Written as a “true crime” novel delving into the fictional murder of Joni Wilson by her fellow high school students, Penance explores girlhood, true crime obsession and the complicated, sticky nature of the truth.

The narrative skillfully incorporates Tumblr posts and subcultures, tapping into the chaos and cringe of the era, ultimately flipping the true crime genre on its head in a thrilling and unexpected way. There is so much to unpack with this story, I find myself still thinking about it days after finishing it and suspect I will still be thinking about it for years to come.

A literal showstopper of a novel!! After finishing this one, I knew immediately I had to go out and buy Boy Parts because I cannot get enough of Eliza Clark.

I was hooked from the very beginning and found myself waking up earlier than my alarm just so I could read more in the morning before heading to work.

I will say, I wasn't sure what to think of this one at first. From other reviewers, I saw this was a book about the ethics of true crime and whether it's exploitative. I understand that complaint in itself, but I don't think this book is the right arena for its discussion since it's quite literally based on a true crime case lol. But again, that's a complaint that I have towards other reviewers, not this book itself.

I loved being able to see the insights of the four girls involved and how they spiraled into this horrendous crime. I was very familiar with the story of Shanda Sharer, whom this story is based off of, and I liked reading it from a current day POV, selfishly, because I could relate to the teenage girl in the 2000s era with Tumblr, texting, and creepy pastas.

I wasn't sure how I wanted to rate this one at first because while I loved it, I felt it moving towards random historical storylines of Crow, but I think I'm landing at a 4.75 and rounding to a 5 star!

4.5 ☆

As someone who tried reading boy parts and couldn’t get into it, I had some hesitations while starting this book. However, I was completely surprised by how much I loved it. I was swept off my feet instantly by the first chapter. While I was reading, I was genuinely in awe of Clark’s storytelling. I mean, this story really sounds like a real murder. Aside from that, I loved that the book had the atmosphere of the early 2010’s, where there was tumblr and the beginning of the social media age. Especially since I grew up in that time just like these girls were, it was fun to get swept up in that time again, but it does remind me of how brutal preteens and teens can be at those ages and I do not miss it. Clark does an amazing job bringing everything together and showing how messed up the true crime community can be profiting off of other peoples pain and suffering, and how narratives can easily be changed to bring more traction to a story. I’m so happy that this book proved me wrong and I’m excited for whatever Clark writes next!

Another absolutely knockout by Clark. This story is compelling, sick, and twisted. A perfect follow up to her hit debut that shows she has range as writer but also establishes her use of dark and twisted themes and her style.

Let me start off by saying, no one writes an unlikable character quite like Eliza clark.

Penance tells us the fictional “non fiction” tale of Joan Wilson’s death and all those who played a part in it. We learn the small sea side towns history and lore and see how that fuels the girl’s imaginations. We are taken on a twisted and compelling journey through the young girls lives as seen in real life and their blogs. We learn the toxicity and cruelty of teenage girls with social media accounts. We examine the class and hierarchy of the small town, how someone always knows someone that can take care of it for you. No one ever has to suffer consequences why should they?

This book is unlike anything I’ve ever read. I found myself entranced by the narrative and how tumblr posts and subcultures were painted. I was there throughout the tumblr true crime era. I know the chaos and cringe of which this book speaks. Pushing the social boundaries of not only being a teenager but also being a girl. I think penance does all of this and then some. It flips the true crime genre on its head in such a fun and exciting way. Just when you think you know what happens next, you don’t. Much like boy parts, Eliza clark knows how to wow you!

Thank you netgalley and Harper for the eARC!

This was a pretty good book and I enjoyed it for the most part. It was dark and disturbing and what I love about crime stories. There were times that I was so enthralled that I forgot it wasn’t a real “true-crime” story, but then there were other parts of the book that I felt really didn’t need to be there. For example, the history of the town and how it got its name contributed absolutely nothing to the story and just left me confused about why I needed to know this and quite frankly bored. I also felt like some of the “magical” aspects were unnecessary, too.

The characters were really well written and I was able to connect with all of them when reading their part of the story. It was Mean Girls meets Heathers but in a darker way.

I gave this 3.5 stars and I do recommend reading it. Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for letting me read this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

i loved boy parts and i love eliza clark, so it's not a surprise that this book was perfect for me. such a dark and compelling narrative. clark packs so much into the book (which doesn't feel dense at all)—toxic internet culture, the dangers of true crime and the dangers of subjectivity in telling an objective story, and about girlhood as well. as someone who was deeply entrenched in the canals of 2010s tumblr, this was such an accurate representation.

Penance takes the shape of a fictional true crime novel written by controversial journalists, Alec Carelli. As Carelli details the story of the murder of a British teen, the reader is left to figure out what parts of his retelling are true, and what is not.

The premise of this book immediately intrigued me, and it definitely did not disappoint.

Eliza Clark does an excellent job detailing this horrible crime and the events leading up to it. I love the way all of the puzzle pieces of the crime start to perfectly fall into place as the book goes on. You also have the added layer of an unreliable narrator with Carelli, so even though you've just heard these super in depth details of the crime, you don't know how much of it is real. It definitely leaves you with a lot of questions, and I know I'll be thinking about this book for a while.

Between Carelli twisting the truth of this story, and the deep dive into the murderers' obsession with true crime, I think Clark did a great job shedding some light on how toxic the true crime craze can sometimes be.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

As someone who loves books that play with the true crime genre, I was really looking forward to this. It fell a little flat to me for a couple of reasons. Clearly the most interesting/intriguing part of the book was the intersection of a crime with weird Tumblr fandom. The rest of the book, while imagined in painstaking and hyper-realistic detail, just wasn't that gripping to me. The book also has this extra layer of narrative, that the author within the book has a complex relationship with truth-telling. And that didn't go in an especially innovative direction for me, considering that idea is as least as old as In Cold Blood. So parts of the book were captivating and others were a bit of a slog for me. I think this book is best for readers who spent a lot of time in the weirder realms within Tumblr.

as someone who abhors true crime, i found reading this musing on how evil it can be and who has the right to tell a story and what even constitutes "true" extremely satisfying. and it does so brilliantly, through an unreliable crooked journalist narrator, through the lens of true-crime fandom, through clever workings of sympathy and fact.

A good book about a terrible crime and the disgruntled journalist determined to write about it. You'll feel uncomfortable and sad but how can you not with a crime like this?

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for allowing me to read this arc in exchange for an honest review!

2.5 stars rounded up.

This book was very different from the author's other novel, "Boy Parts." While I didn't love either of them, I definitely enjoyed the other one more. "Penance" felt like a bit of a chore to read, with its crazy long chapters and meandering story. The teen girl speak was tedious and cringe at times, (though I think that was probably intentional), and the characters blended into each other.

This is one of those situations where you get the same story told repeatedly from different perspectives, with slight variations and not a whole lot of new info each time. So things get VERY repetitive. We learn about each of the main characters individually, and just when you don’t think it’s possible every single teenage girl turns out to be an even bigger “yikes” than the one before. It goes beyond simple bullying and into mentally deranged territory. (One of the girls is obsessed with a pair of school shooters, to the point of writing fanfiction about it. So gross, which is the point, but I had to speed read those sections. My skin was crawling.) But the biggest issue with "Penance" overall is that on page one, we’re told that some of the information we're given is not accurate. So, we the reader are never sure whose account we are supposed to believe. I guess this gives the book an air of mystery to it for some, but along with how awful these people were, it kept me from really caring all that much. Another thing: My eyes glazed over while reading about the history of the town where the crime took place. I know this was included for the sake of realism, but that part just wasn’t interesting to me. I totally understand why some reviewers said they felt like they had wasted their time when they reached the end. It was abrupt and unsatisfying.

I will say that I do admire all of the work that went into this novel, and the realistic world building required to write a true crime narrative. Even if I didn’t enjoy all of the backstory stuff for the town, it still took work and creativity to come up with it. And Eliza Clark is frighteningly good at writing back-stabbing, bitchy girls. She also does a great job of recreating some of the more obnoxious true crime podcasts out there that turn everything into comedy and completely disrespect the victims, and her version of people on internet forums who lust after murderers are grossly believable as well. It's a grim reminder that pieces of shit like this actually exist.

Definitely pay attention to the trigger warnings for this one, because even though it's fiction and not horror, it gets pretty rough.

TW: Bullying (to the point of violence/murder), self-harm, detailed description of a school shooting, animal harm, eating disorders, substance abuse, torture

I was immediately intrigued as soon as I read the premise for this book and couldn’t wait to dive in because this author has a tremendous reputation and writing style.
This book is a fictional story of a true crime story by Alec Carelli, who needs something to help his poor reputation. However this book ends up being about so much more.
It is the fictional story of a high school girl, Joni, who is brutally murdered by three of her female classmates in 2016 and takes us down a path of the how, why, and scary truths that led up to it. It is told through the different perspectives of those involved through interviews, letters, podcast transcripts, and re-enactments. All of which are equally disturbing yet though provoking.
This book is hard to read at times but I think the bigger story it tells is about society’s obsession with true crime in anyway it is presented. It made me think about what role that plays for us today and how that can make us ignore certain important issues and focus on the wrong details. This book was incredibly well written, educational, and one that made me think about it far after I finished .

Thank you to the Author, Netgalley, and Harper for the ARC!

Penance is Eliza Clark's sophomore novel following a fictional true crime case about four teenage girls in a seaside British town. This novel uses mixed media- podcast transcripts, journal entries, interview correspondence, and social media posts- to tell a harrowing but realistic story (a book within a book) by a disgraced journalist who it turns out is not the most reliable narrator. The story follows each teenager, all of whom are outcasts in their own right, and explores their backstory, relationships, and motivations for the murder of Joni Mitchell.

I genuinely loved this book and the use of mixed media helped the pacing of the story for me. I enjoyed the take on the true crime community and how podcasts or social media treat real victims or families of these crimes. Each character and the setting of the town is really fleshed out and leads to the feeling that makes you question if this is fiction. The discussion of how social media can affect an impressionable teenager is extremely relatable, especially for someone who grew up in the Tumblr era. Any fan of true crime, a book within a book, or unreliable narrator trope will want to read this.
**Check trigger warnings**

I started Penance believing I wouldn't finish -- stories about sociopathic teenagers are not my favorite reading -- but Clark's talent and insight soon had me enthralled. It's styled as a true crime book about a grisly murder in a wealthy English beach community. Three schoolgirls tortured a classmate for hours, then set her on fire. Ten years later, a journalist is digging out the story behind the killing and interviewing everyone touched by it, including the murderers. Along the way, class structure and rivalry between economic classes are examined and some dark history in the community is dredged up. Despite occasional overindulgence in irrelevant matters, the writing is sharp, chilling, at times psychologically brutal, and unforgettable. Second novels are expected to be disappointing, weaker than first efforts, but that isn't the case here. Clark is a star.

Masterful.

I had to pause several times and remind myself that Clark was writing in the perspective of an unreliable narrator. That this, in fact, was a work of fiction—because it all felt so real that I actually started questioning my role as a reader.

Much of the book is centered around a grisly murder involving high school social politics—which, as we come to discover, have real, horrible, and devastating effects. I admit that I didn’t know what to expect—this was my first Clark book—but going in blind honestly made for a brilliant read. Clark formulates a narrative as engaging as it is thought-provoking, writing in a style that made me both embarrassed and nostalgic for my own teenage self. She talks tumblr, reddit, and fanfiction here, in a manner akin to experiential history—this is the millennial generation in all its cringey, obsessive glory.

That said, this was absolutely masterful—a lesson in media consumption, perhaps, but also a look into the kind of mental health issues that the older generations cast aside. Through the deeply disturbing character studies (of course, take them with a grain of salt), we see how dangerous seemingly affectatious teenage trends can be; how intergenerational trauma often lends a hand in deepening their effects. Clark also explores a certain kind of classism here—moving beyond juvenile matters and touching on the kind of social separation that exists within Crow-of-Sea.

What stood out for me, in particular, was the reading experience. I devoured this book—I could not put it down. In a way, i felt myself ‘manipulated’ by the narrator, often feeling some kind of sympathy (disturbing, I know) for the different girls described in the story. Perhaps the point was to open up the discussion—to see that faults extend beyond the hand of some delusional teenage girl. Regardless, the ending scene wraps it up nicely, bringing the reader back into reality. It was a wake-up call, almost; a splash of cold water to wake the reader up from a deeply immersive reading experience.

I’m still wrapping my head around the brilliance of it all, if I’m going to be honest. This was so different and unique—a definite call for me to pick up Boy Parts as well.

★★★★.25/ 5

wow, my second consecutive book about a gruesome murder that occurs in a small town in britain. this one was vastly more tolerable for me, though…

it was a hard read at times, not because it was terribly written, but because it was so steeped in reality. clark really gets her references, internet jargon, and teenage relationship dynamics down to a T. her ability to write from different character perspectives and craft authentic thoughts and motives, as well, was astonishing. this believability combined with an eerie story about both a school shooting and the targeted murder of joni wilson made everything especially haunting, because i knew, despite this specific story being fiction, that this was a very real experience for others.

i’ve been trying to read more books that make you question the society around you, and this book does it WELL. clark urges introspection about our role in the true crime "hype" and our fascination with such gruesome stories. she also emphasize how the troubling overlap between internet fandoms and murderers has erupted in recent years. in fact, this book made me recall seeing a flowery edit of an american school shooter on instagram a couple years back where netizens were throwing “thirsty” comments at him, saying that they would “let him do anything to them” simply because he was conventionally attractive. it was shocking and again, made me realize how real and concerning the contents of this book were.

the unreliable narrator was another one of my favorite aspects of the story. it was introduced early on in the book, and i loved that, as the story unfolded, you come to see just how problematic and dangerous his true motives and intentions are. he purposefully ignores the trauma and abuse these teenagers have endured, blatantly disregards the "female experience" while crafting his story, and instead portrays them merely as unhinged girls gradually becoming obsessed with the occult due to the internet. the journalist, alec carelli, is clark’s golden representation of both rampant sexism and the tendency among older adults to ascribe the perceived "shortcomings" of successive generations to our supposed "dependence" on the internet. carelli also seems to embodies capitalism in literature (i may be reaching here), as authors are expected to capitalize on shock-value and attention-grabbing material nowadays; he finds a deeply traumatic story, milks it for all the gritty content, and cherry-picks only the most egregious parts, because well, talking about women’s experience with abuse isn’t as lucrative apparently 🙄.

i only wish that the timeline changes, as well as the points in which the perspectives changed, were more obvious. at times, the timeline and perspective switches were so jarring that i had to flip back a couple pages to confirm that i had not skipped an entire chapter, which messed with the flow of the book a little.

overall, this was a great book to get out of my middling reads lull. every character, every plotline has a purpose, and nothing is put in purely for shock factor or plot movement. plus, i’m not much of a true-crime nut nor do i frequent tumblr much, so i really appreciated all that i learned from the book’s well-researched plot and commentary. 😊

thank you netgalley and harpercollins for a copy of this arc!

Thank you to Netgalley for the ARC!

This was an interesting premise! It felt like it staggered in certain spots, just in terms of pacing and momentum, and certain chapters didn't feel necessary to the general premise of the story. All in all an interesting direction, could just use a little more oomph in the delivery.

Following the success of her debut novel Boy Parts, comes Penance, a disturbing read about teenage murders in a small coastal town.

On a summer night, Sixteen-year-old Joni is brutally murdered by three of her classmates. Despite the brutal nature of the crime, the news doesn’t catch widespread attention. That is until disgraced journalist Alec Carelli writes a book about the crime and the girls behind it.

This is a book within a book. What readers are reading is Alec’s book. Through interviews, extensive research, and correspondence from the murders, Alec builds a narrative of what led up to the murder.

Penance is more than just a book about a gruesome killing. At the core of the story, is a story about the intensity and destruction of female friendships and isolation. All three murderers are outcasts, but still somewhat average teenagers. It also points a critical eye at the true crime community. Readers are taken into the dark world of true crime fandoms, most notably the ones on Tumblr where teenagers worship serial killers and mass murders. However, Eliza also questions those who make true crime media. Where’s the line between reporting and exploiting? How much focus should a murderer get in a story? What ethics go into true crime media? Even Alec isn’t safe from this criticism, as readers learn he might not be as reliable as he claims.

This was an unsettling and uncomfortable read, which I’m sure was the intention. This reminded me a bit of Girls on Fire by Robin Wasserman or a Meg Abbott book. Eliza does a great job taking readers into the minds of dark and twisted teen girls. I also liked the idea of this being a book within a book. I know this has been done before, but I haven’t read many books like this. I think it was an interesting twist that helped the book be more appealing.

Penance is the sophomore novel by Boy Parts writer Eliza Clark. Set in a small town on the British seaside in the midst of the Brexit referendum, the novel details the murder of Joan “Joni” Wilson, a local high school student tortured and burned to death by her fellow classmates. In Penance, Journalist Alec Carelli compiles the stories behind the three perpetrators’ motivations to murder using interviews, social media posts, podcasts excerpts and witness accounts, lending to some interesting commentary by Clark on the “True Crime” community all the while taking inspiration from real life cases.

Having read and enjoyed Boy Parts in 2020, I was looking forward to Clark’s follow up novel, and I can truthfully say I was not disappointed. Clark’s writing has improved significantly since her debut. In Penance, her words are constantly sharp, witty and visceral, and the narrative of the novel is gripping throughout. This story displays some important criticism of the true crime industry and people’s obsession with real-life tragedies, and is a masterful example of how a writer can create an engrossing fictional narrative without exploiting real victims or their families.

The mix of formats in this novel kept the reading light and interesting throughout, and offered a glimpse into the online presence of teenage girls that many readers might be shocked by. Penance is a cautionary tale about teenage female friendship groups and the feeling of needing to escape the “personal hell” that is their small town, as well as an astute commentary piece on the ever present class divide in the northern United Kingdom.

Through this novel, it is clear that Clark possesses the ability to create page turning pieces of fiction while providing interesting social observations. I look forward to Penance’s publication date in the US.

Thank you to HarperCollins and NetGalley for the opportunity to read an advanced copy of Penance.