Reckless Girls: A Novel

“I hitched onto Nico’s dream because coming up with my own felt impossible.”

Lux begins the novel without goals and desires of her own. She’s drawn to Nico because he has a sense of direction, which makes Lux feel like she has more purpose. Hawkins moves Lux from being content to share his dreams with him to charting her own path with intention and purpose, highlighting the novel’s thematic engagement with Female Agency and the Reclamation of Power.

“The photo is one of the few keepsakes I’d brought with me from San Diego, and it’s been sitting in my suitcase the entire time we’ve been crashing on the living room floor. I was excited to finally have a place to put it on the boat.”

Lux’s photograph of her mother symbolizes the grief of losing her mother to cancer and the pain that she feels as a result of this loss—a key aspect of her characterization. Nico’s dismissal of the photograph indicates his disregard for Lux’s feelings— one of the first few cracks in the veneer of Nico’s affable, supportive personality that hints at the novel’s thematic exploration of Trust and Betrayal in Relationships.

“Your mother made a choice, Lux. She didn’t want me in her life, neither did you. Now you two have to live with that.”

Lux’s anger toward her father ultimately motivates her to embrace Chloe/Eliza’s brand of vigilante justice. He’d left her mother for his secretary and then refused to help pay for her hospice care. Although she did once confront him, Lux remains angry at her father, and this rage is part of why she finds it so difficult to process and move on from her mother’s death.

“This first night has already marked them as the ‘weird ones,’ the girl who cries and her psycho friend.”

Amma and Brittany’s relationship remains a complicated mystery for much of the novel. Initially, on the boat, Brittany seems like the calmer of the pair, but flashbacks reveal her grief and volatility. Each woman also lies to the other, and the author continually reveals new information about the pair piecemeal so that a full picture of their characters emerges only at the end of the novel, consistent with the structure of a locked-room mystery.

“There will always be a before and an after, and you have to learn to live in the after.”

Brittany has the line “in the after” tattooed onto her wrist, which Hawkins positions as symbolic of the impact of grief and loss. Lux finds herself drawn to this sentiment—the idea of taking hold of individual destiny and re-shaping one’s life trajectory. Both Brittany and Chloe/Eliza have decided to live by this code, and after they die, Lux herself adopts it as her personal mantra, using it to rationalize crime and vigilante justice.

“Red sky at night, sailor’s delight, red sky at morning, sailor take warning.”

Hawkins includes an old seafaring adage that describes the likelihood of calm or stormy weather based on the color of the sky to underscore the menacing tone of the novel as the group arrives on the island and foreshadow the violence to come. Lux has just woken up to a blazing, red sky, and it fills her with foreboding. There is already something about the voyage that doesn’t sit right with her, and she is worried about the trip ahead.

“You’re a survivor, Lux.”

As the novel progresses, Lux internalizes Brittany’s assessment of her, embracing it as an empowering self-definition. Ultimately, the author reveals that Brittany is drawn to Lux because of the similarities she sees between their life stories. She sees herself as a survivor and has re-oriented her goals, values, and trajectory to fit this narrative in the wake of her family’s death and Amma’s betrayal. At the end of the novel, she offers Lux something she does not yet have: a chosen family.

“It’s not like beauty is anything new to me, I’ve been living on Hawaii for the last six months, after all. But there’s something different about Meroe, something wilder. It looks like a kid’s drawing of a deserted island, all palm trees and sandy shore, the water and sky contrasting but equally brilliant shades of blue.”

Hawkin presents Meroe Island as a wild, remote location with a history of violence to convey a sense of anxiety and danger in the narrative setting. Because the group of people on the island is geographically isolated and located in a place that has been the site of horrific events in the past, the setting itself foreshadows a breakdown of social norms among the group.

“We don’t really talk about Nico’s family, the life he led before he chucked it all to go sailing. And Nico never really acts like a rich person. But every once in a while, I’m reminded that he and I grew up very differently.”

Lux’s progressive recognition of Nico’s true nature signals her personal growth. Nico does not initially strike Lux as someone with an affluent background. His down-to-earth attitude and unwillingness to accept financial help from his family mark him, or so she thinks, as an individual willing to forge his own path. Yet, as the trip progresses, cracks begin to appear in the façade of his persona. Lux’s growing ability to recognize the ways that his wealth creates a sense of entitlement in him evidences the ways in which she’s beginning to think for herself.

“There is something so sinister about that fin, slicing through the water like a blade, disturbing the tranquility of this perfect place.”

Hawkins employs foreshadowing throughout the novel, using sinister images like this one of sharks to create anxiety and hint at troubling events to come. Here, although the women are unharmed, Lux leaves the water with an unshakeable feeling of alarm. She does not yet know what exactly she is afraid of, but there is a part of her that can sense something dangerous lurking.

“Oh, because you suddenly care so much about people being reckless.”

This novel is, in part, an exploration of the way that secrecy, lies, and false personae impact relationships. Here, Brittany makes a cryptic comment that upsets Amma. Lux, who has yet to see a crack in the veneer of the women’s friendship, is puzzled. This is one of the novel’s many moments of suspense and foreshadowing: There is much to Amma and Brittany that Lux does not realize, and she is slowing beginning to understand that, like Nico, they might not be entirely who they seem.

“The weirdest thing is, when she talks like that, I actually feel interesting, like someone who has done shit.”

Lux feels rootless and lost at the beginning of the novel. She was initially surprised that Nico was interested in her and also feels anxiety when she meets Brittany and Amma. This scene highlights the ways in which she defines her own worth through the eyes of others—she is flattered by the praise that she receives from both of the women and then from Eliza. As the novel progresses and Lux gains a clearer picture of the other characters, she also begins to see herself more clearly.

“I feel possessive. I didn’t know I had that streak in me, and it strikes me how much we revert back to the most basic human instincts when we leave civilization behind.”

Hawkins’s setting of Meroe Island emphasizes The Psychological Impact of Isolation on Group Dynamics as a central theme in the story. The island impacts several of the characters, altering their personalities and showing them that they are capable of more than they thought. Lux, who had been able to refrain from jealousy in her relationship with Nico, finds herself increasingly worried about his attraction to Amma. She is quicker to anger than she normally is and more consumed by her fear that Nico and Amma might be engaging in a clandestine relationship behind her back.

“There’s something about this guy that I immediately do not like. Something that makes me more than a little nervous. He reminds me of guys we got at the Cove sometimes, the ones who only ever ordered Pabst Blue Ribbon and had eyes that slid over our bare legs like slime.”

The introduction of Robbie immediately raises alarm bells in Lux’s mind, positioning him as a red herring for the true danger of the island. Lux describes him as “smarmy” and notes his lack of manners and personal hygiene. He brings up the island’s dark history, and she is struck by how much humor he finds in cannibalism. Everything about him bothers her, and she can see that the other women are also wary of this newcomer.

“Place like this, it does things to people, reveals who you really are when you strip all the bullshit away.”

The impact of isolation on individual emotional stability as well as group dynamics is one of this novel’s key thematic focal points. Although Robbie is the first to point out the way that life on a dreamy, deserted island can quickly turn into a nightmare and the others are loath to agree with him, Lux ultimately realizes that he was right. She experiences an erosion of her self-esteem, her ability to remain cool under pressure, and the easy relationship she shared with Nico. She becomes untrusting, wary, and watchful. By the time the events on the island have reached their propulsive conclusion, Lux is more than ready to go home.

“I’m not sure I’ve ever been mad at Nico, not really honestly angry, but here we are, and I have no idea how he’ll act.”

Just as Robbie warned, the group’s time on the isolated island begins to change the nature of the relationships between the members. Here, Lux finds herself actually upset with Nico for the first time. Although his lack of empathy has momentarily troubled her in the past, she’s always managed to shake it off and move on. Now, with the additional stress brought on by Lux’s fear of Robbie, she cannot ignore Nico’s callousness any longer, and it leads to an actual disagreement.

“Like a lot of things on Meroe, time has started to feel pliant, slippery in a way that it does not back home.”

Isolation adds strain to the characters’ relationship, but it also alters their perception of reality. Part of the destabilizing nature of life on the island is that normalcy falls away. There are no schedules and responsibilities, nor is there a typical order to each day. Lux finds that the trappings of normal life helped to create stability in her life. Without normalcy, the strain of being trapped alone with a small group of people intensifies, and she finds herself hyperaware of their true personalities in a new way.

“‘Right, because you always know what’s best,’ Nico says. There’s a sinister expression on his face, almost a sneer, that I’ve never seen before.”

Appearances often mask darkness below the surface in this novel, and more than one character reveals themselves to be other than what they seemed at first meeting. Nico, although he has an affable, laid-back persona, is actually unkind and lacking in empathy. His true colors come out slowly, as the stress of the trip to Meroe begins to impact each character in their own way, highlighting the novel’s thematic engagement with trust and betrayal in relationships.

“No lesson learned from her mum’s prison sentence, no remorse. The Kelly men just trundled along their way.”

Late in the novel, Hawkins reveals revenge as a key motivating factor for several of the characters. Eliza, who has also used the name Chloe, is on Meroe Island in order to exact revenge on Jake for being part of the trafficking ring that landed her mother in prison. Like many of the other characters, Eliza’s placid exterior masks a turbulent interior, and she is ultimately revealed as much more ruthless than she seemed initially.

“Paradise isn’t exactly what I expected.”

The gradual breakdown of group relations against the backdrop of a beautiful but remote location builds the narrative suspense and underscores its key themes. Lux, in particular, learns that appearances can be deceiving and that picture-perfect tropical locations are not as idyllic as they seem. She begins to crave cool air and cities in part because she misses normalcy, a subtle signal that she is moving through her grief and transforming into a more empowered version of herself who is ready to reengage with the world.

“Our secret, just one more to add to the pile.”

Throughout the novel, none of the characters fully grasp the impact that their actions have on others, even when they themselves have been wronged. The fallout from the many betrayals becomes a key part of the novel’s narrative as well as its thematic exploration of trust and betrayal. Here, Lux has just slept with Jake in spite of knowing the sting of unfaithfulness from Nico’s behavior and feeling a bond of friendship with Eliza.

“I’ve never been the kind of girl who went after someone else’s boyfriend. I’ve never cheated in my life. And I like Eliza, a lot.”

Meroe Island and its atmosphere of isolation have an impact on each of the characters. Lux finds herself acting on her impulse to sleep with Jake even though that kind of betrayal has never been part of her personality before. Like each other member of the group, however, she feels the strain of being stranded alone with people whose intentions are not always clear or innocent.

“I just wish someone would panic with me a little bit, but no one is going to.”

As the novel progresses, Lux feels an increasing sense of distance between herself and the other individuals on Meroe Island, evidencing her personal growth toward agency and independence. The gulf between appearances and reality becomes increasingly clear at this point in the novel, as Lux begins to realize that not everything is as it seemed to be with Jake, Eliza, Amma, and Brittany.