The Girls Are All So Nice Here
Author: Laurie Elizabeth Flynn
Published by: HQ Stories
Pages: 308
Format: Paperback
My Rating ★★★★
Published by: HQ Stories
Pages: 308
Format: Paperback
My Rating ★★★★
“I wouldn’t take back what we did. Does that make me a monster?”
When Ambrosia first arrives at prestigious college Wesleyan, she's desperate to fit in. But Amber struggles to navigate the rules of this strange, elite world, filled with privileged 'nice' young women - until she meets the charismatic but troubled Sully, with whom she forms an obsessive friendship.
Intoxicated by Sully's charm and determined to impress her, Amber finds herself drawn deep into her new best friend's dangerous manipulations.
But if she wants to play Sully at her own game, Amber has no idea just how devastating the consequences will be...
When Ambrosia first arrives at prestigious college Wesleyan, she's desperate to fit in. But Amber struggles to navigate the rules of this strange, elite world, filled with privileged 'nice' young women - until she meets the charismatic but troubled Sully, with whom she forms an obsessive friendship.
Intoxicated by Sully's charm and determined to impress her, Amber finds herself drawn deep into her new best friend's dangerous manipulations.
But if she wants to play Sully at her own game, Amber has no idea just how devastating the consequences will be...
My thoughts:
From the first chapter I knew I was here for it. We follow Amber as she joins a prestigious university where she plans to reinvent herself and shed her college-self. She first tried to fit in with the popular kids but her attempts are rejected and she finds what could be called ‘acceptance’ from Sully – a troubled and rebellious teen who loves manipulating and using people just for the fun of it.
The story mainly revolves around Amber and her relationship with Sully when they were teenagers at university and in the present day. They are both invited to a university reunion and the events that make Amber nervous to go back start to unfold. At points I couldn’t stop reading, I needed to know what horrendous action Sully and Amber would take next. I couldn’t put it down.
It was dark, unsettling and completely captivating. The Girls Are All So Nice Here will keep you incredibly tense and guessing until the very end.
The characters were generally quite cliché which made them easy to envisage, and their predictability and nastiness made for an indulgent read. It’s a dark and addictive mystery about toxic friendship, mixed with a bit of murder. I liked how Flynn didn’t shy away from making her characters truly unlikable, though they often stayed morally grey, allowing for nuance and discussion. You really get a sense of this toxic bond between the two central characters and how this affected their every move.
One of the biggest strengths of the novel is the characterisation and the variety. We have lovely, fragrant Flora who is wholesome and pretty to the absolute extreme opposite of Sully. Ambrosia or Amb as she prefers to be known is an enigma. She allows herself to be sucked into a mean, dark, monstrous world which makes her feel alive, it gets her noticed and not overlooked. She has hatred for everything that she is not and exacts a perverse revenge against the girls who have it all. In the present day it is hard to tell if she even feels guilty or regrets what happened during her time at university. It’s very hard to tell because she continually evades all the lies of her past, focused entirely on not getting caught out.
The dual timelines - then and now – really enhanced the storytelling and left me eagerly turning pages to find out more. When one time frame chapter was ending, I would look forward to the next just as much, so this stylistic approach also helped maintain a fast pace and an incredibly tense atmosphere throughout the whole book.
The story begins with an intriguing opening hook that drew me in straight away and left me desperately wanting to know more. I liked how the mystery was really teased out, with certain events remaining still shrouded in shadow close to the end.
I enjoyed this gripping psychologically twisted thriller, though it turned out to be much darker than I’d initially expected. I mention this, because the book does feature some particularly nasty plot points including rape, murder and suicide. It’s a morally fraught and ambiguous book, even down to that perfectly sinister ending.
Overall reaction:
From the first chapter I knew I was here for it. We follow Amber as she joins a prestigious university where she plans to reinvent herself and shed her college-self. She first tried to fit in with the popular kids but her attempts are rejected and she finds what could be called ‘acceptance’ from Sully – a troubled and rebellious teen who loves manipulating and using people just for the fun of it.
The story mainly revolves around Amber and her relationship with Sully when they were teenagers at university and in the present day. They are both invited to a university reunion and the events that make Amber nervous to go back start to unfold. At points I couldn’t stop reading, I needed to know what horrendous action Sully and Amber would take next. I couldn’t put it down.
It was dark, unsettling and completely captivating. The Girls Are All So Nice Here will keep you incredibly tense and guessing until the very end.
The characters were generally quite cliché which made them easy to envisage, and their predictability and nastiness made for an indulgent read. It’s a dark and addictive mystery about toxic friendship, mixed with a bit of murder. I liked how Flynn didn’t shy away from making her characters truly unlikable, though they often stayed morally grey, allowing for nuance and discussion. You really get a sense of this toxic bond between the two central characters and how this affected their every move.
One of the biggest strengths of the novel is the characterisation and the variety. We have lovely, fragrant Flora who is wholesome and pretty to the absolute extreme opposite of Sully. Ambrosia or Amb as she prefers to be known is an enigma. She allows herself to be sucked into a mean, dark, monstrous world which makes her feel alive, it gets her noticed and not overlooked. She has hatred for everything that she is not and exacts a perverse revenge against the girls who have it all. In the present day it is hard to tell if she even feels guilty or regrets what happened during her time at university. It’s very hard to tell because she continually evades all the lies of her past, focused entirely on not getting caught out.
The dual timelines - then and now – really enhanced the storytelling and left me eagerly turning pages to find out more. When one time frame chapter was ending, I would look forward to the next just as much, so this stylistic approach also helped maintain a fast pace and an incredibly tense atmosphere throughout the whole book.
The story begins with an intriguing opening hook that drew me in straight away and left me desperately wanting to know more. I liked how the mystery was really teased out, with certain events remaining still shrouded in shadow close to the end.
I enjoyed this gripping psychologically twisted thriller, though it turned out to be much darker than I’d initially expected. I mention this, because the book does feature some particularly nasty plot points including rape, murder and suicide. It’s a morally fraught and ambiguous book, even down to that perfectly sinister ending.
Overall reaction: