Bullying

The novel is a young adult murder mystery for teenage girls, but its primary thematic exploration involves the nature of bullying, and how it affects the protagonists of the story, as well as the characters around them.

When Alison was alive, the four girls hung out with her almost every day, but they were never her true friends--they were much more like her minions or employees. Alison used her popularity and power and intelligence to find out secrets about each of them, and then exploit those secrets to get them to do whatever she wanted, whether it was making fun of Mona or setting off a firework. The girls all loved what being Alison’s friend meant: they got invited to the best parties, the cutest boys talked to them, all the other girls in the school were jealous of them. But the girls were incredibly...