There is a new book series on the Dutch market: Ugly Girls. If the pink cover hasn’t caught your attention yet, hopefully this blog will. Ugly Girls is the first book in a trilogy by three of Sweden’s most popular young adult authors. Johanna Lindbäck, Lisa Bjärbo and Sara Ohlsson have written several books and this time they joined forces to write Ugly Girls. The series has been translated into several languages, now including Dutch. To celebrate the release of book two, Annoying Girls, we held an event with the authors and booktokers.

What’s it about?

Ugly Girls is a story about friendship and girl power with a touch of a YA detective. High school student Tilde finds out that her bad school photo is on an Instagram account called Ugly Girls. She has never considered herself ugly, but she is now the fourth girl from her school to have her photo posted on that account and she starts doubting herself. Most students laugh about the account at first, but soon the other girls are all starting to be afraid of becoming the next victim.

Tilde is in the same class as Eleni and Jasmine, but they barely talk to each other as they are all very different people. Tilde is very outspoken, Eleni observant and withdrawn, and Jasmine popular and easily bored. Nevertheless, they decide to work together to find out who is behind Ugly Girls. But how far will they go to find out the truth?

The book will take you on a journey of unexpected friendship and leave you with a craving for brownies. It’s the perfect read for young adult readers and even if you’re older you’ll have an amazing time reading it. There is even one teacher in the story that I am sure everyone will recognize and feel a shared irritation about.

The story continues in book 2: Annoying Girls. In it, the girls are feeling brave and they won’t accept injustice anymore even though the boys are starting to find them annoying. And on top of that, they have to deal with a fire that destroys their gym. But when people think that Eleni might have done it, the girls have to work together to find the real culprit.

Ugly Girls Event

To celebrate the release of book 2, the authors visited the Netherlands. We collaborated with the publisher for an event with the authors of the book and several BookTokers. The authors received a copy of their book in Dutch, followed by a lunch and book talk with everyone and it ended with a book signing and lots of content. Curious? Check out the #uglygirlsevent on TikTok or TikTok account @Boektokkers for the videos