Pieces of this book deserved different star ratings...It averaged out to about 3 stars, though. I liked it overall. The point of the book was (and still is) a little fuzzy. Murder mystery / coming of age / paranormal / commentary on the treatment of Indians in Canada / rebellious (desperate) teenagers. It was all over the place but I liked the writing style and I did end up liking the main characters, Jenny and Tom.

Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin Random House Canada for a free digital galley of this book!

The story takes place in a small town, Thunder Creek. When Jenny’s best friend Chloe goes missing, the town turns out in force to assist in the search. When Helen, a girl from the local reservation goes missing, not much happens. The police are diligent in their search for Chloe, the child of wealthy white parents but slight resources are used in the search for the girl from the rez. I hate to say, typical, but sadly our world is still a work in progress and we’re not there yet. And we get to share some of Jenny's teenage angst, always an uncomfortable time. Descriptions and characters were fleshed out and believable.

The Lives of Desperate Girls by MacKenzie Common set out to do something really important and contained a lot of important and impactful messages. For that, I loved what this book stood for and what it was trying to accomplish.

Things started strong: two missing girls, one found dead, and the makings of a good murder mystery with some important racial and humanist overtones. Not to mention, this took place in a small northern Ontario (Canada) town, so it hit really close to home for me and focused on a lot of things I hear about regularly. But the further I read, the more problems I had with certain phrasing that made me, more than once, pause and cringe. Frankly, I didn’t like how this was written.

We have the lead character, Jenny, molded to be the one questioning the racist and questionable actions and reactions of the townsfolk who ultimately care more about a missing white girl than a murdered Native girl. She is the voice that is trying to bring awareness to a very real and unfortunate reality, but I found that a lot of her comments in regular conversation were so flippant and held these backhanded judgements or accusations. There were a lot of conversations that put a certain characteristic of someone into a really small cliched box and that, to me, defeats the purpose of trying to raise awareness of everyone else doing the same thing.

A lot of very sensitive subjects are touched upon here, including racism and prejudice, but also slut shaming and bullying. I have a read a lot of books about the later and have seen how delicately and still effectively these topics can be talked about and I just didn’t feel that here. Again, Jenny was defending her friend from being blacklisted as a whore, but in the next sentence, she would make a comment attributing certain actions as trashy and applying the same unfair judgement to someone else. It isn’t intentional, the book clearly tries to bring attention to this as a problem, but at the same time, the character trying to raise that awareness is doing the exact same thing over and over again. I had a really, really hard time getting past this.

I also had some issues with the descriptive prose; when speaking about the horrible murder, we were told endlessly that it was gruesome, but we were never made to feel that awfulness. The words used their definitions to tell us, as opposed to using other words to actually describe it to us, and I also have a big problem with just explaining as opposed to describing. I want to feel something, even if it’s something awful, not just be told how I should be feeling. 

But I don’t want to cut too much into this book because I honestly feel that it stands for something so good and what it’s trying to raise awareness about is a very real situation, especially in Canada, and this deserves the attention for trying to bring light to that.

​U​ltimately, the story itself is driven ​ and it definitely starts to find its footing more towards the end. I ​didn’t mind following Jenny on her travels to uncover the truth, even if I didn’t always agree with the actions she was taking to do so ​ (which opens up a whole other faucet of opinions on my end, but I will spare you this time).​ I felt that the core of the story was a worthwhile read, ​ though perhaps it took on a bit too many big topics to cover in one go, and​ there was just a lot of other stuff to get caught up on along the way that probably really took away from the overall feel of the book.

This is a beautifully written book that unfolds slowly. I've read some negative reviews about this one. I can't say that I don't agree with any of the points they make, but I still felt a bit surprised. It's not an action packed book, but I still enjoyed it so much. It made a lot of excellent points and featured some very poignant quotes, some of which I'll include in my review. Topics touched upon include racism, bullying, shaming, and rape. That's a lot for a book of only slightly over three hundred pages to cover, and I think it did it well.

Jenny is a sixteen year old girl missing her other half. Not a significant other... her best friend. She disappeared one winter night and nothing has been the same for Jenny since. Chloe left no note, no clues for her parents or the police as to her whereabouts. She simply vanished. The police hound Jenny for information, rightfully believing that she's holding out on them. She is. She's not as clueless as everyone else is... but she's also not willing to share.

A body is found locally, and it's a teenage girl... but not Chloe. A girl has been murdered: Helen. Jenny is immediately interested in the case. Her interest increases as a response to noticing that everyone else's dies... none of her fellow students are talking about Helen. The police are concentrated on finding Chloe, who is still missing, and not getting justice for Helen and finding out who brutally murdered her. This confuses Jenny, but she soon realizes the difference between the two girls: Chloe is white. Helen is Native.

Soon Jenny is learning about the history of violence against Natives in Canada. Crimes go officially unsolved, murders go unpunished... it's a disturbing part of history that isn't staying in the past... it's still happening.

Some reviews mention a dislike of Jenny. I didn't like her at first either. What we need to remember is that she's sixteen. She's naive, she makes bad decisions, she does things the reader won't understand.... but she's in the process of becoming the person she's going to be. I ended up appreciating her even with all her flaws. Lots of us make terrible mistakes without the excuse of being a teenager!

Along with calling attention to the real problem of violence against Natives and the apathetic response of both civilians and the police, this book touches on other important topics. Sometimes the author described a thought or feeling so well I had to go back and read it several times because it was like something I have felt or could have said, though her version is much more eloquent than I could manage. Including a couple of those here:

"The inequality in life was clear. Men treated the world like an extension of their living room, a safe place where they could do whatever they pleased. Women spent their entire lives on guard against rape and abduction. We walked home with our house keys cutting indents into our palm because a streetwise cousin told us to. We looked back constantly to make sure that every person and car that passed us at night kept going. And like everything else that bothered me this year, this wasn't likely to change. Life would always be a playground for men and a survival course for women."

"Everyone loves to blame a victim; it lets them believe that bad things don't happen to good people."

I thought this was a very well written debut and I'm looking forward to seeing what else the author comes up with. It was slow and at times frustrating and you may never get all of the answers, but I thought it was done so well.

I received a copy of this book from Net Galley and Penguin Teen, thank you! My review is honest and unbiased.

MacKenzie Common's novel The Lives of Desperate Girls follows the story of Jenny, living in a small town in Canada where everything is normal and nothing bad happens. Until it does. Jenny's best friend Chloe goes missing and then another girl from the local reservation, Helen, turns up dead on a trail. Trying to cope, Jenny goes on her own little investigative journey with a new friend to try and figure out what happened to Helen, a girl she never knew.

Common's characters are all small town characters. She has them down to the ones that want to escape and go find something bigger and better down to the ones who are convinced small town life is where they will end up. Being from a small town, I understood these characters, their feelings, and the forever feeling of boredom that is instilled at a young age. Mostly I loved the truth about how people from completely different walks of life can be friends, especially when in a small town.

The characters were great, and I enjoyed the storyline, but I felt at times that the story dragged on. Many chapters felt like duplicates of previous chapters as we followed Jenny through her activities. I understand wanting to create a timeline, a feeling of a characters life, but this felt a bit much. I would have enjoyed the book a little more had some of these chapters, or pages, been left out. The book could have easily been 25-30 pages less.

Other than the dull moments and repetitive moments, this story was great. It had a twist at the end I was not expecting, which was nice. I love when an author can take me off guard. I felt satisfied with the ending even though it wasn't technically a happily ever after. This was just a satisfying book to wrap up and see where all the characters ended up. Common wrote an intriguing, suspenseful, and sad story of bullying, desperation, and heartache, with a story of friendship and loyalty twisted in. All in all a great story.

It took me a long time to read this one and a long time to get into it. I liked the concept, but the execution was very slow and suspense was not building well.

I thought that this book took an interesting direction by having one of the focuses be racism. Two girls are gone with one missing, possibly dead and the other murdered but the police are focusing on the missing white girl rather than the native young woman that was murdered. I'm not sure how realistic I found some the events in the book or the memories that people spoke about. Some things seemed to be a bit far-fetched which made them hard to believe. Although, I assumed that the book was set in present day but if it was set sometime in the past it would be more realistic to me.

The portions of the book that I enjoyed the most were the moments that were focused on Chloe. However, they seemed as if they were few and far between so I found it difficult to keep reading. I wanted to delve more into her "secrets" in order to understand her mind set and what happened to her but the book focused more on Jenny and her reactions to everything. I found Jenny to be bland and uninteresting. Her reactions to things seemed blunted to me and her priorities were odd. It seemed like the book didn't have a focus. There were so many topics that were discussed that it was difficult to pinpoint where my attention was supposed to be. Is it Helen? Chloe? Jenny? It began to be confusing not to mention the romance aspect that is focused on quite a bit in the book.

Not a favorite of mine. The book was WAY took long and half of it probably could have been cut out yet the plot would have remained the same. WAY too many details and tangents. The main character, Jenny is really unlikable and unemotional. She lies to the police about her best friend's disappearance and then she starts to investigate on her own with her suddenly new boyfriend Tom....I read it to the end because I wanted to know what happened to the missing girls but the ending was less than satisfying so all in all I was totally disappointed.

This was a quick read centering on Jenny, her missing best friend and a murdered native girl. I expected it to be a straight forward mystery instead it delved in to an exploration of social injustice. At first, as much of the town of Thunder Creek, I wasn't that interested in what happened to Helen, I wanted to know what happened to Chloe. As I learned more about the people at the reservation, I realized their was story was more interesting than I first expected. I have spent some time reading about residential schools in Canada since finishing the book, as I had never heard about them in the past.

I wish there was deeper character development. I don't feel like I really got to know any of the characters. I was curious to know more about Helen, Jenny's mom, Tom, and Chloe herself. Chloe seemed one sided, but I do think there was more to her than even Jenny noticed.

When I love a book I don't want it to end because I feel like I have become friends with the characters and have a vested interest in their loves. I didn't feel that here, but I did enjoy the book. I was hoping for a happier ending for Chloe, maybe a second chance in a new town, but I understand this wasn't written to be a fairy tale.

The main character of this book lacked a voice and it was hard to stay interested in the book. The Canadian setting is interesting but the mystery and detective elements didn't really grip me like I had hoped.

I want to start with what I liked: I liked the messages resonating in this book. It tackled political issues such as racism, sexism, and sexual assault. I liked the Native American element because it's rare to find in YA books. The setting is also interesting and fresh, considering many YA novels take place in well known cities.

Try as I might, I couldn't bring myself to like the characters. The main character, Jenny, lacks emotion and, at times, behaves in a way you wouldn't expect given what we know about her character.

Although she's constantly thinking about Chloe and telling me how close they were but never actually showing or expressing that closeness. For example, how did they manage to become and remain friends? Girls in school often fall out by the time they reach High School. How did they avoid that? Chloe and Jenny are portrayed as opposites but there must be some complimenting factor or common ground that brought and kept them together.

Jenny's relationship with Tom is also strange to me. It's sudden, it's out of the blue, and it feels like the typical "good girl meets bad boy" trope, which is somewhat disappointing. Jenny takes Tom along for her investigations and they make out a lot but not once did I sense it was a lasting or true relationship. Where were all the feelings?

I think, overall, this story would have been AMAZING if the characters were more rounded and relatable. Ultimately, the characters are what killed it for me - no pun intended!

Unique read and I appreciate how local the setting is to me, however I found the plot had many slow parts, and a disappointing ending.

For awhile now I have been wanting to read this book and when I received a chance to read it by netgalley I was very excited! However I couldn't get into this book at all usually with thrillers I love when you get sucked in by the first couple of chapters but this one took way to long to even try to get into and at that I just couldn't get into the thriller part I felt like the main character was talking to much about her life than getting into the mystery at hand! the main character felt overly whiny to me and made me lose more interest in the book!

Thunder Creek, Northern Ontario Canada. Jenny's best friend Caitlin is missing and a young girl from a local reservation named Helen is dead. However, the police in the community appear to be only interested in solving Caitlin 's disappearance. This book tackles the racism that runs rampant in the Canadian justice system. For this the book received a 3 star for bringing to reader's attention the plight of missing and murdered women from across Canada.

But Jenny as a character is an idiot and a terrible choice to start this discussion. Yes, we have the white girl from the small town that becomes more self aware, but there's just too much YA drama involving her and the "bad boy" from Vancouver. Jenny, herself, is a desperate girl. Desperate to lose her virginity and emerge from the shadow of her missing friend. I just couldn't care enough about this character and read until the end only curious to see how the story would unfold. I am a bit disappointed in the resolution and expected far more than what I was given.

I started this book really enjoying it. I really enjoyed the mystery feel to the book, but the middle killed it for me. It turned into more of a semi-romance with some small pieces of mystery thrown in. Kind of disappointing. Meh.

I was really excited to read this book, but I have to admit I was disappointed. The plot was intriguing but it could have been executed so much better had it not been for the immensely unlikable narrator.

I was really excited to read this book, but I have to admit I was disappointed. The author's writing isn't my favorite and although the story line had a lot of potential, the main character Jenny is so very annoying. Not only is she just kind of annoying, but she starts doing slightly ridiculous things throughout the book and her attitude is just terrible. She is supposed to be looking for her missing friend Chloe, but she avoids the police and then spend a bunch of time with a guy. The plot also seems to kind of stall while Jenny is spending time making out with this hot guy and nothing seems to really happen, which made me start to lose interest in the actual plot.

This book does deal with some important issues like racism, bulling and depression and it actually might have turned out to be an interesting story if the main character wasn't so annoying. The book certainly has aspects of a mystery to it, although there is nothing thrilling or suspenseful about it. The story focuses more on some common issues among teenagers, along with the more serious topics mentioned above, then it does on the mystery aspect, in my opinion. Overall, this story could have been really good but it just kind of fell flat for me and I didn't really find myself invested in the story or the characters. Thank you to the publisher for sending me an ARC of this book.

less than impressed

Well, the thing is, I was reading Ice Like Fire, the second book of the Snow Like Ashes trilogy and I wasn't feeling it, I was really in the mood for a mystery and murder reading and luckily I had this arc on my Kindle for some time already, so I thought it would be a good idea to read it. It wasn't what I expected, at all, but still I want to talk about them in detail, first I want to emphasize the writing style, which is pretty easy to read

I will leave here below the Goodreads synopsis for the book so that you know what it's about

“One small, northern community. Two girls gone -- one missing, the other dead. A riveting coming-of-age debut young adult novel for fans of Everything I Never Told You and All the Bright Places.
Sixteen-year-old Helen Commanda is found dead just outside Thunder Creek, Ontario. Her murder goes unremarked, except for the fact that it may shed light on the earlier disappearance of Chloe Shaughnessy. Chloe is beautiful, rich and white. Helen is plain, and from the reservation. They had nothing in common except that they were teenage girls from an unforgiving small town. Only Chloe's best friend Jenny Parker knows exactly how unforgiving, but she's keeping some dangerous secrets of her own.
Jenny begins looking for answers about Helen's life and death, trying to understand larger questions about her town and her best friend. But what can a teenage girl really accomplish where adults have failed? And how much is Jenny actually complicit in a conspiracy of silence?”


I started enjoying it a lot, especially the mystery vibe that is handled in the book is very good and enthralling, but then Jenny, our main character, begins to have all these completely ridiculous and meaningless attitudes. First her way of dealing with loss is the rarest, I've read that some people believe that is her way of dealing with it, but I don't agree, her behavior as if nothing matters I thought it was absurd.

I understand that she really wanted to find her friend and solve what was going on, but suddenly she started to flee almost from the police as if they were the enemy, then she passes like 60% of the book with her super hot guy, doing basically nothing relevant and the other percentage passes by looking for her friend putting herself in danger without any sense and hiding very important details from the police, because she actually thinks she's protecting her friend, I mean, WHAT ?, they want to find her!.In moments of desperation I understand that you can forget to comment a really important things, but she was hiding that from the police because she wanted to do it, which only made research even more difficult.


This was crazy for me one of the most absurd characters I've read, and I really hate talking this way about a creation that someone did with effort and love, but it hasn't worked for me. Jenny is the typical beautiful and rich girl who thinks she knows everything about life because she get drugged a couple of times and then she think she's smart enough to solve a crime on her own, but she just makes a mess, and that's all she's been for me

On the other hand, I could see how the author wanted to touch important issues like abuse, bullying, indifference, racism, and depression, I appreciate that and I want to highlight it, even so it isn't a book that going to stay with me

Anyway, I would try another book of the author, because I think her writing style is nice and maybe with the development of other types of characters more deep and complex could hook me more and I would end up liking me more her book

Summing up, is a great idea for a mystery plot but the characters are flat and their actions don't make sense most of the time

The vague synopsis of this suggested a rather tried but interesting enough plot: two girls gone - one missing, the other dead. In actuality this was so much more than the straight-up thriller it was packaged as.

The central plot circled around the disappearance of these two teenage girls but this was merely used as a catalyst to spark a bigger debate about larger social problems and the current political climate. Everyday racism was called out and the author did not hold back when confronting triggering and dark subject matters.

One of the missing girls is Chloe - beautiful, rich, and most importantly (as far as the media and the police are concerned) white. The other is Helen - a 'native' of the reservation. When Helen's body is discovered the police seem to be unable or unwilling to further investigate her murder. Chloe's disappearance, however, is still a source of constant contention in this isolated Canadian community, with constant vigils, searches and discussions about the missing teen still being held.

Chloe's best friend, Jenny, seems to be the only one to notice the difference in treatment the two girls have received and, despite her close bond with the one missing girl, she spends her day's since her best friend's disappearance investigating the other forgotten female.

This is a very slow-moving plot, but this is what I loved about the novel. The central storyline, put forward in the synopsis, does not expand or progress for much of the novel and, instead, important political topics are discussed. The author, it seems, cleverly used this fictional scenario to highlight some very important discrimination very dominant in today's society.

Eye-opening is the words I would use to describe this. There wasn't so much an obvious disregard for those with colour; it was as though the white-skinned members of society were not even aware of the casual racism they inflicted everyday. The members of the reserve, in retaliation, often harboured a hatred or mistrust of their white neighbours because of this.

It was interesting to be given an insight into the opposing sides of this small community and to see the impact the treatment they have lived their lives with has affected how they, in turn, confront the heart-breaking scenario of the the two missing girls.

The other subject matter this book challenges is sexism and slut-shaming. Chloe, before her disappearance, was involved in a multitude of scenarios that ruined her reputation with her peers and caused them to view her as less than human as a judgement for her supposed misdeeds. The truth mattered little when there was drama to be caused and gossip to be shared. This is a moralistic story on how comments and a falsely perceived image of someone can damage one's own self-worth.

Two highly triggering subject matters were tackled here and both, in my opinion, treated with the sensitivity yet hard-hitting realism they deserved. The plot of this story can be a source of contention with readers expecting an easy read or a fast-paced thriller, but this book deserves to be read by all because of the important issues it highlights. Relevant and impactful - this book delivers on both fronts.