Vigilante Hardcover – March 28, 2017

Kady Cross has been a favorite author of mine for ages! I’ve read many of her books under her many pseudonyms and enjoyed every one of them! Vigilante is a YA thriller of sorts, but instead of a heroine trying to solve a murder, we have a teenage girl trying to find justice for her friend who was raped and then killed herself because of it all. Vigilante deals with a very sensitive topic, but I felt like Kady wrote it very well indeed.Hadley and Magda were best friends, then one night at a party, Magda was raped by four boys after she was drugged. When charges were pressed every single one of them got off scot free. And soon it became too much for Magda and she committed suicide. She had had it rough ever since the incident and Hadley feels the tremendous guilt over her death. And having to see the four boys every day at school living it up, she starts to get very vengeful and dark thoughts.By happenstance, Hadley is able to exact revenge over one of the boys and outing him as a rapist. And slowly a plan starts to form. Soon she decides she wants to humiliate and shame all four of these boys and get the justice that Magda deserves.I have to say, I quite liked Hadley’s plan. Maybe I have a touch of a dark side or whatever you want to call it, but I find revenge stories to be quite enjoyable! The Count of Monte Cristo, anyone? And in a way, Hadley takes on a bit of Edmund’s role. She doesn’t want to kill these guys, she wants them to suffer.The book explores a very sensitive topic; rape. I felt like Kady handles it very well and realistically. I personally have not nor do I know anyone who has experience such a horrific thing, so I can’t really say how much realism it has, but I felt like she did a very good job with discussing it.Hadley ends up making new friends in her quest for justice and I have to say I enjoyed that too. I was afraid she might be all Batman like and want to take on everyone herself. While in some ways that is still true, her newfound friends help her through stuff more than she could ever hope for.And then of course there’s Gabriel, who was Magda’s older brother and who Hadley had been crushing on for a while. I found their budding romance to be sweet and helped to bring some light into the otherwise dark topic.Hadley’s life really spins out of control as the boys she’s after are aware that someone is out to get them. Some things that happen are quite sickening. And it makes me even more happier to be out of high school. But then a few other little things actually took me by surprise.Needless to say that this book was both dark but coupled with those little moments that were light-hearted and surprising. It was quite the read! The ending was pretty shocking too. Some things really made my stomach turn sour in this one, the things that these boys got away with, how they were basically boys with powerful parents who could own the town was nauseating. But never once did I feel like quitting, mostly because I was riding on Hadley’s need for revenge and wanted to see these boys shamed.Vigilante didn’t disappoint either. It was engaging and enticing as I had to see how things would turn out for Hadley. And I must say I was quite surprised by the final ending, but happy as well. Just hoping those unspoken things turn out for the better and are not ones that will haunt Hadley later on.This book reads very much as a standalone. Things are completely resolved and are left in a way that we get a satisfying conclusion and yet feel like these characters will still go on to live their lives.I’m not sure I’ve ever read a book that was so emotional before. And it’s not quite your typical emotions either. I think that’s what appealed to me about this story, and of course Kady Cross’s name on the cover. I feel like this was a very empowering book, as the girls in it, are coming together and fighting for one another. It almost makes me wonder what town they live in, as to avoid it due to all the sexual harassment that goes on and is left unpunished, but I digress! This was a very powerful read and it pretty much cements my belief that I will read just about any of Kady’s books too!Overall Rating 5/5 stars

Whoa.This is a heavy book. It’s also empowering. I’m still processing, but here are some thoughts:Loved: the concept (the Pink Vigilante) and the emotion.Didnt love quite as much: to me (an adult) the first chunk read like an adult had written it.The writing for me was a 4 star, but the emotion pushed it into a 5 for me. The author does not shy away from anything. It is a very raw read, but in our current society and political climate, one more people should read.

Warning: multiple, on-page graphic rape attempts are present in Vigilante. Read the book with caution.Look, revenge is kinda my thing. I'd define myself as simultaneously a 5-foot-4 bundle of anxious sunshine and a vengeful, grudge-holding gal. In high school, I came very close to punching a girl's lights out for all the crap she'd done to me over the years--and to a degree, I still regret that I didn't. It turns out Vigilante did the same thing I did and pulled its punches back at the last second.Keep in mind, this is a book in which our protagonist Hadley cuts up one rapist's skin with the knife he used to stab her and another rapist flat-out dies. And yet even with that, Vigilante just can't commit to the full extent and consequences of revenge! It's too... nice despite the fact one rapist is physically scarred and another ends up flat-out dead. Simplistic. Clumsy. Also color-blind in the worst possible way, but we'll get to that.I have next to nothing to say about Hadley, just that she considered raping one of the rapists and decided against it because "even if it were possible, I wouldn't." (pg. 62) She doesn't think guys can physically be raped by gals? OKAY, GARBAGE PROTAGONIST. NEXT. Magda deserves a better avenger--and it's clear both in and out of context that Hadley's talking the actual act of rape, not her moral abillity to rape him.She never corrects herself on that gross misconception, by the way.The book has lovely intentions with female empowerment and correcting some misconceptions; at the same time many girls in town are taking self-defense lessons led by Hadley and a cop, they make the valid point that they shouldn't need to. It's guys who need to learn a lesson: don't rape people. Entirely correct! It also had Emilie Autumn's album Fight Like a Girl playing in my head because it's very thematically appropriate for the book Vigilante wants to be. (Wanna listen? Here's the YouTube playlist for the full album.)It's a shame that these valid points are spoken in some of the clumsiest, most unnatural dialogue I've ever seen. The heavily didactic form of the entire novel in addition to Magda's heavily religious symbolism (her family is very Christian and her name is the shortened form of Magdalene like Mary Magdalene) as a character. Heck, Magda exists solely as a symbol for Hadley! None of the flashbacks to when Magda was alive present us with her as a true character.That flaw gets made that much worse by the novel's refusal to acknowledge the racial element of Magda the Latina girl being raped by four white guys. If you wanna play colorblind and say that doesn't matter, you can leave right now because it absolutely does. It's hard enough for white gals to get justice when they're raped by white guys. Gals of color like Magda? It's even harder for them.Then there's her brother Gabriel, who's feeling understandably violent after his sister's rape and suicide. He wants revenge too, but the consequences are worse for him as a Latino guy than they are for Hadley as a white gal. Hadley only considers the consequences for him in regards to the restraining order one of the rapists against him. What about the disproportionate punishment he'd likely receive for breaking that restraining order because both explicit and implicit racism in the criminal justice system is alive and well?That's such a major factor being ignored that there's almost no room to say Hadley and Gabriel's romance didn't need a romance going on between them. But yeah, their romance is out of place and Hadley's colorblindness is enough of a reason for them not to be together.It's not an understatement to say representation of marginalized people in this novel is poor either. Saying the school had "every hair and skin color imaginable represented" is not acceptable rep, especially when the main players are almost entirely white. The exceptions are Magda and her own family, being Latinx. Everyone else is as white as my rear end!Look, revenge is nasty. Those two quotes at the top of the page are some of my favorites and entirely correct. When the crime is egregious like the crime in Vigilante is, you seek revenge knowing you're almost certain to ruin yourself in addition to your target(s). My plan to beat that girl black and blue? I was fully prepared to at least be suspended from school for fighting. She spent years lying to me, manipulating me, and she straight-up catfished me before that word had even entered our cultural vernacular. My fury was great enough that I was willing to sacrifice a lot for some long-needed revenge.The only reason I didn't is because I made the mistake of mentioning to a teacher how furious I was with the girl. She advised me not to do anything and I heard her voice in my head when I was face-to-face with my former friend. Sure, the gal got some comeuppance because her entire graduating class hated her so much that she chose to skip walking at graduation, but it wasn't enough for me. It still isn't.Bonus: when the guy who sexually abused me as a kid was on his submarine, his ship was in serious trouble once and had to dock in Saudi Arabia for emergency repairs. I wished with all my heart his sub had exploded and sunk even though that would take almost everyone else with him.So yeah, I know when a revenge book has a main character committed to revenge. Vigilante isn't even close.Read The Hollow Girl by Hillary Monahan instead. It fully embraces the darkness of seeking revenge and the narrator Bethan undergoes an excellent character arc as she does so. I've heard recs for The Female of the Species by Mindy McGinnis too, but I haven't read it yet. Point blank, Vigilante isn't worth your time.