‘Girls Who Play Dead’ is the Sharpest Satire of 2025
Joelle Wellington’s Girls Who Play Dead opens with a premise that is instantly disquieting: a girl goes missing during a school event, and the disappearance exposes a social ecosystem already rotting beneath its polished surface. Wellington uses this hook not for cheap thrills but to underline a culture of complicity—how fear, privilege, and silence collide to create the perfect environment for predation. The setup is sharp, timely, and pointed enough to pull the reader in without telegraphing its major twists.
The pacing is intentionally uneven in a way that mirrors the emotional volatility of the teen characters. Wellington balances tension and introspection, letting smaller interpersonal moments sit long enough to reveal their uglier implications. The early chapters build a slow, creeping dread, while the midpoint accelerates as secrets begin to fracture the group’s carefully curated image. The momentum stumbles occasionally when the story leans too heavily on internal monologue, but the overall rhythm maintains a strong forward pull.
Character depth is where the book asserts itself. Wellington’s teens are not sanitized or softened—they’re flawed, reactive, and often painfully believable. The protagonist carries the emotional burden of the narrative, and her perspective is grounded in the kind of self-awareness that cuts through the genre’s usual tropes. The friendship dynamics feel lived-in, shaped by unspoken hierarchies, shared histories, and betrayals that hit harder because they’re so mundane. A few supporting characters operate more as thematic tools than fully realized individuals, but the core cast is strong enough to keep the emotional stakes anchored.
Wellington’s prose is clean, contemporary, and edged with a quiet bitterness that suits the material. She avoids sensationalism, focusing instead on psychological tension and the institutional failures that allow violence to thrive. The writing is at its best when it’s observational—sharp, clipped lines that expose the hypocrisies adults ignore and teenagers internalize. At times, the message leans a bit heavy-handed, and certain symbolic moments feel overengineered, but the narrative voice stays confident throughout.
