Slow burn dark academia with realistic approach to bullying, depression, suicide, bipolar! Those are truly triggering subjects which may make you disturbed as the tension and mistreatment of mean girls of the school keep escalating. Oh boy, you want to punch each of those bad b*tches so bad and you want to protect Sarah from their dirty schemes.

Mistreatment to LGBTQ students also made me pissed off!

If you cannot deal with those triggering subjects, this book is not great fit for you.

I liked Sarah’s characterization and her evolving power, learning to stand up for herself! It’s so hard to embrace your inner power when you suffer from depression, bipolar disorder. Her inner fight reflected genuinely. I honestly enjoyed to read her self growth and her fight more than the book’s murder mystery.

Overall: it was promising, thrilling, psychological dark academia that I mostly enjoyed. Rounding up my 3.5 stars to 4 for its realistic chapters even though I hated the guts of those mean girls starting with god damn you Greta!

Special thanks to NetGalley and Gallery Books for sharing this digital reviewer copy with me in exchange my honest thoughts.

Trigger warning: suicide. Mental health, bullying.

This ya packs a slow burning punch. What started out as a very complicated window on Sarah’s struggle with mental health, turns into a uniquely powerful portrayal of friendship. As someone with severe depression it was refreshing to see a character who is learning to deal with her illness in a very real way, and also grow to not have it her fill identity. Loved the 90s setting and the truth that mental health and LGBTQ students were not treated well.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read and review this novel. I encourage you to check this one out!

I'm a sucker for dark academia, like I'm going to spend my life chasing the secret history. And, in some ways, this scratched that itch. That said, I was either sent an early edit or this needs badly to be tightened up. There were several points where it was painfully obvious a revision had taken place, not because the voice changed, but because there were unrelated sentance fragments sprinkled through those areas. I do mean several, by the way. I would like to give this a higher rating, but these errors really brought down my reading experience.

I love this intense, climactic thriller. I was incredibly invested in the characters and plot. Readers are going to love this incredible novel.

Wow I loved this book! I was completely immersed in Sarah (Sally's) world as she found her way at the St. Ambrose School For Girls.

Sarah was an unlikely candidate for the prestigious school but her star chasing mother submitted an essay of hers without her knowledge. Before she knew it, she was an Ambrose girl. She doesn't fit the part due to her goth look and predilection for black. But what Sarah really wants to hide is her bi-polar diagnosis and her stints in mental hospitals. She decides to keep to herself and does not speak up when the local queen bee sets her in her sights. What happens next is a bit predictable, but I enjoyed every page.

This isn't a perfect book, but the characters are well drawn and interesting and I loved spending time at the school. If you like thrillers set in academia this is a fabulous book for you!
#Gallerybooks

Thank you to Gallery Books for sending me an arc of this in exchange for an honest review.


Trigger warnings for suicidal thoughts etc

Basically if you have trouble with your mental health like I do, just be careful reading this.

This book is a strange take on teenage girls and bullying and the fact that women are just fucking mean, the story itself was pretty predictable and honestly felt really pointless until about the last 10%,