Feeling they have lost control as their sixteen-year-old child Anna continually defies them and breaks all their rules, the religious Wheelers turn to a radical solution. They hire "soldiers" from Camp Archstone to abduct their daughter and take her to a remote Bahamas Island for several weeks of boot camp. Anna thought her parents were too strict, but they seem permissive as she lives in a survival camp run in the strictest of military styles; insubordination leads to harsh punishment from the in your face 24/7 staff.

Anna fears her bunkmates whose behavior seems over the edge past sanity. However, her terror turns to outright horror when on a forced hike up a mountain someone kills the leader; the others react just as frightened. Everyone panics with the girls fleeing into the jungle while deviant drug dealers pursue them with plans to rape and then kill the teens. To Anna, the biggest fear remains her violent bunkmates who cannot understand teamwork is the only way to save their lives.

BAD GIRLS is a heart-pumping thriller that never slows down from the moment that Anna is abducted with the concerned unsure consent of her parents and never slows down until the final tropical jungle feverish confrontation. The storyline feels like a gender-bending Lord of the Flies crossed with female prison movies like The Big Doll House and The Big Bird Cage. Still, this is an adrenalin-filled, action-packed tale with the audience rooting for Anna to survive her ordeal.
Bad Girls
Alex McAulay
Pocket, Jun2005, $10.95
ISBN: 0743497333

Harriet Klausner