I'll read pretty much any coming-of-age novel based at a boarding school, so this was up my alley. There were a lot of stories among the girls that made it hard to follow, but overall, this was compelling.

This debut novel had so many elements that I thought I would love, The themes explored: sexual assault, silencing victims, institutional values of money and reputation, lives of strong females would normally draw me in. but it fell short for me.

The story takes place in the 90’s and begins with Lauren who is on her way to Atwater, an all girls boarding school in Connecticut. During the drive she sees signs proclaiming that Atwater employs a rapist. The story becomes about how the school handles this allegation, students trying to figure out who the allegations are about and how the girls handle a year at this private school.

I found this story really hard to get into and felt that there was little movement. Normally, I enjoy novels told by multiple perspectives. Each chapter of All Girls is told from a different girl’s perspective and the entire story brings us through a year in the life of the girls at the school. There were so many different characters and points of view that somehow the message got lost. I wasn’t invested in any of the characters at all and even the ending felt obscure.

The writing itself is good and even the story is ok. It’s the structure of how the story is told that made it difficult to get into.

A coming-of-age story following several girls at an all girl boarding school facing accusations from a former student that sets all the girls on edge. The writing here was great, but I felt that nothing really happened. I was a bit lost among all the girls that told their stories and found little resolution with any of them. I also found little resolution with the main arc of the accusation. I felt a lot more could have been done with fewer and more focused arcs for the girls.

*soft spoilers*

An engaging peek into the world of a private All Girls school, the reader is quickly enveloped in a mystery to solve concerning the school and its past.

The novel casts a wide grouping of characters, from the very well off to the just-so-glad-to-be-able-to-get-in girls, from the “all in” to the “when can I get out of here”. But all of the girls are loyal to the school in one way or the other and are eager to figure out who is trying to sully the school’s name and why. Poor girls, rich girls, straight girls, lesbian girls, preppy girls, pretty girls, dowdy girls – this book had them all, and frequently overlapping.

The book is mostly about a sexual assault allegation from decades prior, but there is also an interesting sub-plot about censorship in the school’s newspaper that I found intriguing. I didn’t much care for the round-robin, #MeToo movement storyline, however.

A decent read, and a decent debut. If prep schools or sex scandals interest you, this might be for you.

A big thank you to Emily Layden, St. Martin’s Press, and NetGalley for providing an Advance Reader Copy in exchange for this review.

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I was surprised by how much I enjoyed this book. I am particularly drawn to books set at private schools and this one did not disappoint, though it does deal with some heavier topics and addressing a sexual assault scandal at the elite boarding school.

Thanks to Netgalley for an electronic ARC of this book.

I found All Girls to be an engaging novel with a timely storyline. It takes place in 1995 at a boarding school where there have been accusations of sexual assault made by an alumnus of the school. It takes place over one school year and each chapter is from a different student's point of view. I would like to have seen he author revisit some of the girls throughout the book, besides them just being peripheral figures in another girl's chapter. The sexual assault storyline combined with each girl navigating through her teen years is definitely a topic that relatable today. This has plenty of discussion points for book groups.

More like 3 and ½ Stars!

I was gifted this book by the publisher a little over a year ago so this is longggg overdue! A huge thank you to St Martin's Press and Emily Layden for my advanced copy of this book.

What I Liked-

The Audio- I listened to this book through Scribd. There were quite a few POV's and each POV had its own narrator. The narrators of this book are what kept me pushing through. They did a fantastic job.

The Setting- This book is set at an all girls boarding school. The setting was one of my main draws when deciding to add it to my TBR.

Multiple POV's- Love books with multiple POV's. I will say there were too many for me in this case. The girls all seemed to blur together. Not one single POV stands out to me.

The Subject Matter- This book covers a spectrum of women's issues. The main one being assault. I feel like it was written well. It was realistic. I appreciated that.

Why It Wasn't Five Stars-

The Characters- I wasn't attached or invested in these characters. The characters are so important for me personally. ( especially in literary fiction )

It's Kinda Forgettable- I don't want this to sound as harsh as it sounds. This is a good book but not a stand out for me.

Overall- Glad I finally got around to this one. I won't be recommending it to everyone but I am interested to read more by this author.

Just way too many characters. This novel started off strong but fell flat halfway through. I think the writing style is pretty good. Emily Layden does have talent as a fiction writer, but maybe next time she should just focus on a one-person narrative. The overall message was good, but the novel dragged on too long.

This felt real and sad. These stories of young women who hate themselves, who don't trust themselves, who don't know what to do or say....they're all real women. I know them. I've been them.

It's also what made me sad about it. It's well done and I hope more adults and parents read this title.

All Girls by Emily Layden is a debut young adult mystery read. This one of course stood out to me yet again being set in a boarding school which usually for me becomes a great setting for a creepy mystery or thriller.

The book opens up following Lauren Triplett who is set to be a new freshman as she makes the journey on the way to the new school. As she approaches the school grounds however she begins to see signs posted along the way pointing to a rapist being somehow involved at the school.

The opening chapter to this one did pull me in and make me ready to get to a juicy story but it seemed as soon as I switched to chapter two it lost all the sparkle. You see this debut makes what I feel is a mistake in stretching too thin switching the point of view each chapter between way too many characters for this reader at least to take all in and care about.

Now, I did end up trudging my way through this book hoping for things to begin to gel together and reengage me in the story. This never did happen though as besides the too many points of view the mystery seemed to be really, really buried and instead the book felt as if it was a collection of short stories instead of one full mystery. There are those that did love this one but unfortunately I’m not among them.

I received an advance copy from the publisher via NetGalley.

(actual rating: 2.5/5)

This book had the potential to be really good, but I get the feeling that the narrative attempting to be told was ultimately lost between all of the perspectives that were used to tell it.

'All Girls' shows the aftermath of a sexual assualt allegation at a Northeastern preparatory school, as told through the thoughts and experiences of nine different girls. The administration at the school desperately wants to brush the situation under the rug, but the girls and others rise up to tell their story, refusing to be silenced.

I think that part of the reason I didn't enjoy this as much as I was hoping to may have been because I was expecting too much. While there were some 'mystery' elements to this story, it's far more focused on how the girls learn to grow into themselves amidst all the happenings of the school.

Of course, that being said, I would have enjoyed it if the story and the girls' growth were told in a more meaningful way. The biggest problem I had with this book was all the perspectives that it used to tell the story. At one point, it gets to be entirely too much, and you start losing interest. I think that if this book were written with less perspectives, it would have made things easier to follow, but also easier to care for the characters and what they are each going through.

I also felt a bit disappointed by the pacing of the novel. It was slow and somewhat hard to get into, as far as the plot went. There was a fair amount of buildup but it never seemed to really go anywhere, if that makes sense. It was all quite lukewarm for me.

Overall, while I think that some extremely important points were made about what it's like to grow up as a young woman with the 'system', it had a lot of potential and could have been exectuded in a far more impactful way. I would recommend this book to those who like coming-of-age arcs in the form of boarding school novels, but this didn't exactly make the cut for me.

Part mystery, part coming of age novel, I loved All Girls. Each chapter follows a different student at Atwar girls school throughout the school year after the school is accused of covering up a sexual assault. Well written and thoughtful.

My mother went to a private girls boarding school and had endless tales of life there. So as graduate of a typical suburban public school, I'm always excited to read "boarding school books". I really wanted to love this book, but unfortunately it was just okay for me. Each chapter would focus on a different girl and I think there were just too many of them. I wish maybe the focus could have been on one girl per grade year. This line, however, is brilliant: "For now, all Bryce knew were the average and prickling constraints of a mother who saw her daughter as a piece of her own resume, a reflection of herself, one last chance to get it right."

Taking place at an all-girls boarding school in Connecticut, the story unfolds after a long-time teacher is very publicly accused of sexual assault on a student years ago. Using a different character's perspective in each chapter, the book uses this style to showcase the extent to which this incident affects different people and the campus atmosphere overall. While you don't get to know any one character very well, it showcases the various reasons these girls chose a boarding school and the traditions of the school throughout the year. There is a bit of a mystery that unfolds over the course of the book as well which I liked. I also liked the emails and news articles between chapters and the ways it pushed the story forward. Thank you to St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for the advanced copy.

Thank you to St. Martin’s Press for providing me with a copy of Emily Layden’s novel, All Girls, in exchange for an honest review.

When a scandal from 1995 surfaces and threatens to damage the reputation of Atwater, a prestigious all-girls boarding school in Connecticut, the current students are left wondering who they should trust. All Girls is set during a single school year and each chapter focuses on a different student, high school girls with different dreams and personalities, all trying to navigate the complications of adolescence.

As the girls are being dropped off at Atwater in the fall, they encounter a series of yard signs alerting them to a rapist living on campus. In 1995, a student named Karen Mirro was raped by a teacher and subsequently expelled from Atwater based on an unrelated incident, with no repercussions for the rapist. Now in her late thirties, Mirro has brought a lawsuit against Atwater, and although none of the students firmly know which of their teachers is a rapist, the rumors run rampant and distrust is high.

The school year proceeds with its usual traditions and events, as the administration struggles to keep the lawsuit on the down-low, including none of the staff being removed from their positions. The student paper tries to publish an edition regarding sexual assault and they are barred. Just as the signs mysteriously appear, so do other reminders of the case, such as flyers and unusual artwork. Atwater is awash in the mysterious identity of both the rapist and the person calling attention to Mirro’s case. But even more, the girls all worry if their beloved school, which is steeped in their identity, would protect them if they were in Mirro’s shoes?

I was initially drawn to All Girls because the blurb likened it to one of my all-time favorite novels, Curtis Sittenfeld’s Prep. I can see the reasons for the comparisons, but All Girls was especially timely due to recent revelations about my high school years.

I graduated from a prestigious arts high school in 1995 and during my time in school, I did not realize boundaries that were being crossed between teachers and students. Sure, I saw things that seemed borderline inappropriate, but like Layden’s characters, when you are a teen, sometimes the lines are very blurry. Since graduating, I have heard stories from close friends of very, very inappropriate behavior towards them from some of our male teachers. More than one story, more than one teacher, and certainly more than one female student being affected. It hurts to realize this was happening and that friends were hurting in silence.

All Girls highlights an issue that has been raised recently among my friends, that there has been a shift in the current generation. Mirro was of my generation, which now I realize, we didn’t feel that we had the ability to speak up. She files the lawsuit decades later, because now, during the “me too” movement, she feels like she has a voice. The current Atwater students may still have some uncertainties regarding boundaries and inappropriate behavior, yet they are also raised during a time when they know the power of their own voices. They know that it is vital to hold Atwater accountable for protecting its students.

Layden’s novel took me right back to my teen years, not that I attended a boarding school or grewup with social media, yet the teen emotions were similar. I enjoyed how she framed the novel with focusing on a different student for each chapter and how the book took us through a single school year. I liked having different voices tell their experiences of Atwater and Mirro.

I’m in my early 40’s, and I feel that hindsight gives me a different perspective then if I had read All Girls during my teen years. I have a stepdaughter who will soon turn fourteen, and I couldn’t help but see her in a few of the younger characters, particularly cringing with some of the cruelties that the girls inflict upon each other, hoping that she will make true friends and that her “bad decisions” are mild.

All Girls is poignant and beautifully written. I highly recommend it and I look forward to reading Layden’s future works.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the ARC of this book.

When I heard the description of this book, I said to myself oh no, not yet another girls school book. Yet, it was not. This book was very different. It follows a group of 9 girls, who find out that when you're young, the world is yours for the taking, but in reality, not everyone makes it unscathed. This book resonated with me in a different way...more of how you're told many things that life can offer, then the ice cold slap of reality hits you in the face.

I could not get into this book unfortunately. The premise about a rape allegation at a boarding school initially had me interested, but I found myself bored and waiting for something bigger to happen and more to be revealed.

So first, I am kind of a sucker for boarding school settings. Something about be a public school student all of my life and not going away to college I guess. I find the traditions and life fascinating and Atwater in Connecticut, was a great place for a story. All Girls takes place throughout a school year in 2015 and is told from the perspectives multiple students in chapters titled by school events. The book opens with the incoming students coming across a hundred signs placed to be seen from all of the approaches to campus. These signs state "A Rapist Works Here" and it's the opening salvo of a year where a mysterious someone (or someones), push the school to confront and answer for a 1995 incident where a former student reports a rape from a teacher she was having a consensual affair with. She ends up getting kicked out of Atwater while the teacher is apparently still there, 20 years later. There is a lot of teenage angst and young women facing their sexuality in an environment which positions itself to support them, but really does not. The mystery at first is who the teacher is that the school has protected for so many years and then it becomes the identity of the person pushing the school to step up through various rebellious acts. The story is intriguing but the challenge with the book is that there are so many perspectives that it becomes jumbled and hard to follow which makes it hard to care about every character. All Girls is billed as a Young Adult novel and it would be good to read and discuss with older teens. It's a coming of age story in the time a few years before the #metoo movement got started, and is topical and relevant, but it didn't quite come together for me as much as I wanted it to.

This was an amazing collection of the girls' stories and journeys throughout their all-girl school. I really felt like all of them had so much emotion and tragedy in their experiences that I was connected with all of them by the end of the book.

Thank you so much to Net Galley for my advanced readers copy. I really enjoyed this one.

The opening chapter was very engaging. I think my expectation was too high after that. The rest of the book was dry and dragged on. There were a lot of characters to keep track of.

I received the galley from NetGalley.