Though most horror novels consist of only a terrifying villain disrupting the lives of average, day-to-day people, many don’t go past that. They take that genre and only work within that field, never branching out, never being more. With Katie Alender, that is nowhere near the case

Alender has a long list of novels she’s published in this area; Famous Last Words, Dead Girls of Hysteria Hall, Marie Antoniate: Serial Killer, and her longest (and only) series, Bad Girls Don’t Die. These books all have horror aspects: spirits who try to possess little girls, demons sealed away with limitless power, and a vengeful ghost who terrorizes a town, but also something more. A love story.

It may seem strange; a horror novel with a love story? Those are two concepts that are often parallel and completely separate genres. But, with Alender, it blends perfectly. The Bad Girls Don’t Die series follows a teen girl named Alexis Warren. Blunt, witty, and a loner, she is the epitome of angst with her attitude and pink hair.

Each book (there are three) follows and develops Alexis’ relationships. The first book shows sibling rivalry and love. How she and her sister, Kasey, must overcome their issues in order to save her while also forming a new relationship with a boy named Carter Blume. Right out of the gate Alender shows us two different kinds of love, romantic and familial, both jeopardized by an evil spirit. While we all might not deal with that, we all feel love in some way and we have to learn how to cope with it.

The second book follows the aftermath of the possession and Alexis gets tricked into selling her soul. Different from the first novel, Alexis turns into the total opposite of who she was—a picture-perfect popular teen girl. We see the growth of a person and how that growth causes them to make tough decisions. 

The third wraps up the saga of Alexis with an extreme amount of plot twists. Her relationships are all being affected in a way they hadn’t before and she is forced to confront her past after trying to put it behind her. It signifies coming to terms with who you were; in order to move forward one needs to reflect on what is behind. 

This series is more than a teen girl fighting a ghost. It is a story about someone who has experienced the worst the world has to offer; someone who has to deal with their past while maintaining a healthy relationship with their future, someone who has to balance being a normal kid with saving the world, someone who is just like the rest of us.