Meet the Baddest Girls in Fiction

Maestra, by L. S. Hinton
Step aside, Amy Dunne (I’m sorry I said that Amy please don’t hurt me), because the beautiful Judith Rashleigh is about to give you a run for your money. An art house assistant who knows she was made for better things, Judith is using her looks, brains, and ruthlessness to elbow her way into the glittery ranks of the rich and famous; and, subsequently, to claw her way out of some hair-raisingly dangerous situations. A complex antihero you’ll root for and then judge yourself for rooting for, Judith is motivated by restlessness, revenge, and a newly discovered knack for reinvention. When Maestra (already optioned for film by Sony) hits shelves April 19, she’ll be staying one step ahead of readers, and the law, as she wreaks havoc across glamorous international borders.

Luckiest Girl Alive, by Jessica Knoll
The “mean girl” trope has been a staple for a long time, even after it was punctured in the titular Lindsay Lohan film. It’s become a bit of lazy shorthand: a rich, plastic pretty girl who gains power by being cruel. Few books explore what makes Mean Girls so mean in the first place, and even fewer bother to wonder what happens to Mean Girls after high school. Luckiest Girl Alive does both, and performs a remarkable trick by presenting a protagonist who is mean and difficult to like at first, then slowly humanizing her as her twisty and surprising story (trust us, you will think you’ve hit the twist—and then there is another twist) unfolds.

The Girl on the Train, by Paula Hawkins
Angry, slightly unhinged Rachel is the definition of an unreliable narrator: an alcoholic still reeling from the end of her marriage, she’s prone to blackouts and rages, and has a dangerous obsession with her ex-husband, Tom, and his new wife, Anna. Though unemployed, Rachel gives shape to her days by taking a commuter train into London—and every day she watches out the window for “Jason and Jess,” attractive strangers whose lives she likes to fantasize about. Meanwhile, “Jess,” whose real name is Megan, is less happy than she seems, treating her suburban ennui with a secret life outside of her marriage. Megan’s sudden disappearance kicks off a police investigation and gives Rachel an opportunity to lie her way into Megan’s life. The two women’s voices, plus Anna’s, entwine in a time-jumping narrative that will leave you breathless.

The Secret Place, by Tana French
You don’t have to have read any of Tana French’s earlier novels to get sucked right into her most recent tour de force, The Secret Place. Once you’ve entered her shimmering, radiant, and twisted world, though, you won’t want to leave, and you’ll go right back and start with her stunning debut novel, the dark, radiant In the Woods. Featuring a hard-boiled murder investigation set on the grounds of a cutthroat shark tank of an all-girls boarding school, The Secret Place embeds you deep in the middle of a solid (almost too solid) friendship between four smart, cynical, but still naive teenaged girls; whose bond is as teeming with secrets and lies as it is with love, loyalty, and rampant clothes-borrowing.

Gone Girl, by Gillian Flynn
I can’t list badass female thriller characters without mentioning Amy Dunne, because I’m scared she’ll come after me and make me pay for it. So: Amazing Amy, hats off to you, for being one of the most compelling, twisted, and confusing fictional narrators we’ve encountered in a long time. When perfect wife/possible devious sociopath Amy figures out what she wants, she makes it happen, no matter the cost. Whether you’re rooting for or against her may change depending on what page you’re on (and how strong your stomach is), but either way, you have to admire her compelling combination of gumption and depravity. Or else.