I'm always drawn towards the MEAN GIRLS-esque type stories for some reason -- so, I already expected that I would enjoy SOME GIRLS ARE when I finally picked it up to read this week. Even so, I wasn't prepared for the unexpected little surprises I'd find in the author's writing, making the story so much more personal, painful, and engrossing than I previously could have expected. 
 Stepping back a bit to the plot... SOME GIRLS ARE tells the story of Regina Afton, high school socialite and A-list diva extraordinaire. Regina has climbed to the peak of the teenage social ladder where she resides as the best friend and right hand wingman of Anna Morrison -- Hallowell High's most feared and revered MEAN GIRL. Sure, the position requires a fair deal of back-stabbing, public shaming, and personal devastation of the weaklings throughout the school, but it's a small price to pay for instant popularity, right? 
 But, as fast as a girl can rise to the top, she can also be thrust to the very bottom of the high school social ladder, as Regina soon discovers after a dreadful party where Anna's boyfriend drunkenly attempts to rape Regina, an event that was later escalated into a total "FREEZE OUT" by Anna and the rest of the crew when Kara, one of Regina's former bully victims, decides to twist things to her own advantage. 
 Just one night was all that it took to turn everything around, and now Regina faces lunches alone at the isolated table by the trash cans, acts of vandalism on her locker, books, and personal belongings, and numerous invites to a spiteful online community created only to humiliate and torture her through incriminating pictures and posts all accumulated over the years by Anna -- just in case she ever needed insurance in the future. 
 Regina knows how the game goes -- she's been on the other side so many times before -- but she never realized just how BRUTAL everything could feel until she was a universal target of bullying by the entire high school... everyone, that is, except high school outcast Michael, who has more reason than most to join the hate campaign against Regina. But, can Regina really trust Michael, or is he hiding an alternative motive? As the physical and emotional bullying escalates to new and dangerous heights, Regina is given a troubling proposition that may change the course of the game forever. 
 So, what happens when the predator suddenly becomes the prey -- and the stakes are higher and more desperate than ever before? Can a MEAN GIRL ever reform her ways, or will she ultimately get the punishment she has always deserved? 
 I think one of the things that is so surprising and amazing about SOME GIRLS ARE was really the way that the author takes the reader by the hand, leading her through a series of gray areas in which one was able to both detest and love a character, simultaneously condoning her actions but ultimately rooting for her the whole way through the chaos. While Regina is experiencing the constant bullying by Anna and her crew, the reader remembers that Regina herself is expressly responsible for doing the very same thing to so many others -- but at the same time, we can't help but support Regina's desperate attempts at enacting horrible revenge on her bullies.. even if it means, at some level, that she is ultimately acting out against herself at the same time. 
 I can't deny that there were points at which I thought that some of Anna and Kara's disgusting acts of betrayal might be a tad bit deserved, but at other points I loved to hate these same characters, seeing the whole thing as ridiculous and immature. While I have read several young adult novels from the perspective of either the bully or the victim, I think this was probably the first in which the voice was that of a girl who served both roles -- giving SOME GIRLS ARE a uniquely conflicted perspective that keeps the story new and interesting. 
 I really enjoyed SOME GIRLS ARE and I definitely plan on reading more by Courtney Summer in the future. She has an amazing way of portraying a gritty, realistic high school setting that was intensely entertaining while being simultaneously disturbing and unsettling. I definitely recommend this to anyone seeking out a bit of a darker teenage novel.