Bad Girl- Confessions Of A Teenage Delinquent May 2026

Where the book excels is its unapologetic voice. Riley is not a secret sweetheart. She is manipulative, angry, and often cruel. She steals from friends who try to help her and mocks the concept of therapy. This refusal to sanitize teenage delinquency is the work’s greatest strength. The prose is jagged and visceral; one passage about shoplifting a pack of cigarettes while dissociating from her own body is as good as anything in Denis Johnson’s Jesus’ Son .

On the surface, Bad Girl: Confessions of a Teenage Delinquent looks like another entry in the long line of “troubled teen” exploitation fare—think Kids meets Jawbreaker with a dash of Girl, Interrupted . But beneath its spiked necklace and smudged eyeliner, this confessional narrative (whether a memoir or a roman à clef) attempts something more dangerous: empathy for the unrepentant. Bad Girl- Confessions Of A Teenage Delinquent

Rating: ★★★☆☆ (3.5/5)