BAD GRACES

Teen girls must survive on an island that harbors a terrible secret.

Twins Liv and Everly have been through more than a dozen foster homes, and Liv is the reason why: She’s set fire to a house and punched a foster brother. When they finally find kind foster parents, Liv, who can tell her welcome is wearing thin, steals Everly’s identity to win an internship on the Alaska set of a film version of The Tempest. Setting out on a fancy yacht with producer Vincent Bellegarde, five teen girl celebrities, and the crew, Liv hopes only to escape her current life. She’s wondering whether she’s out of her element when disaster strikes, and the boat is wrecked in a violent storm. The survivors—the six girls and Vincent—wash up on an island somewhere in the Pacific. Because they sailed off course to look for whales, no one knows where they are—and they have no way to contact rescuers. Worse still, they’re not alone: Someone or something terrifying is on the island, and they must escape before the experience turns them into monsters themselves. McCauley’s feminist spin on Shakespeare and Greek mythology is both lush and disturbing. Though the plot races forward at a shocking pace, each character feels fully formed, helping to construct a brutally relatable portrait of what it is to be a teenage girl. Apart from one girl who is Puerto Rican and one who is Black, most main characters are cued white.

Compulsively readable.