The Woman of the Year has a deadly enemy in the latest twisted novel by Darcey Bell due out in March. Lorelei Green and Holly Snopes became good friends in a college psychology seminar until a man, a professor no less, entered into Lorelei’s love life. Lorelei believes Holly carried out a scheme to win the professor for herself and gaslighted Lorelei in the process.

In the end, Holly turns against the professor and exposes his dalliances with students, costing him his career. Not only does she do the professor in, but she also causes the animal experimental lab at the college to fall in disfavor and be closed.

Whatever she did back then, 20 years later Holly is now rich and famous thanks to some profitable marriages, while Lorelei barely scrapes by living alone except for her cat. When Lorelei learns Holly is to be named Woman of the Year, she attends the gala and executes a perfect plan that embarrasses Holly.

While Lorelei’s plot is gloriously successful, she is questioned the next day by two police officers who tell her Holly is dead. Lorelei never wanted to kill Holly, she just wanted to get back at her for what Holly did to her in college. Fearing she is a suspect in the killing, Lorelei cooperates with the police who clear her conscience when they tell her how Holly was murdered.

The befallen professor has been dead for some time so Lorelei cannot imagine who else has a vendetta against Holly. Is Holly not worthy of the honor bestowed on her? Since someone else had it out for Holly, could Lorelei be next? Who is that man at the door?

Darcey Bell, a preschool teacher in Chicago, writes some wickedly warped novels. Her debut novel A Simple Favor was produced as a film starring Blake Lively and Anna Kendrick.

My review will be posted on Goodreads starting January 6, 2023.

I would like to thank Atria Books and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC in return for an objective review.

This novel starts with the college friendship between the main character Loralei and Holly. Twenty years later, Holly is named Woman of the Year and Loralei is out for revenge.
Loralei narrates the novel without much interaction with other characters questioning how reliable she is.
The writing style takes some getting used to but is to mimic Loralei's thoughts, while deranged at times!
I could not connect to the story and it felt disorganized. I had high hopes for this as I have read other novels by Bell but thus fell flat for me in all honesty.

Thank you to NetGalley, publisher and author for this eARC in exchange for my honest review.

This was a quick enjoyable read. Our narrator, Lorelei, may be completely crazy or being gaslit by everyone around her, and I found it fun to try to figure out which it was. I do wish there was more to this story; when it ended, I felt a little cheated because I felt there was more to be explored and some lingering questions. With that said, though, it was engrossing and Fun read.

Lorelei and Holly meet when they take a a psychology seminar in college. Their professor Dell teaches the class. He’s an expert in human behavior and control. Lorelei and Holly become entangled with him and his charismatic if a little odd personality.

If you know anything about gas-lighting you know how aggravating it can be. In a moment that sweeps Lorelei’s feet out from under her, Holly & Lorelei stop talking due to the profound betrayal.

Her life slowly begins to unravel as Holly eventually ends up being nominated for Woman of the Year. Lorelei thinks attending the ceremony is the perfect way to enact her revenge. To make herself feel better.
Things don’t go as planned when someone winds up dead and it seems like Lorelei also has a target on her back.

Strongly recommend this book for the cat characters as they were my favorite throughout the whole book!

This is my first Darcey Bell book and I’m a little on the fence about it, but in a good way. This story has gotten into my brain and I can’t stop thinking about it, but it’s certainly not butterflies and rainbows. I’m left questioning everything about what I just read in the best, most kind bendy way. I read about 25% right before I went to bed, then I woke up at 4 AM thinking about the book, so I finished it before work. Needless to say, it was un-put-down-able.

Woman of the Year follows Lorelei, her friendship with Holly, and a weird class they shared during their senior year of college. Be prepared for some scenes with animal cruelty and a (maybe?) unreliable narrator.

I give Woman of the Year 4/5 stars. The beginning was a little jarring for me with the writing style, but once I settled in, this book was great. Thank you for the opportunity to read and review it!

Woman Of The Year starts off with an old friend deep in envy over the rising stardom of the other friend. It twists the plot between current situations and their shared college history. I wasn't really sure where the book was going for awhile. This one didn't hit the same spot A Simple Favor did. Quick read, definitely makes the reader question the character's sanity. Thank you Netgalley for the advanced copy!

This book left me with a lot of questions. It tells the story of a woman whose life did not turn out the way she hoped. Story is written well, I kept wondering how the book would end. And now that I have finished it - I am left a little on the edge. Like I didn’t get full closure to the story. Fast read and enjoyable though

Woman of the Year by Darcey Bell
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In true Darcey Bell fashion, Woman of the Year, is weird, dark, and pretty unbelievable. But so good in the strangest way possible. The novel starts out with Lorelei crashing the Woman of the Year awards, where her former college friend, Holly, is receiving the top honor. The story takes us down the bizarre path of Lorelei's college years in a behavioral psychology class with Holly and charismatic professor James "Dell" Randall. When Lorelei and Dell begin a somewhat forbidden romance, the rest of the story just goes batshit. Add in psychological human experiments, a dash of #MeToo and an unhealthy obsession with cats and you have Bell at her finest. This book is definitely not for those who like their plots to be logical, traditional or wholly make much sense. But if you can suspend your believe and accept the weirdness for what it's meant to be, Woman of the Year is a super fun ride.
Many thanks to NetGalley and Atria Books for an ARC of this title in exchange for my honest feedback.

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I never read A Simple Favor so I'm not familiar with Bell's work other than just having the barest knowledge of plot and story.

This was a quick read, a bit confusing, and a superficial but interesting enough dive into behavioral conditioning.

Good thing the villain is the Disney type and monologues their way through excruciating detail anything you'd want to know, think you know, or reiterate what you were pretty much already sure of.

The characters are pretty one dimensional and I don't think the story take itself too seriously. This feels like it'll be polarizing and some will love it and others won't and I realized I didn't want to read another book about "the dark side of female friendships" which shouldn't be a genre but feels like it is one.

2 stars .

3.5 stars!!!

The psychological thriller parts are really good!
You have a narrator that could be unreliable. And it goes between the current time and the time the narrator spent on college.

It’s faced and a quick read!

Binges this the day I got it and could not put it down. Just as addictive as a Simple Favor and just fun and nasty in the best way. Revenge done right. I will be reviewing a physical copy of this book on my social media platforms but thank you agin to Atria for the digital arc

I struggled with this one. It all felt a little silly, a little petty. A little bit of college drama, a little bit of crazy cat lady, a little bit of jealousy and a little bit of #metoo. It personally didn’t work for me, but it was an easy and a quick read that some people may enjoy.

This book was nowhere near what I imagined. It was actually pretty horrible. Very choppy in parts, no characters with any redeeming qualities, and much of the story revolved around a cat, and then "pretend" cat. Just weird and the story went nowhere fast. Thanks to Netgalley though for an advance copy.

Lorelei does not like how ex-friend, Holly, is being honored as Woman of the Year. She’s determined to ruin it for her. She soon finds out she’s not the only one watching Holly, and she may be in danger too

I don’t know why this one is getting such low ratings. I thought it was entertaining and fun! If you’re a cat lover, you’ll enjoy the main character, although there are some hints of animal cruelty (nothing too graphic). I liked the psychological aspect. It got into behavioral psychology without getting too complicated or confusing.

“The big lie was pretending to like people as much as I liked my cat.”

Women of the Year comes out 3/21.

I honestly have no idea what I just read, it was one of the most bizarre books I’ve ever come across. I really enjoyed “A Simple Favor” and thought this would be just as good, but unfortunately it just didn’t quite work for me. I give it props for an inventive storyline, but I would have liked Lorelei and Holly’s college friendship to be fleshed out better to give more authority to Lorelei nursing her hate for Holly all these years. There was next to no interaction between Holly and Lorelei, even in flashbacks, so it really didn’t fit that Lorelei and Holly were even friends. All of the characters were horribly unlikeable and lacked depth, there really was no plot and the chapters felt very choppy which made it very difficult to get into. Thanks to Darcey Bell, Netgalley and Atria Books for an e-arc in exchange for my thoughts. I look forward to seeing what Darcey writes next.

Had a difficult time connecting with (or caring about) the characters and the storyline did not dig deep enough to keep the reader engaged. Just an okay read.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/61273781

I really enjoyed Darcey Bell's "Woman of the Year". The story was fast-paced and fun, told from the point of view of Lorelei. The book is pretty much made up of ramblings of a mentally unstable woman. I really liked the idea of an unreliable narrator and at parts, I honestly didn't know what to believe. To me, it seemed almost like a diary where anything on the narrator's mind was written down. I especially liked how she was a "crazy cat lady" because I consider myself one also! Definitely a crazy, exciting read!

*Thank you Atria and Netgalley for my eARC for an honest review. Publication date 3/21/23*

I seriously have no idea what the heck I just read. It's a very weird and strange book, and luckily it was a short book, otherwise I don't think I would have cared to finish. I already saw some not good reviews but a girl obsessed with cats (that's me) and a main character with the name Holly (that's my name) I just had to read it and see for myself.

Lorelei and Holly were good friends in college until Lorelei meets a man who she should not be with. Their frienship starts to tapper off and then they don't see each other for 20 years . Lorelei is still obsessed with Holly after all these years, she thinks Holly did something unforgivable to her in college that made her leave school before graduating. 20 years late Holly is nominated woman of the year and Lorelei buys a ticket to the galla and she comes with a plan of her own.

This one was just not for me unfortunately. 1.5 stars rounded up to 2

Conditioning and behavior modification. A crazy cat lady. A decades long plot for revenge.

This book is wild! I have some really mixed feelings about this book, so I'm not really sure how to rate it. I did enjoy aspects of it, but I don't feel like there was proper cohesion for the story to actually work.
What I did like: The writing style is unusual. Told from the perspective of Lorelei, the story is chaotic and disjointed, which helped to highlight Lorelei's inner turmoil and tumultuous thought process. Unfortunately, that also made the plot disconnected and nonsensical. Honestly, I still have no idea why Lorelei was so hell-bent on revenge against Holly. Their relationship wasn't fleshed out with any amount of depth, so it left the motive confusing.
I also found the focus on behavior modification and the dark side of psychological studies fascinating. But that plot also took a strange shift and veered into a #metoo narrative. The ending was also super farfetched.
IDK....this is an interesting story, but one that wasn't told well IMO. It's an interesting read, but I'm really not keen to recommend this book to anyone.

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you to NetGalley, Atria Books, and Emily Bestler Books for this ARC of Woman of the Year by an author I enjoy, Darcy Bell.

This is my second book read by this author and while I did not find it as riveting as A Simple Favor, I enjoyed this psychological thriller drama featuring an unreliable “crazy cat lady” narrator.

The story contains heavy themes of animal and child abuse, psychological and power control, sexual abuse, and female friendship gaslighting.

The narrative was much more about Lorelei’s relationship with her professor “Dell” than it was about her relationship with her former friend and classmate Holly. I ended up enjoying the story more for this, even though it has a dark undertone.

I look forward to reading more from author Darcey Bell.