend this to, but I do see the appeal, so eventually I might push this into someone's hands.

Not your regular contemporary YA.

3.5, because most of the plot was too surreal. But it deserved the round-up to 4.

Kendall isn't the queen bee but she's close enough when she gets herself involved in a big scandal along with her best friend's ex-boyfriend. Now everyone seems to either hate or avoid her. To make things worse, her Facebook account was hacked and attracted the attention of a dangerous drug dealer, who also happens to be really angry after having his "doses" stolen. Kendall is then blackmailed into finding out the culprit, probably the same person who hacked her into all the mess.

I was ready for some funny but romantic YA book and was pleasantly surprised by how seriously Maxine Kaplan took such a plot. Kendall really keeps getting in trouble and this damages her psyche, whom she believes to be, among so much else. Even though it's not really humor, the atmosphere is very light. You know it's serious but it's suffocating to read. You'll still have fun at how ridiculous Kendall's situation becomes.

The thing is, the author does own that it's a lot of bad luck for a girl who's always had it easy. But I don't think other parts were on purpose. I believe it was all too far-fetched, the stealing of the said "doses", the way some drug dealer would trust a highschooler to take care of that (among other things). Kaplan tries to explain what makes Kendall so unique but I didn't buy it. Because of that, at least the second third of the story I read rolling my eyes. This really made me miss a lot of the fun. It's just too much happening! After that part, though, it seems gets a hold again of everything and things get really serious.

I loved how many sides to the incident Kaplan explores, how she dialogues with all the issues present—although I felt she could have made a better counterargument to drug use. You start the story with one idea but it goes so much deeper. I liked that a lot.

Even though I never got it why so many people thought Kendall was that special, she was still a great heroine. It was actually easy to identify with her. She's fun, and she holds her head high, but she also makes mistakes and learns from them. I have no complaint there.

I recommend the book to those who are up to a YA with less romance and more action. It does have a little of the former but it's surely not the focus.

Honest review based on an ARC provided by Netgalley. Many thanks to the publisher for this opportunity.