Bad Girls Never Say Die

It’s Houston, 1964, and the city is segregated by class and race: the white and Mexican American students at Eastside High are poor; the white teenagers at River Oaks High, called “tea sippers” by the Eastsiders, are wealthy and socially elite. When their paths cross, such as at the local Winkler Drive-In, insults and punches fly. But when narrator Evie Barnes, 15, a white sophomore in a close-knit group of white and Mexican junior “bad girls,” sees a tea sipper named Diane being taunted, she impulsively helps her, a favor Diane more than returns when she kills a white River Oaks boy who assaults Evie. As the cops close in, Evie’s crowd tries to protect Diane. If this world sounds familiar, it is: Mathieu offers an effective update of S.E. Hinton’s beloved The Outsiders with female protagonists. Diane has been exiled to Eastside because she fell for the wrong guy; Evie is drawn to the “tuff” girls because she wants more agency than the narrow, husband-dependent world her mother imagines for her. And in Evie—loyal, searching, smarter than she realizes—Mathieu (The Liars of Mariposa Island) has created an earnest, memorable character. Front matter includes an author’s note. Ages 12–up. (Oct.)