The School for Dangerous Girls, Eliot Schrefer

Schrefer, Eliot (2009).
The School for Dangerous Girls
New York: Scholastic Press
978-0545035286
Genre: Realistic fiction


Sent to a remote, run-down reform school in Colorado, fifteen-year-old Angela is placed with the better girls, but upon learning that her "dangerous" friends are being isolated and left to live as animals, she takes radical steps to join them and help them escape.

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Fifteen-year-old Angela is enrolled at Hidden Oak, a reform school for girls, when her parents suspect she is responsible for her grandfather’s death. Somewhat unruly and typically teenage, Angela was sent to her grandfather’s because her parents felt they couldn’t deal with her any longer. Once a boys’ reformatory, Hidden Oak consists of two threads of girls- the gold and the purple. The gold thread girls get to go to classes, eat good food and are considered those who can be rehabilitated, whereas the purple thread girls are limited to the basement; they have no classes or order; in fact, the girls fight one another for limp lettuce and bug-infested food. A self-governing bunch, the purple thread girls cannot trust anyone. After a month, Angela is placed with the gold threads, but when she meets her “friends” at the secret hideout, and she sees what they endure, Angela vows to get thrown in with the purple threads so that they can all escape. Throughout the novel, Schrefer includes gruesome details of the girls’ fights, a strict, crotchety type teacher and a few harmless teachers to balance out the score. The writing is mediocre as each chapter ends with a sentence to tease out tension and foreshadow: “I just didn’t know what I lost yet” or “I’d been so close to finding out..but the secret had sealed over.” While a sympathetic teacher and his gorgeous son help Angela and her friends, Angela is disheartened to learn that her “close” friend has lied to her all along, and the teacher is only helping because he plans to save the girl he is having an affair with. A disjointed epilogue ties everything up rather neatly—Angela refuses to see her parents; she’s with the teacher’s son, and she reunites with her other friends from the school. Schrefer leaves room for a sequel which may appeal to a few readers.