The Bad Girl (originally in Spanish as Travesuras de la niña mala) is a 2006 novel by Peruvian author and Nobel Prize winner Mario Vargas Llosa.
In the summer of 1950 as a teenager, Ricardo Somocurcio falls in love with the vivacious blonde girl in Miraflores Peru who says she and her sister are from Chile and that her name is Lily. By the end of the summer she is found out as a fraud and disappears just as quickly as she came. Years pass and after graduating from law school, Ricardo goes to live out his dream of living in Paris and runs into the same girl again, this time as a Peruvian revolutionary named Comrade Arlette. She leaves for guerrilla training in Cuba, promising to come back to him, but never does.
While working as an interpreter Ricardo runs into "the bad girl", the only name he can really give to her, this time as the wife of a French diplomat name Madame Robert Arnoux. As Mrs. Richardson, the Mexican wife of an English horse breeder, as Kuriko, the mistress of a sadistic Japanese business man, again and again Ricardo finds her as she changes men and identities, but no matter how cruel she is or how many times she hurts him, he is doomed to love the bad girl forever.
The novel tells the story of the love affair between Ricardo and his "Bad Girl" while also including information about the history of Peru as seen through the eyes of Ricardo and the transformations happening in Europe spanning 40 years.
The novel contains examples of:
- Bittersweet Ending: Having enough of her schemes to get easy money, the Bad Girl finally decides to settle with Ricardo. Unfortunately she gets a terminal illness and dies, not before encouraging Ricardo to write a book about their story.
- Contrived Coincidence: Ricardo runs into The Bad Girl in some highly improbable ways.
- Gold Digger: The central premise of the series. Even though the Bad Girl proves to be intelligent and cunning, she decided to marry her way out of poverty instead.
- I Have Many Names: Lily, Comrade Arlette, Madame Robert Arnoux, Mrs. Richardson, Kuriko and Madame Ricardo Somocurcio. After the first two name changes Ricardo gives up and calls her Bad Girl whenever they meet, knowing whatever name she gives him is false anyway. At the end her real name is revealed to be Otilia.
- Pet the Dog: The Bad Girl is callous and willing to backstab everyone for the sake of money, but she's very sweet towards Yilal, the son of the Russian couple that Ricardo befriends.
- Twice-Told Tale: The book is, in some ways, a rewrite of Madame Bovary.
