The Accidental Bad Girl

Maxine Kaplan

May 2018 · Abrams

About this eBook

After getting caught hooking up with her best friend’s ex on the last day of junior year, Kendall starts senior year friendless and ostracized. She plans to keep her head down until she graduates. But after discovering her online identity has been hacked and she’s being framed for stealing from a dealer, Kendall is drawn into a tenuous partnership with the mastermind of a drug ring lurking in the shadows of her Brooklyn private school. If she wants to repair her tattered reputation and save her neck, she’ll have to decide who she really is—and own it. The longer she plays the role of “bad girl,” the more she becomes her new reputation. Friends and enemies, detectives and drug dealers—no one is who they appear to be. Least of all Kendall.

Ratings and reviews

DNF on page 163 (49%) When I initially read the synopsis for this book, I thought it sounded like The Accidental Bad Girl would be a really interesting read. A good girl turning bad and… liking it? After she slept with her best friend’s boyfriend? It seemed like a fun, different read and I was all for it. It took me a while to pick it up from my TBR, but when I did, I immediately took a disliking to it. It was a lot of small reasons that added themselves together, and suddenly, I found me forcing myself to read on just BECAUSE it was a review copy, which just seemed so silly to me when I realised – what is the point in attempting to recommend a book that I was forcing myself to read? – that I put it down. THINGS I DIDN’T LIKE: 1. The Main Character, Kendall: I mean. She was sad, but not about her friend and betraying her friend’s trust, but about being ostracized. The whole concept was so strange. If the trigger to all the bad events in Kendall’s life was her BEST FRIEND, and then she didn’t really CARE about the best friend, what was the plot even? 2. AUDREY: This is the best friend, by the way, and I ABSOLUTELY HATED HER GUTS. She was rude, RUDE and even the even ruder. I didn’t understand the things she was trying to do, from the perspective of a friend. I guess, more than the both of them individually, I HATED WHO THEY WERE AS FRIENDS TO EACH OTHER. In fact, using the word friend to describe them is probably stretching it./b> 3. THE PARENTING: The interactions and reactions between Kendall and her parents were so incredulous and unbelievable that I cringed EVERY TIME. THIS IS NOT HOW PARENTS TALK TO CHILDREN. Also, if you never returned home because you’d passed out DRUNK of the school steps (or that’s what your parents knew) ARE YOUR PARENTS FIRST REACTION GOING TO BE ‘You are not expelling my daughter, she’s done nothing wrong.’ Or actually PARENT THE CHILD and not call her a day later saying ‘I think you’re grounded.’ Honestly, I was forcing myself to read this so much, I flipped to the end to see if there was any point in continuing and HONESTLY, I WAS SO ANNOYED AT THE WAY EVERYTHING ENDED. Would I recommend this book? No. I couldn’t even bring myself to finish it. 1 star.

PROBABLY THE BEST YA BOOK I'VE EVER READ.

About the author

Maxine Kaplan was born in Washington, DC, and now lives in Brooklyn. She studied English and political science at Oberlin College and held a variety of positions in the publishing world before landing at her current job as a private investigator. The Accidental Bad Girl is her first novel.