THE PAYBACK GIRLS

After their cheating boyfriend ends up in a coma, three girls team up to avoid an attempted murder rap.

Scholarship student Meghan Landry hoped senior year at a new school would be different, but even as star basketball player Nate Walker’s girlfriend, she’s friendless and a target of racist attacks. Meghan is happy with Nate, however, until a pep rally brawl reveals that he’s three-timing her with his supposed exes, the only other Black girls in their class, Robin Ellison and Bria Kelly (Nate is “half-Black” and identifies as biracial). After an attack leaves Nate in a coma, the three girls, initially wary of each other, must work together when they become the investigation’s prime suspects. But the appearance of a new Gossip Girl-esque Instagram account leaves all three doubtful whom they can trust. Travis prioritizes drama to the detriment of plot, characterization, logic, and the exploration of the heavy and important topics the story introduces. Meghan and Robin explore a potential relationship with one another while Meghan weighs staying with Nate, but both these threads are underdeveloped. Themes of PTSD, intimate partner violence, gender, and race are also underexplored in this unevenly paced work that crosses several genres. The author attempts to shine a critical light on the racism Black women experience, but she does so with a heavy hand, flattening Black and white characters alike into stereotypes and missing nuances within the spectrum of Blackness.

Well-intentioned but undermined by a lack of depth and focus.