Title: Dangerous Boys
Author: Abigail Haas
Genre: YA, Thriller, Contemporary
First published: August 14th 2014
Finished reading: February 22nd 2016
Pages: 336
“Some pieces couldn’t be glued back together. Some people weren’t for fixing.
Sometimes, the only thing to do was burn the whole fucking world down and start again.”
Dangerous Girls was one of my favorite 2015 reads, so when I was looking for something good to get me out of my beginning reading slump I knew Dangerous Boys was a safe choice. I was right: Abigail Haas did it again! Although slightly less twisted and with a more predictable ending, there is no doubt that this author will mess with your mind when you read this. There are so many unexpected plot twists that it takes a while to figure out what really happened… The story goes back and forth between past and present, and you slowly start to realize just how twisted the main characters are. Partly unreliable narrator, partly very unlikeable main characters, but with a story this dark and intriguing it didn’t really matter. Dangerous Boys has a fast pace and the prose reads so easily that you are sucked right into the story and you’ll find yourself flying through the pages to find out what on earth happened that day. I won’t go into details to avoid spoilers, but if you can overcome the fact that you might want to hit Chloe for being such an annoying pain in the *** I’m sure you will love this read as much as I did.
Chloe has been dying to get out of her small town and escape to college, but it seems to turn into a crushed dream more and more every day. Her mother never got over the fact that her husband left her for another woman and cannot even get up in the morning. Chloe doesn’t want to leave her mother all alone, but that does mean she will have to stay in the town she despises, with everyone looking at her differently after the divorce. When new-to-town Ethan shows up in the diner where she works, he becomes a pleasant distraction from it all. Chloe is determined to get her mother’s life back on track so she can go live her own, but she cannot resist Ethan for long. They start dating even though she is supposed to leave in a few weeks, but her mother doesn’t improve and the arrival of Ethan’s brother changes everything. One night the three enter the abandoned Monroe estate, hours later, only two emerge from the burning wreckage. What on earth happened?
In a way I was a bit afraid to start reading Dangerous Boys since I loved Dangerous Girls so much last year. That one is still my absolute favorite, but Dangerous Boys is a close second. The plot and especially the ending might be slightly more predictable, but that doesn’t take away that Abigail Haas has mastered the art of both creating a dark and twisted story and playing with your mind perfectly. If you like these kind of books, make sure to give both a go! You won’t regret it.
