The Girls Are All So Nice Here

I enjoyed this novel a lot more than I should have. It was definitely dark and uncomfortable (perhaps too much so, at times) but that was very much the point. As someone in my late 20s, I appreciated the university focus and the double timeline, with Ambrosia’s older self looking back on her experience. The only difficulty came when certain plot points were revealed in one timeline, which then undermined suspense in the other timeline. Still, for the most part the story was intriguing and kept me turning pages throughout.

My biggest frustration with the story was that I never truly understood Ambrosia’s frustration with Flora, the “good girl.” Ambrosia constantly tells us how perfect Flora was, yet it seemed to me that Flora had plenty of obvious problems and flaws. For the story to work, the reader has to be really sold on the good girl/bad girl dichotomy, and I never quite bought it as much as I needed to.

That said, I really did appreciate the way the novel’s central character is, in many ways, the villain of the story, and that the novel doesn’t try to excuse or explain away her horrific actions. I enjoyed the dynamic with her friend Sully (though Sully definitely did walk the line of being just unrealistically horrible). The ending was surprising but satisfying, very much not a happily-ever-after, but also providing at least some of the necessary retribution.

Overall, I’d definitely caution against this book for many people. It’s full of cattiness, casual sex, and just generally people being awful to each other. Still, if you’re into university books and/or thrillers, it’s a decent and somewhat unusual addition to the genre.

Goodreads review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3987901476

Oh my goodness this is so dark and twisted! The two main characters are so nasty and amoralistic that I felt I really shouldn't be enjoying reading about them quite as much as I did. Completely different from anything I've read before. More please!

When Ambrosia turns up at the start of her first semester at a prestigious American college, she is desperate to fit in. Within a few days she meets Sully. Sully is always the centre of attention, is noticed wherever she goes, doesn’t seem to care what anybody thinks of her and can charm her way into anybody’s good books. In fact Sully is almost everythjng that Amb wants to be and she is determined to become part of Sully’s “gang”. The lengths to which she will go to curry Sully’s favour are revealed as the story progresses. Ten years later and everybody has moved on with their lives when Amb receives an invitation to a ten-year college reunion, accompanied by an anonymous note saying “We need to talk about what we did that night”. The book alternates between two timeframes – Now and Then.

Before I start this review I should say that I am definitely not the target audience for this book. As such I am not sure how useful my opinions actually are, but they are not good!! As a result I will start with the downside as it is by far the longest section.

This is a truly ghastly book. All the main characters are seriously horrible. If they were just snobs and tarts, which nearly all of them are, it would be fine. However, most (Sully and her “clan” in particular) are also nasty, bitchy, self-centred and cruel. They are also inconsummate bullies who play with people, and in such an extreme fashion that they are playing with people’s lives. It really is a very unpleasant and uncomfortable read. There is no doubt that Sully is the driving force behind the girls’ nefarious activities, with Ambrosia tagging along because she desperately wants to be part of the in-crowd. Their relationship is both toxic and destructive. Sully has almost complete power over Amb and her behaviour, goading her on to do more and more outrageous things. To be frank I found the whole thing despicable. How anyone could find this interesting is beyond me and I consider it something of a miracle that I made it to the end. It would have helped if some of the characters had been “nice”, so I could at least have taken refuge in rooting for somebody but I was not even given this solace. Overall this book was pernicious, noxious and ultimately, futile. Why do I need to know about this? I feel like I’ve wasted nearly a week of my life that I will never get back.

There are very few positive things that I can find to say. However, the construction of the plot has been well thought out as it does generate suspense. Despite my misgivings about the book as a whole, even I was quite intrigued to find out what the college incident was which still attracted police attention ten years later. This book is billed as a psychological thriller and I have to reluctantly concede that it probably does fit into that genre.

Would I recommend this book? Absolutely not, under no circumstances. However, I must reiterate the caveat that I am really not the target audience.