(NOTE: post published on blog: https://writerpending.wordpress.com/2018/01/09/review-take-three-girls-by-cath-crowley-fiona-wood-simmone-howell/ )

I am going to be quite honest, I picked this book up because I saw the name ‘Cath Crowley’ and I had such a deep love affair with her previous young adult novel, Words in Deep Blue.

I was quite surprised how much I enjoyed this book. The main theme centres upon the friendship between Ady, Kate and Clem and finding one’s true self with the support of honest and authentic friends. It reminded me of a quote my mum had always told my brother and I, and that is, with friends, never worry about the quantity you have, but about the quality. And for this book, it definitely rings true. Take Three Girls is an exploration of friendship, identity, feminism and of self during a period of time in an adolescent woman’s life, where the pressure of society and its expectations, can drive you insane. More so, it talks about how cruel teenagers can be, especially in the age of social media.

The plotline itself is centred upon a gossip blog, where students literally post any sort of pathetic attempts for attention they can get – usually gossip and rumours outlining the sexual exploits of female students. There is thus an exploration of the expectations of girls in comparison to the expectations of boys, and how girls are just supposed to sit back and take the onslaught of absolute sh*t aimed at them, with a smile on their face. Basically, boys can do whatever they want, but girls need to remain a virgin, but not a prude, easy going, but not easy, slutty but not a slut. It really highlights the perception of women today’s society has, and how that, in effect, is resulting in the maintenance of a patriarchal, misogynist and sexist society.

However, one bone to pick. I don’t know if I am that completely out of touch with the world and language of the teenager in 2017, but they do not speak like that? Some of the languages is an over-exaggeration of abbreviated talk that just emphasises how unrealistic – what people imagine girls sound like in a conversation; but from personal experience of high school, and experience of placement, girls do not sound the way they are written in this book. Maybe in Netflix dramas. it reminds me of mean girls. and that is the one thing I couldn’t take seriously. Following from that, some of the nicknames for the places in the book, was so out of this world, I was just in awe. I live in Melbourne and I have never heard any of these words before, and we have some weird abbreviations for things, but what this book claims Melbournians call things, yea nah.

But this is just one small insignificant quarrel that I had with the book. Seriously, this book needs to be read in high schools across the world, because it has such a fundamental message and it is so incredibly important for us to arm young women and young men with the tools, to create a better society.

I haven’t gone into detail about the characters themselves because I think that needs to remain a mystery so y’all can pick this book up and support Australian authors at their finest.