Nothing infuriates me more than a good bully novel, and yet I keep on reading them even though I should know better. (A well done bully novel has me so angry I want to shake the book itself, and so hurt for the characters that I want to hug it.)

I'm ultimately giving Hyacinth Girls 3.5 stars rounded down because while parts of it are beautiful, I've read this before. There are only so many ways a novel about teenage girls and the truly fucked up things that they can do to each other in adolescence, so the difference really comes down to the way the story is told and the writing.

Spoiler

Rebecca's view shows a guardian who, while she loves her child very much, is oblivious to what's truly going on underneath, leaving a sense of dread to creep up my spine as her story went on. Callie's view shows a girl slowly and quietly unraveling bit by bit, and while I think the journey was fantastic, the writing got a bit too much at times. Lots of Callie imagining herself turning into trees and disappearing and all that weird stuff that toes the line between lyrical and purple. Frankel toes that line very well.

Thanks to the Goodreads First Reads program for this one!