Today, I’m excited to be sharing my review of Girls Who Play Dead by Joelle Wellington, who quickly became a must-read author for me with Their Vicious Games and The Blonde Dies First. This book promised to turn its beady eye to the beauty industry and deliver another smash-hit mystery, but how did it stack up?
Thank you to HarperFire for providing me with a digital copy of this title in exchange for an honest review. This review originally appeared on The Nerd Daily.
When Mikky Graves left his small, stifling hometown of Prophets Lake to live with his estranged mother, he thought nothing could ever make him return for good.
Until his sister Kyla’s best friend, Erin, is murdered.
Mikky never worried about leaving Kyla behind at their family-owned funeral home so long as she had Erin. But when Mikky heads home, determined to help Kyla grieve, the sister he encounters barely resembles the one he remembers. Mikky decides, then and there, to do the one thing that seems even more impossible than returning: stay.
As Kyla spirals further into her rage and secrets, Mikky realizes the only thing that can help his sister is finding the truth about who killed Erin. But the more he investigates, the further he’s pulled into other ugly mysteries of Prophets Lake and the beauty brand that is its lifeblood. The town’s rot runs deep, and everyone has something to hide. Perhaps no one more than Kyla herself.
Publication Date: 6th November
CW: death, murder, grief, suicidal ideation, depression, manipulation, classism, racism, homophobia, transphobia
My Thoughts:
Girls Who Play Dead is an outstanding YA thriller, delivering Joelle Wellington’s signature stellar characterisation and five-star twists.
Wellington has quickly become one of my go-to YA thriller authors with an incredible sense of plotting and tension and characters that feel three-dimensional and leap off the page. This was no exception with a classic small-town full of secrets tale pushed to new heights.
From the very first page, you are entirely sucked into the story with a claustrophobic atmosphere that quickly informs you of how profoundly Kyla has been changed by Erin’s death. It is hard-hitting and immediately sets the tone, this is not going to be a book that messes around. Wellington delivers on that promise with a full-throttle story that you will race through in order to reach that devastating conclusion. The pacing is immaculate as you move between suspects and secrets, but it is always underpinned by these relationships that define the story.
Most prominently, it is a story about family and love—encapsulated by Kyla and Mikky. These two protagonists are fantastic and I love their sibling dynamic. They have lived apart for years and are brought back together by tragedy, but their relationship isn’t how it was. Part of Mikky’s arc is about trying to reconnect with a sister that seems a million miles away. It isn’t the cosy, sharing everything type of dynamic; more like two sides of the same coin as they navigate life after Erin’s death and looking into what really happened that fateful night. Kyla is in this impossible bind of wanting to be everything Erin would be expected to be and more. She becomes this mean girl, trying to hold everything on her shoulders and keep those she loves at a distance to protect her heart. I loved her rage and how Wellington explores this. Both Erin and Kyla have secrets that threaten to ruin everything they have built and yet Kyla must delve into the darkness and discover what Erin held back from even her in order to evade the same fate. Mikky becomes entangled in investigating that night too but from a very different angle. Seeing them clash but also reveal different pieces of the puzzle in their chapters was a fantastic reading experience and speaks to effective and engaging structuring.
There is also a brilliant throughline about the exploitation of tragedy and how easily narratives can be manipulated by those with power. Erin died tragically and didn’t deserve to be murdered, but she also was no perfect angel and the circumstances of her death mean there is a level of romanticisation that happens in her memory which obscures some of her messier elements. Her flaws didn’t disappear and the fallout from her actions continues throughout the story, because she was a teenager trying to navigate life. That romanticisation takes away her humanity by reducing her and this is something that all of the central characters grapple with. It is something that is used to manipulate the narrative around her death as well and steer focus away from those who would rather not be in the spotlight. The discussion around influencer culture, specifically in combination with the beauty industry, is brilliant and nuanced and Wellington takes it into thought-provoking territory. It is such a brilliant thematic choice in a story all about showing one face to the world that does not resemble your truth. Everything is smoke and mirrors and misdirection as in the best thrillers. There are also timely references to aspects of both industries and a reminder of how makeup can be a tool of empowerment and strength too.
Girls Who Play Dead is an exquisitely enthralling YA thriller that would be a crime to miss.
A Short Book Lover 
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