Culminating in a suspenseful ending, Heard’s ( She’s Too Pretty to Burn) alluring novel is an invigorating ride. Both Maude and Frankie are quick-witted heroines whose respective quests for autonomy and internal struggles regarding sexuality and gender identity provide depth. After years of research, Maude has decided to fake her own death. At least, that’s what she wants everyone to think. Dead End Girls Wendy Heard In one week, Maude will be dead. On the run, the pair encounter further troubles, including a harrowing accident, a murder, and many narrow escapes, while navigating a blossoming romance. Additionally, Jessica Anderson explores older teen milestones in the upcoming YA fiction: Dead End Girls by Wendy Heard and Freshman Year, a debut graphic novel by Sarah Mai. Dead End Girls follows queer teenagers Maude and Frankie, who fake their own deaths and go on the run, leaving a trail of bodies in their wake. Managing to escape and check in to a motel, they are thrilled when a television broadcast reports them missing following a boating incident.

The ploy immediately hits a dangerous snag when a shark appears, lured by a bleeding cut on Maude’s foot. After she reluctantly agrees, the girls rent kayaks to begin carrying out their plan.

Just as she’s about to initiate the deception, though, her white step-cousin Frankie Maxwell (also gay and 17), whom she barely knows, uncovers Maude’s scheme and demands that she take Frankie with her. It’s a complicated plan, one that she’s patiently researched for the last two years. Feeling unloved and unwanted by her divorced parents, 17-year-old Maude Hendricks, who is gay and white, arranges to fake her own death in a boating accident while vacationing in Hawaii.