An interesting debut Mystery, one that had moments of on suspense, but for the most part, I was confused. The story POV went back and forth between the protagonist, Caroline, and another female character, which is revealed much later in the story. There was a sense of far-fetchedness that I couldn’t shake with the mystery. I was able to figure it out half way through the book. It took a bit to get through, just wasn’t my cup of tea. ( )

Caroline thinks she has to solve the mystery behind the disappearance of her best friend. There is a lot these 2 best friends don’t know about each other—too much really to believe they were even good friends. The title of the book makes it sound like the story will be about poor girls with problems at home that no one cares about when they go missing, but instead, it is about a rich boarding school girl named Caroline. Caroline is arrogant and annoying. I don’t like her. She is a valedictorian candidate that has a fake ID at 17 and spends a lot of time in dive bars. That’s a bit unrealistic. She also claims drunk guys are “asshats” while enjoying the dive bar scene. She does not cooperate enough with the police. She thinks she can do everything better than everyone else. The search for her friend is slow-paced without any big exciting breakthroughs or nerve-wracking moments. The story dragged through the middle. The author did a poor job of switching the point of view and that made things confusing. The writing style of the author is good. The character and plot development need work. ( )

Throwaway Girls is a weighty and unflinching confrontation of our ingrained biases and the value we place on young women and which ones are deemed worth looking for, worth fighting for. The first third or even half of the narrative is sluggish and Contos’ florid prose periodically caused me to lose the vein of the story, while the alternating POVs take at least a few chapters to feel intuitive. But Caroline is my favorite kind of YA heroine, probably in that aspects of her character reminded me of myself as a teenager. Stubborn to a fault, recurrently myopic, and guilty of making often rash decisions, but always because she is driven, full of heart, and experiences every feeling so intensely. Caroline is fallible and makes numerous mistakes and poor (sometimes dangerous) judgments, but Throwaway Girls is her journey. Her journey to adulthood, to self-realization, to fully confronting her privilege and blind spots. It’s painful to read at times, again, probably because it reflects on my own experience of and confrontation of my inherent entitlements as a middle class white woman. The LGBTQ representation read to me as a fluid aspect of the story and sincere without the Hollywood melodrama. A haunting, often grim, read with plenty of sinister twists but not without fervidness and an acute and enduring message. Highly recommended. ( )