Dancing Words

I have never liked thriller movies that start with a vacation and ends with murder. I have always thought that that kind of premise is too staged, too Hollywood. The thing I dislike most is that everyone is bound to be stupid. Like, you want to hold everyone's eyes open or coach them because they can't see what should have been obvious.

Lo, and behold, Dangerous Girls is all about that. We start off with Elisa and Anna's group having their Spring Break in Aruba until the brutal murder of Elise. This group is your typical rich teenagers: sheltered, cocky, and bitchy. Then, this tragedy happened and everything unravels. It's the usual: incompetent authorities, shallow reasons, friendships break down, one-dimensional characters. Ugh, it is too predictable. Like I said earlier, this rings a lot like Gone Girl except it's for teens.

Anna alternates between her memories of her friendship with Elise and with the trial. Honestly, I couldn't care any less. I feel that her memories don't play a part into the present except to paint a picture of her as innocent and a great friend. The trials are no better, we are fed with a lot of antics that doesn't really amount to anything. Not one evidence to support their case against Anna. How could you do that at court? You accuse someone and all you have is their social media photos from months ago? Nothing from the crime scene? No effort into digging deeper?

Now the ending. I admit I didn't see that one coming. Not a clue about her crime. There may be some, but they way Dekker lays it sounds like a joke. It didn't ruin anything for me, but it felt forced.

This looks to me like a very bad teen horror movie. What a joke.

1.5 stars

Update: 12 hours later I'm still thinking about this book, which should count for something. I've been picking apart its pieces, which ones are true and which ones are not. Seems like the body-language expert was right after all. I tried to reread this to see if I just missed something, hence the low rating, but I just couldn't. I so wanted to like this but, sadly, it wasn't for me.

Another update: Amanda Knox has been declared innocent. Does this mean Juan is the real REAL culprit here?