Squad
Squad by Maggie Tokuda-Hall
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
This is another social-horror, feminist take that just sort of missed the mark for me. Becca is new in town and just wants to belong and as she says 'it all started with a tampon.' Helping out Marley with a menstrual surprise, Becca finds herself whisked away into the titular squad, the most popular girls in school, Marley, Mandy and Arianna.
Both the cover and the blurb tell you this is a squad of werewolves. The social horror is that women are prey. True enough. However these girls have a way of fighting back. Arianna 'RiRi' has taken over as alpha after the last one graduated on to college leaving behind her rules. No boyfriends and they are to only go after the worse of mankind because these werewolves not only turn at the full moon but only human flesh will do for their hunger.
Even knowing this Becca joins them. And if that was what they were doing, this might have worked for me but it's not. RiRi and the others make awful decisions and they go along with it because you follow your alpha. They aren't full on mean girls but they're close (They bully Becca about her clothing, RiRi won't call Mandy Amanda no matter how many times she says so) and they didn't even bother to tell Becca her strength would be augmented in human form which comes back to haunt them.
What bothered me about this (as well as a couple other social horror feminist stories I've read lately) is that the power of these women comes from acting exactly like the worst of men. Having them negotiate the issues of killing the rapey boys might have been okay but RiRi and the others are luring in men being as predatory as they think all boys are MILD SPOILER (including one who didn't want to have sex and was killed for resisting). It all leads up to an accident that tears the group apart.
Also the sapphic love story seemed half baked. Becca we know is a lesbian but her intended seemed vaguely homophobic until there's a kiss and then boom everything is beer and skittles. I was disappointed by that.
It was a good read but it could have been great. I would love to see a story of woman empowerment where it's not all about acting exactly like the patriarchy. I also would have liked a little inner thoughts by Becca about the whole eating humans thing.
The art in this is very nice and I'm glad I read it.
View all my reviews