"THE DEAD GIRLS CLUB" by Damien Angelica Walters

This is my first book with this author and what a great experience it was reading this thriller/suspense/frightening read. The story is psychologically disturbing and she wrote a solid mystery novel that is addicting and hard to put down. The tension Walters built through the alternating chapters of the past and the present really gripped me to the story and the anticipation of what is to come. The writing is absolutely solid and prose is perfection. This is such an entertaining and enjoyable spine tingling read that I highly recommend. No doubt this is one of the most anticipated reads of 2019. I get it!! So everyone else should also read this now.

Dr. Heather Cole is a child psychologist. When she receives half of a friendship necklace in the mail, it brings back all the childhood memories she has been trying to suppress.
In 1991, she and her best friend Becca, along with some other friends, started The Dead Girls Club. They swapped scary stories about witches, killers and monsters. As BFF's, they exchanged halves of a heart necklace.
Becca told stories about the Red Lady and became obsessed with her, insisting she was real. Her belief in the Red Lady got her killed, by Heather!
Now the past has come back to haunt Heather, she hasn't seen the necklace since the night Becca died. Has the Red Lady brought Becca back to get even?
This supernatural thriller had some spooky vibes and I got the creeps from the Red Lady stories. Told in both past and present, I definitely enjoyed the past parts more.
I felt the present day Heather really made questionable choices and was not a very appealing character. And the book was a bit tedious in parts as it went on too long.
But overall, it was an entertaining read.
Thank you to Crooked Lane Books for the e-ARC via NetGalley.
3.5 stars, rounded down to 3 stars.

Characters:
Heather: It’s not often that I read a book and avidly dislike a character. Usually I can find some kind of redeeming quality. But, Heather was just unlikable. She was selfish, irrational, naive and just made some really stupid decisions.

Ryan: I felt so bad for Heather’s husband. He tried so hard to help her and figure out what was going on with her and she just refused to let him in in any way.

Plot:
I felt like the story was just extremely dragged out and there were so many sub plots and side things happening that just weren’t necessary and didn’t do anything to further the story. This book would have been a lot better if about 20% of it had been edited out.

The two side characters (I don’t even remember their names) Becca and Heather’s two other friends, didn’t seem necessary to the story. The whole thing with Heather’s secretary looking for information about her cousin who committed suicide was unnecessary and the plot twist at the end just didn’t make sense.

The whole Red Lady thing just didn’t really make sense and I don’t know, I didn’t really get it. It was like the author couldn’t decide if they wanted the story to be more of a thriller or a paranormal type book.

My opinion:
Honestly, they synopsis of this book was better than the book itself. Like I just don’t understand that line of thinking. Someone is obviously stalking you or threatening you, you tell someone.

Would I recommend? Why or why not?
I don’t think that I would recommend this. It was just so disjointed and couldn’t decide what it wanted to be. If you’re looking for a good psychological thriller pick up a Karin Slaughter book.

I picked this up thinking it was a paranormal book. It's not. I could never get into and by 45% of the way through, I gave up on it. I jumped to the end, read what happened and didn't feel better or worse about it. Not a book I'd recommend.

Thank you though, to netgalley, for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All opinions expressed are mine and mine alone.

I love secretive thrillers almost as much as I love horror novels so I was excited when I heard about The Dead Girls Club because it promised a bit of both. In the end it was more of a thriller with a horror threat/thread running throughout. Those bits were creepy as heck though!

I don’t like to say too much about thrillers/mysteries/suspense novels (or whatever you like to call them) because it is far too easy to say too much so I’m going to keep this brief. Basically it is a tale told in two timelines. There is the Then and there is the Now. Heather features in both timelines because this is her story. Things start out weird when a grown up Heather receives an unwanted surprise. Someone has left an envelope in her office, tucked inside is a necklace that was last seen on a dead girl. This sends Heather into a spiral as her past comes back to haunt her.

I’ll get this out of the way first. Adult Heather is a MESS. She remains a mess and she becomes a bigger mess as more of her story is revealed in the Now. She is a professional woman with a very difficult job but you’d never know it based on some of the decisions she makes in this story. She allows her past to consume her and she acts irrationally. With all of that said, it makes sense. I mean, this woman is hiding some serious shit that would send the sanest person into a panicked spiral so I get it and these aren’t complaints. Not from me, anyway. I like imperfect characters and Heather is most definitely one of those.

“I have done a monstrous thing, but I’m not a monster. I’m not.”

In the THEN section we meet Heather and her closest friends when they’re about 12 or so. They have an obsession with true crime and all things spooky and call their little group the “Dead Girls Club”. They hang out at an abandoned house and tell each other creepy tales. The most compelling one is the story of the Red Lady. They work each other up into a frenzy with that one and it is totally believable. One of the girls is experiencing trauma at home and they attempt to summon the Red Lady and things, as they do, go awry.

I loved the backstory and the entire mythos around the Red Lady. It was goosebump inducing. It's easy to imagine how a group of young girls could become consumed with the appeal of it all. The coming of age story of these girls was a breath of fresh air. We typically get stories featuring boys and their spooky childhoods. This was a very genuine tale about girls. From the talk of periods to the petty jealousy and daily worries and easily bruised friendships, it was all very real and I enjoyed the THEN segments more than I can say. They were painful and authentic to the experience of growing up female. I would like more of this kind of fiction, please!

The Dead Girls Club may not be what I’d consider a perfect story and it has a very wispy thread of horror, but it IS super creepy and mysterious and highly readable – just the way I like my thrillers and I recommend it if anything I’ve said above intrigues you.

I finally finished this book. It took me a while to get into it and I have to say once I got in the story, I liked it. Two Young girls, best friends..like to tell each other scary stories. Becca is so into it and so sure the red lady really exists that she and her best friends Heather decide to bring things further and bring the red to life. I related to this story in a way that at some point, I think all teenagers like to scare themselves with stories. The characters are interesting and we keep wanting to know if at some point, the red lady could in fact be true.

Dead Girls Club is a story that delivers in all departments as a murder mystery. This story definitely has the feel of a psychological thriller, as a now grown Heather’s life slowly spins out of control when some unexpected tokens of her long dead friend are mailed to her office. Heather and Becca were best friends when they were kids. A creepy tale about a witch known as the Red Lady drove a wedge between the two girls, ultimately culminating in the death of Becca, at the hands of her best friend Heather. Nearly thirty years later, a mature Heather tried to move past her tragic past. A past that seems intent on landing in the present. For me the strength of this story lies in the relationship development constructed between the four young girls who are members of The Dead Girls Club. The Dead Girls Club meets and discusses women who have died and who killed them. A rift develops when Becca latches onto the story of the Red Lady. A paranormal witch who takes murderous revenge on those who have wronged her. Becca’s manipulative nature and Heather’s drive to be accepted provide a toxic brew that is ripe for murder. While the story isn’t rocked by earth shattering surprises, there is enough here to keep the mystery reader pleased. Thank you to Netgalley for the advanced copy. Review posted to Goodreads, LibraryThing, and Amazon

Very good read. Reminded me of other favorite authors in this genre. Kept me guessing til the end!

This book was like walking up to a haunted house, having the host talk down to you as they explain how their house is the best, with the most amazing scares and then handing you a pillowcase with a live, angry cat inside and opening the door for you to walk in. You enter but quickly realize there's only one person working trying to scare the customers all the while the cat in the pillowcase is going psycho-kitty qu'est-ce que c'est. So you carry on and sure, there's a few creepy moments but for the most part it's just a whole lot of crazy (that cat is MAD and why are you still carrying it around anyway?), unlikable pretentious characters, and not a whole lot else.
But enough with the haunted house metaphor. The ending of the novel is a bit of a disappointment as it's one of those "The end...or is it?" conclusions. This would have been fine if it was executed properly but it felt forced and not particularly believable. I also found it hard to cheer for the characters as they were pretty full of themselves, made insane decisions (the ultimate irony being that the main character is a psychologist HELLO), and weren't very kind to one another. For example, when the main character is beside herself thinking she's going crazy and desperately hunting for answers, she goes to her mom for help. She is immediately shut down, told to knock it off, and scolded for looking into her past. Thanks mom.
With unlikable characters, scares few and far between, and an author who talks down to the reader and tries too hard to be "deep", this is not a work I would recommend.

This was fun to read around October - took me some time to finish it, since I would read some, then put it down because it didn't grip me. But all in all, it was an okay read that I would label as a YA thriller with some supernatural aspects to it.

Heather, a married, successful child psychologist, has a horrifying secret from her teenage years. She, her best friend Becca, and two other girls played a game called The Red Lady. (Similar to saying "Bloody Mary" three times in a dark bathroom mirror like we did back in the 80's.) The game goes a little too far, though, and something horrible happens. Heather thinks she's going to be able to take her dark secret to her own grave, but when she gets the other half of a "best friends" necklace that she thought she'd never see again, she starts to panic. She's got to try to find out who from her past knows what, and what they want from her. She begins near-stalking some of her old friends, her marriage begins to crumble, and she goes farther and farther off the deep end. Juxtaposed with this modern narrative are chapters from her teen past, giving us glimpses into what she did and who might know.

The premise is pretty great. It sounded like maybe this would be old-school horror, but unfortunately it didn't work for a number of reasons. Heather isn't very likable, and I think she's supposed to be a sympathetic character. Little Heather isn't that easy to love, either, even though she gets put in some pretty weird and pitiable situations. The story is a little slow, especially at the beginning, and the final "twist" is like something straight out of Pretty Little Liars. Ridiculously unbelievable.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ / 5

The Dead Girls Club by Damien Angelica Walters is very creepy, and very heavy on the supernatural which are two things I really loved about it. I have been due for a good, chilling novel for a while and that is exactly what I got.

The Dead Girls Club switches between past and present and we follow Heather from when she was a child and friends with Becca, to when she is an adult and weird things start happening to her. One thing I don't like is that the synopsis basically gives the whole book away, so I don't recommend reading it prior to starting . I read it and knew I wanted to read this but by the time I did I had already forgotten the synopsis which I am very happy about!

I thought The Dead Girls Club was a very quick read, and it really kept me interested. It also gave me the chills a few times so if you don't like ANY creepiness this probably won't be the book for you. It ended up getting pretty crazy as well and reminded me a lot of What She Doesn't Know towards the end. If you only like books that are believable this isn't it, but if you love ghosts and all things creepy/crazy this is the perfect one to check out.

Final Thought: I really enjoyed Walters' writing style, and I will definitely read any other books like this one that she writes. The Dead Girls Club has a low average on Goodreads, but I think if it sounds good to you then you should check it out. I ended up really liking it and the end totally threw me for a loop. And who can resist the beautiful cover? Overall I recommend it if you think it sounds good, but you may not want to read the synopsis unless you will forget it before you read the book!

Thank you to the publisher for my advanced review copy via NetGalley. All opinions and thoughts are my own.

The Dead Girls Cub is a fun thriller that pulls back just at it's ending.
Heather is a psychologist who works with kids helping them deal with the massive traumas in their lives. Heather herself dealt with the death of her best friend as a child and knows what it's like to be haunted by the past. One day, out of the blue, she receives a necklace-half a best friend's heart that matches one she keeps at home. The appearance of the necklace owned by her best friend is just the beginning as Heather's future becomes her past.
The Dead Girls Club reads like it's going to push into a rare psychological event, but pulls back just in time to make the climax something pulled from a far corner. The crescendo o the twist slams down but has little emotional value.
But being fair, I loved the story itself that Damien Angelica Walters weaves. The idea of trauma and how it is presented is so real and so varied instead of the stereotypical PTSD characters. I loved how the story moved from the present to the past.
Over all, The Dead Girls Club is thrilling and heartbreaking. Even though the ending disappoints, it's worth the journey

This book may have a beautiful cover, but its contents are a lot more gruesome than expected.
I really enjoyed this book! I actually really wish I had an audio version to read, because I can just imagine how creepy the Red Lady chapters would be in an audio book.
The dual timelines worked really well for me-I very much enjoyed following along with Heather and Becca as they became more and more caught up with the Red Lady, while Heather was becoming more and more of an unreliable narrator in the present. I did enjoy the chapters in the past a little bit more, but I think that was just because of how much I love a good ghost story.
The plot was easily the strongest part in this book. For most of my time reading it I was constantly thinking about it and I couldn't wait to keep reading and find out what was going to happen next. The characters and the writing unfortunately fell a little flat for me. With the exception of Heather, I don't feel like we really got to know any of the characters. Her husband was just there to be an antagonist and make Heather feel like she was going bananas (same thing with her mother) and her friends, both in the present and in the past just felt like sketches of characters. Heather also made some unbelievably dumb decisions, and then was shocked when they backfired on her. She was a very frustrating character to read about, but I know that was the point.
Overall, I thought this was a decent thriller. I enjoyed my time reading it and the final plot twist did catch me off guard.

This was a real unsettling book. It shows how easy it is for pre-teen and teens to get them self's talked into doing something which can have major consequences. Heather Cole has been living with a secret which she thinks is the truth for about 30 years.
Is she hallucinating? It is not until the end of the book that everything becomes clear.

3.5 stars. I did not hate this.

Back in the early 90's a group of girls formed a club. They loved the stories about serial killers and anything gross. Then one named Becca comes up with the story of the Red Lady.

The girls start playing around with the story and the Red Lady starts seeming way too real.


Fast forward to the present time and one of the girls has grown up to be a successful therapist that is living the dream. But then that nasty past has a way of coming back.


I didn't like present day Heather so much but I loved the flashbacks of the girls club meetings. Some of it made my eyes roll but it was a pretty decent way to spend the rainy afternoon.
I just do not want the Red Lady popping in to see me.


Booksource: Netgalley in exchange for review.

My favorite parts are those when the girls are young. What an exciting time for them. They are at the age where fear and death aren’t quite real yet, but they quickly find out how real bother are when they attempt a summoning. Things go wrong and one of them ends up dead. But Heathers’s grown up self just doesn’t do it for me. Everything felt a little forced. Felt very Goosebumps meets Pretty Little Liars. Was written well just not my cup of tea.

Overall, I liked The Dead Girls Club. It had an edgy vibe that turned the story up a notch.

My copy of the book was an electronic ARC with wonky formatting. Some of the words blended together, and the dialogue wasn’t consistently spaced. This really detracted from my enjoyment of the book. If I’d read a physical finished copy instead, I think I would have really liked it!

I love a good thriller & The Dead Girls Club did not disappoint. This is a solid ★★★★☆ for me. I would not say it was my favorite thriller of 2019 but I did fly through the book in 2 days.
Heather Cole is a successful child Psychologist. She treats children of abuse, those with behavioral issue, and those who have seen horrific things. She's good at her job because she knows there always is a story behind what these children have experienced. Her own experiences have lead her to know that to be true. She knows that even the best kids can be pushed to do terrible things. She also knows this to be true, because when she was 12 Heather killed her best friend.
The Red Lady, started as a story that Becca told to The Dead Girls Club. The Dead Girls Club comprised of 4 members; Heather, Becca, Gia, and Rachel. What started as a club for the four of them to share their love of serial killers turned into a stage for Becca to share her story of The Red Lady. A witch, Becca, believed to be real. Becca's relentless insistence that the Red Lady was real, quickly causes pandemonium and paranoia between the girls. Slowly Gia and Rachel are barred from hanging out with Becca. Even Heather, Becca's BFF, begin to see less and less of her, until one day goes missing and her mother goes to prison for murdering her.
This is very well written thriller with a few curve balls I did not see coming, which is saying something since I read a lot of thrillers. I will say that we learn quite a bit around the symptoms to look for in troubled teens. There were plenty of times throughout the story where I wanted to shake Heather, so that see could realize her friend was being abused, but when I was twelve I doubt I would have understood it either.
I did really enjoy the way Becca channeled her misfortunes into the story of The Red Lady. How she viewed her as her savior and became utterly convinced that this was the only way she'd be saved. It's easy to see how complete conviction in an idea can quickly become what seems real. Get the book HERE!
I hope you enjoyed my thoughts on The Dead Girls Club. If you liked this review please let me know either by commenting below or by visiting my instagram @speakingof_books. Huge thanks to Crooked Lane Books for my copy of the book.

This was a great book. Loved the story and suspense. Had me on edge and turning pages to see what happened next. Highly recommend!