The Wicked Girls by Alex Marwood
★★★★

The hardest thing about the past is learning to forget it, for some this means getting over bad parenting and terrible exes. For Kirsty Lindsay and Amber Gordon, the past is a little bit more difficult to outrun, despite their individual efforts. One day during the last summer of their childhood, they meet and become fast friends. By the end of that day, the two have taken part in an unspeakable crime. After being charged with the murder, the two 11 year olds are separated and told they can never have contact with one another again.
 
Twenty-five years go by and the two change their identities and try to hide the awful past they share. Kirsty is married and the mother of two. She works as a journalist investigating others’ secrets while hiding her own, even from her husband. Amber has become the managing cleaner at an amusement park in a local seaside town. Their lives are brought together again in the wake of a series of vicious murders. Kirsty and Amber are shocked to find each other again, but they’ll be even more shocked as the murderer strikes too close and risks uncovering their history for everyone to see.

Amber and Kirsty were definitely refreshing female roles to read about in a world of Ana Steeles and Bella Swanns. It was great to see moments of strength in two very complex figures. What was also very interesting is that their individual strengths were shown in different ways...
[Possible Spoilers!!][I've Seen Too Much!!]
When Kirsty had an encounter with a dangerous stranger in a dark alleyway, instead of freezing in fear, she began planning her fight back. She placed her keys in between her fingers to face her attacker and to attempt to get a DNA sample. Amber showed strength when it came out that her boyfriend Vic had been cheating on her. Instead of crumbling, she got revenge on the girl and kicked him out of their shared apartment
The girls both had their faults but had character traits readers could see and want to emulate. Their likeability created a great internal struggle against the knowledge that they had done something so terrible early on in their lives. This also created a great debate topic on the subject of child murderers’ treatment in society. Such a strong steam engine of a book was really wasted on such a bland ending though. The murderer was somewhat obvious and the ultimate outcome to the conflict, while heartwarming…wasn’t terribly surprising. The Wicked Girls had such a strong lead, if only the ending was as great as the rest of the book.