I got so lost in this book. There were so many points of view and so many storylines I couldn't keep track. I really wanted to like this book but just couldn't.

Books that take place at a boarding school are my favorite, so needless to say, I was very excited about the opportunity to read All Girls.

As the prestigious Atwater School prepares to welcome its students back for a new school year, they encounter an unexpected surprise: signboards along the local roads, except instead of presenting a jovial message like the Burma Shave ads of almost a century ago, they announce that the school is harboring a rapist.

Naturally, this sends shockwaves through the entire Atwater community. Rather than presenting one girl’s experience at school like Sittenfeld’s Prep, this book presents a cohesive narrative of the school year through the eyes of a series of girls. While the scandal—a student from 25 years ago has accused an unnamed male faculty member of coercing her into a sexual relationship when she was a senior—is always in the background, the main themes are much more about American girlhood than this particular scandal. The students are from different cultural and socio-economic backgrounds; they also have different interests, presenting the breadth of the student body at a place like Atwater.

It is difficult to pick a “favorite” perspective because each of the girls had something interesting to offer. One aspect that I found interesting was that even though the narration unfolds via the third person, Layden still manages to infuse a sense of unreliability; for various reasons, the girls are not revealing the whole picture.

I especially enjoyed this book because the fictional Atwater School is located in the same cozy corner of my own alma mater, where I spent a postgraduate year after high school. Furthermore, I am also an alumna of an all-girls school, so I appreciated both the camaraderie of the students and their appreciation for Atwater’s traditions.

I would absolutely recommend All Girls. This is a stunning debut novel; I found myself engrossed in its plot and a little sad when the book ended. This is one of my new favorites, and I know I will be re-reading it soon. I am also looking forward to reading more from Layden in the future.




I received an ARC of this book from St. Martin’s/NetGalley

I think this is a really great book that puts boarding school expectations into perspective for those who have never had encounters with those schools except for what we have seen on TV. I loved the way that the author was able to take the characters and really bring them to life and make them feel real. This was exactly the type of read I was looking for!

Tl;dr: All Girls is a thoughtful examination of what being a teenage girl is like today.

All Girls surprised me, and in the best possible way. I expected a standard tale--one girl's pov about a sex scandal at a prestigious New England boarding school--but instead got a richly woven tapestry about what it's like to be a girl. Not just what society wants from you, but what you want for yourself and what you can do in a world where you're told to be independent but curtailed by the adults around you and your own desires: to fit in, to stand out, to try and find understanding of/in a world that tells you can do anything but then limits you.

From Lauren, to Mia, to Emma--to all the girls featured in All Girls--it was so refreshing to read about the experiences of not one, but many girls during their year, from freshman to senior, and how, in their corner of ratified Connecticut, even these "privileged" girls are subject to everything all girls face.

I think the book is thoughtful and nuanced, smart and never, ever pandering, and the title is spot on. All Girls will resonate with anyone who remembers their teen years and I expect it will have enormous crossover appeal to teens. This isn’t just a title for adults, and I expect it to generate a lot of discussion among readers of all ages.

This debut novel walks through a school year at an all girl's boarding school that starts off with a reminder of a sexual abuse scandal that happened there 25 years before. Each of the 9 chapters are perspectives from 9 different students at the school, and after the first few it felt like a lot of storylines to hold and keep track of. Not to mention all the characters and how they puzzle together. I felt like this book kept skimming the surface of something powerful and interesting, but then we would move to the next girl's POV and I was left wanting more of certain storylines.

This book also does something that is a bookish pet peeve of mine, it plays with time in a way that takes away from the plot. It would say for instance: in 30 years she would reflect and then she would understand why this impacted her so deeply. I feel like that is a cop out and a disservice to exploring the feelings of the character in the moment.

This book has been spoken of some as a mystery, and I would say if that's what you are coming to this book looking for, you will be disappointed. I think this book is a mystery in the way every book is a mystery, because you are waiting to find out where the plot goes. This should only be classified as a YA coming of age story.

Content Warnings: Sexual Assault, Adult/minor relationship Eating disorder, Mental illness, other Sexual content (open door)

I’m very grateful to Netgalley and Emily Layden for the chance to receive an advance copy of All Girls in exchange for an honest review.

Set at a prestigious boarding school in New England, every chapter is told by a different female student. Each narrator comes from a different background, and some are dealing with some hard issues of their own. Still, they band together in an effort to not let the school that they love continue to put band aids on a serious accusation. Some of the staff however, relying on the school’s prestigious reputation, have tried to hide its dark past.

This book feels very timely. There is a trigger warning for sexual assault. Everything is revealed in a delicate manner. There are some very memorable lines. I liked the strength and tenacity of the girls. Another highlight was the descriptions of New England and the changing seasons throughout the school year. I had expected a book resembling dark academia, but was surprised with an important coming of age story. I gave it 4 out of 5 stars.

This book fell flat for me. My biggest complaint is that there were way too many characters and POVs that were hard to keep track of. Not to mention, the tone felt the same for all of the characters— flat. There were some moments of the writing that I did enjoy but that was few and far between. The pace was incredibly slow, and the narrative seemed to constantly be shifting. Thank you NetGalley for my ARC.

Let me start by saying I am a huge fan of this cover 🤩 it drew me in immediately! The cover, combined with the fact that the book is set at a prestigious preparatory school in New England made me know I needed this one. I did enjoy it, but it fell a little flat for me overall. I’m going to give it 3 stars. Thank you Netgalley for my advanced reader copy in exchange for my honest review.

There was a lot going on in this story. Triggering subjects made it difficult to read personally. Also Multiple view points made it hard for me to follow and I felt that it lacked closure. I loved the setting (always have loved a boarding school story) but this one fell flat.

This book tried to tell a story about a place through a series of incidents & events, but actually wound up telling no story at all. There were far too many characters & you never got to know any of them well enough to be invested in their story. The scope was too broad & it made the book lack tension, which seemed like it would’ve been in abundance as a group of teenage girls reacted to the assault allegation at their boarding school. In the end, though, very few of the girls’ stories even connected back to the assault. It just became a thing that happened in the background, but never really affected the day-to-day lives of the characters.

All Girls was a welcome change from my usual rotations of rom-coms, historical fiction and thrillers. The setting is the campus of an exclusive all-girls boarding school on the east coast. There is a controversy brewing (a very timely one at that) and this is the thread that sews the stories of these girls together. Emily Layden describes the girls in ways that allow the reader to really get to know them and their stories. The ending was slightly disappointing; I felt like I wanted, or needed more. But at the same time, I recognize that it’s not the sort of book that lends itself to a nice, neat ending.

Many thanks to NetGalley, the author and the publisher for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for my honest review.

This story follows girls at an all girls boarding school over one school year. When the school is rocked by a rape accusation, the students want to find the truth.

This is only part of the story. I loved this story and that it followed the girls for an entire school year. There are so many different characters represented and it makes the book all the more interesting. I didn’t like how the story handled some of the things that happened in the book, which is why I rated it one star lower. Overall the writing is captivating and it is very good story.

I liked the theme, setting, and overall feeling of this book, but the way that it was told in a series of short chapters about each experience left me wishing that there had been a bit more focus. As someone who has done a lot of advocacy around sexual assault at college and in graduate school, and a big fiction reader, I almost always try to pick up these books and give them a shot - it's such a hard topic to write about.

Here, the book shared a variety of experiences with sexual violence, friendship and sexuality in school, but because the focus was on each experience for such a short time (a chapter), I felt like as reader I was being jerked from place to place, from trauma to trauma. I thought the book did a good job exploring the nuance of trauma in an insular setting and with the idea of power dynamics, but I wanted to know more about the women that all of this happened to.

In Emily Layden’s debut novel which is set in a prestigious all-girls American boarding school there are accusations of age-old sexual abuse by a faculty member. The more I read about private boarding schools the more I am glad I did not go to one. It is a toxic culture of teenage girls. The multiple perspectives kept me from really understanding any single characters. Set just before the #MeToo publicity the novel lays bare the institutional coverup to maintain the pristine façade of an exclusive private school.

It is hard to believe that All Girls is Emily Layden’s first novel. This is a simply amazing look at life at a girls’ boarding school in Northwest Connecticut. Behind the facade of the old monied Atwater school lie mystery, cruelty, jealousy and harassment, covered with a veneer of sexual tension. Look for this one on the best seller lists!

“A RAPIST WORKS HERE” read the signs that greet all students as they arrive at Atwater. Naturally, the school administration is reluctant to address the issue in depth. Years earlier, a student accused a faculty member of rape. She was expelled, he is still teaching at Atwater. The students, of course, are curious and devote an issue of the school paper to the case itself and a survey of student views about harassment and rape. The administration refuses to print the paper. They forget that teenage girls know a lot about technology. The issue is released online through an anonymous account and is widely read. Other harassment themed events follow, all planned to reveal the identity of the rapist.

This mystery alone would make All Girls a first rate read. However, it is the stories of the harassment that each girl has experienced that add so much to the novel. Chloe’s is the saddest, Sloane’s the most disturbing, but all these stories are heartbreaking. Over and over, Layden shows the different ways the young women react to sexual harassment. I wish I could rate this must read book more than 5 stars.

Thank you to NetGalley, St. Martin's Press and Emily Layden for this ARC.

2.5/3 stars but will generously raise to 3. Pub Date 2/16/21.

Debut novel for this author. Written beautifully, the author totally sets up the scene vividly. Unfortunately, for me, this was a total miss on the rest of the story. Each chapter is told in a different voice of a prep girl. Background set up well, long chapters, and then it’s over and you never really hear from them again. I enjoyed to first chapter, but after that, it went downhill quickly and by the end of the book, I was struggling to finish and I had a major headache, had a hard time focusing or caring and had a book hangover (not the good kind either). I would love to see what Ms. Layden can do with a different type of story line. This book is set as Women’s Fiction, not sure I agree, maybe YA, but seriously can’t see my 19 yo getting into this story either.

Thanks to Ms. Layden, St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley for this ARC. Opinion is mine alone.

Genre:/Literary Fiction/Women’s Fiction
Publisher: St. Martin’s Press
Pub. Date: Feb. 16, 2021

Mini-Review

This novel is marketed for fans of Curtis Sittenfeld’s, “Prep,” which I am. That novel is set in an American boarding school, “a hotbed of privilege, ambition, and neurosis, every bit as snobbish and competitive as anything dreamed up on this side of the Atlantic”. ... Google Books. That pretty much sums up “All Girls” but, add in a sexual assault of a former student by a male teacher that took place twenty years ago. The girl is now a woman, who wants revenge on the school for kicking her out and covering up the teacher’s crime. The girls in the present, attempt to figure out who the teacher was so the story morphs into a mystery. The reader will follow nine students, which would have been okay if the author had spent time on their character development. However, this is not the case. Each character comes and goes so quickly that there is no time to be acquainted with them. It is easy to get lost on who is who. This is a shame because the novel has much potential. Layden does such a good job of capturing boarding school female teenage angst. With a good editor, “All Girls” would then read more like “Prep.”

The mystery takes place at Atwater Academy, a girls' boarding school in Connecticut. In 1995 when an 18-yr old senior had sex with her accomplished art instructor, she was expelled and he kept his job. Some 25 years later, the injustice is being publicized all over campus by a mysteriously well-connected, tech savvy prankster.

Author Emily Layden introduces us to a cross section of the student body, but apropos of the title too numerous for me to keep track of: Lauren the anxious OCD freshman from upstate NY and her beautiful roommate Bryce, wholesome frizzy-haired junior Abby and her tattooist roommate Bella, Asian swimmers Celeste and Josie, innocent Chloe and her socially confident roommate Brie, dancers Sloane and Blake who have nothing to do with each other, Mia the artsy crusading newsletter devotee and Louisa her anti-social editor, multi-racial beauty Olivia who is funny and charming and dating Emma from the swimteam, self-important Addison, anxious Macy, athletic Kyla, Anjali, Tia, Jade... There is a focus on some of the students which held my interest, as did the modern day debate over imbalance of power in staff-student relationships.

All Girls tells the story of the girls attending Atwater, a private all-girls boarding school in Connecticut, during the school year of 2015-2016. As the girls approach Atwater for the first day of school, they pass by signs on the side of the road attesting that a rapist is employed at the school though the rapist's identity is not revealed. Each chapter focuses on an event from the year and is told from one of the students' perspectives. For example, move-in day is viewed through Lauren Triplett's eyes, a freshman moving into Atwater for the first time, while prom is told by Emma, a queer senior student. I really enjoyed getting to know each of the students whose perspectives were shared, but found it difficult to connect with the students over the course of the book. While characters we had met before would be mentioned in passing, we never got to peek into their heads again. Thus, it was hard to follow a character's trajectory and see any meaningful development.

Additionally, I liked how each chapter ended with an email or some form of alternate communication (a memo, for example) that allowed us to see what was going on at Atwater from an administrative view. There was some momentum, however, that was lost by the end of the book, because while the book begins with the questions of who is the victim and who is the assaulter, that information is shared well before the end of the book, and the end kind of slowly petered out.

Overall, I wouldn't say that this book is a "must-read." It wasn't bad, either, and overall was an okay read. If you enjoy an ensemble cast and the opportunity to fleetingly be in a character's body, then you will like this book.

Thank you to St. Martin's Press and Netgalley for my free ARC of this book.

I think this book is more of a 3.5-3.75 but it is very impressive read for a debut novel. One of the best parts of this novel is the writing in general. Layden provides many a poignant moment in this novel, whether it be in dialogue, in inner monologue, or (and this is my favorite) in between the lines, in the quiet moments where words are left unsaid. She does a great world of building this boarding school world and pulling the reader into it. While you were able to picture each classroom, dorm apartment, and pathway on campus in detail, my favorite bits of world building was the traditions and hierarchy of the institution itself. Whether we follow a freshman or senior, we are often learning the ins and outs of Atwater through the experience of each scene. What's so great about this is that the reader almost feels as though they've been granted access to the secret club, the exclusive group that is Atwater. We are privy to information most young girls exempt from the private school world wish to know. The one drawback from this novel I have was the characters, or really the sheer amount of them. I need to disclose first that I love traveling around a novel from character to character. I love vignette style writing where we get a story from each person with zero promise that they will be revisited. I think a writers ability to build this many lives for a reader is a remarkable feat, something I could never accomplish as I struggle to even flush out two characters in detail. So I have to hand it to Emily Layden for being able to create this amazing web of girls for us to peek in on every 20 pages or so. What I will say is that, while I managed to learn almost every girl and their relationship to one another over time, it just became a bit complicated at certain points. While I understand each girls story had a purpose to show the intricacies of sexuality, consent, power dynamics, coming of age, justice, feminism, etc., at some point it began to feel just a tiny bit taxing, like putting the pieces together had become a chore. I think she could have accomplished the same message and magnitude with even a few less characters. On the other hand, their stories and all their themes as stated above were each interesting and touching in their own way. The last tiny gripe I have with the novel is the ending chapter. While it was fitting to have it on Graduation Day, I felt like the resolution was almost cut short. Like Layden was running out of document room and tried to find a faster way to wrap up everything we had read so far. Like I said, the setting and ceremony was the perfect way to end the novel, but it was not executed perfectly with the prose. Altogether, I enjoyed the read, even though the slow beginning caused things to finally pick up in the second third of the novel or so.