Cover Image: Greyfriars Reformatory

Greyfriars Reformatory

Pub Date:   |   Archive Date:

Member Reviews

I would have given this book five stars if it weren't for the ending, but we'll get to that. You start with a basic Gothic setup: creepy building in the middle of nowhere, strange shadows and sightings of a mysterious "gray girl". The main character is an unreliable narrator, which is not a spoiler as she literally tells us that she is within the first few pages. We get a tight group of characters, just eight in total throughout the entire book, and we get a decent glimpse into what makes them tick. The story definitely has creepy, terrifying moments, some bloody scenes, and a resident ghost reminiscent of the "onryo" ghost seen so often in Japanese horror films, with long dark hair obscuring her face constantly.

The story is unsettling, claustrophobic at times, disturbing in all the right horrific ways, and as the ending drew near I began to suspect I might know just what was going on. This is when an otherwise great story goes south. I guess I was mostly on the right track but not quite in the right lane, because the last few chapters confused the heck out of me. I kept waiting for some sort of explanation but what I got instead was a few false endings, and as the false endings piled up, I got more and more confused. In the end I have no idea what was really going on, and I can't say much more without some serious spoilers.

So I mostly loved the story. It was creepy and bloody and kept me so hooked that I read the whole thing in one day. I just wish I knew what on earth I was actually reading about.

I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Was this review helpful?

"...my meds are so strong I can't remember what any of my problems were, or are. I guess that kind of makes me an unreliable narrator?"
Nineteen year old Emily Drake is the epitome of an unreliable narrator. She doesn't remember what she did in the past, and most of the time she does not know what she is even doing - as she is plagued with blank spots, where she just seems to phase out. All she knows is that she has been incarcerated with a group of other girls at the dark and isolated Greyfriars Reformatory for Girls.
Frazer Lee knows how to set an atmosphere. I've only read one other of his books, and that was a very atmospheric slow-burn of a book. While Greyfriars is also very atmospheric, this book is not a slow-burn. The pacing is quite lively - the time we spend with Emily and the others in the reformatory only spans a few days. So much happens over those few days.
If I didn't have to work, I would have read this book in 1 day. Unfortunately, I need to pay my bills - so it did take me 2 days to blast through the book. I did not want to put it down though.
The entire time I was reading, I was formulating theories as to what was going on and why things were happening. Some of it I got correct, some of it did surprise me.
I liked that we got enough backstory on the characters over the course of the book to understand and empathize with them. I also liked that everything does get explained. I loved the symbolism of the chrysalis/butterfly. I also liked that the ending was quite hopeful, despite everything.
This was a good, solid, spooky, perfect-for-Halloween-season read.
I highly recommend to fans of spooky fiction, haunted fiction, unreliable narrators, etc.

Endless thanks to @flametreepress and @netgalley for allowing me the opportunity to read this in exchange for an honest review.

Was this review helpful?

I’ve become a fan of Frazer Lee over the last few years through his Daniel Gates Adventures and then his release ‘Hearthstone Cottage.’ I was excited to see the announcement of ‘Greyfriars Reformatory’ and his exploration of horror set in an institutional setting.

What I liked: The book opens up immediately with our characters arriving at Greyfriars. Our M/C sizes up the other girls on the bus with her and then we get to meet the Warden, who lets us know it was nice to see Emily again.
Right off the bat, Lee decides to toss in a short sentence about Emily spotting something high above in one of the tower windows, but then moves on quickly.
One thing I enjoyed was the character relationships in here. It felt prison-like in nature, with the hierarchy of people and how things were done, but at the same time Lee let it be a bit looser. Maybe more minimum security level versus maximum works best as a description.
Lee has proven time and time again that he can write some of the creepiest scenes out there and this one didn’t let me down.

What I didn’t like: Honestly, I found it a bit jarring that we get a glimpse of the ‘Grey Girl’ almost immediately. I wished it would’ve been a bit further in, but ultimately it played out well. There is a massive info dump near the end that slowed the progress a bit, but if you push through, you’ll be rewarded.

Why you should buy this: Well, obviously, if you love institutionally set horror, you’ll dig this. There is always so much that an author can play with when they have a building with a history as the main set piece. Frazer writes buzz saw quick in spots, which make for some dark, dark passages. Awesome stuff.
Definitely another reason to check out more of his work!
** This review will feature on Kendall Reviews! **

Was this review helpful?

Greyfriars is a spooky, supernatural story about girls in a sort of youth detention center. The setting is creepy and menacing from the start. There is a lot of different characters, each with their own personalities and backstory.

I'm not 100% sure if I liked the book. The setting and the characters themselves were great. I loved reading their backstory and they were all horrific in their own. I just didn't like the pacing of the book. It jumped from one thing to the next, and sometimes I had no clue what was going on. The ending also left me so confused, and I'm not sure what to make of it.

Was this review helpful?

Having finished this book I'm a little... perplexed by it.
The story is intriguing and prompts you to keep reading to find out what's happening and will happen next. The characters and their secrets are interesting. The setting is creepy and menacing.
But. I just don't know what to make of it.
The first thing that threw me is that Emily mentions "all her adult life" but then further on it appears she and the other girls are actually quite young, even underage.
Where they are and why is hard to understand, even once you've become acquainted with Greyfriars Reformatory.
It's the final quarter, or so, of the book that threw me most. I won't go into details (no spoilers) other than I have no idea what it all meant.

Was this review helpful?

There was a time when I was a big Stephen King fan. It has been some time since I have read horror.
The write-up on this sounded interesting so here I am!
Well! it turned out to be not really scary horror but more creepy with a lot of f-bombs!
I am now ready for a nice cozy!!

Want to thank NetGalley and Flame Tree Press for this early release granted to me in exchange for an honest professional review. Opinions expressed in this review are my own.
Publishing Release Date scheduled for October 20, 2020

Was this review helpful?

Review Copy

What a strangely bizarre story this was! Right from the get go I had so many questions...I could decide decide if I should toss the book or read straight though and hope my questions were answered. I opted for the latter.

This was straight up horror with some mean girls thrown in for interest. An unreliable narrator made my brain nearly explode toward the end in the authors info dump. But I have to admit it was quite the unique read and I really appreciated that.

Check this one out.

Was this review helpful?

This is a Gothic novel about an isolated, haunted, girls’ detention center.

PROS:
The isolation of the reformatory and the grim complex itself are SO well described. I felt cold while reading. I clearly pictured the grayness of Emily’s surroundings.

Present tense is not usually my favorite tense, but it suits a teen girl’s narration. The story unfolds through Emily's point-of-view. She's one of the teen inmates, and now I can’t imagine Emily’s story being told any other way. Lee jumps to third person, past tense in the few scenes told from other characters’ points of view. The transitions were smooth and the shift in points of view and tense made sense with the plot. (Brilliant, actually.)

CONS:
This is not specifically a con for me, but I know some readers like clear-cut, nicely wrapped up endings. I had to read the ending to Grayfriars Reformatory very carefully to see what was going on. It’s a little ambiguous and forces the reader to dig harder and then . . . ugh, a gut punch! (Perfect for a horror novel, though.)

OVERALL:
Atmospheric, spooky, entertaining. Easily 5 stars.

Was this review helpful?

This is such a cool book that I can't believe it nearly flew past my radar, and I'm constantly checking out to see what Flame Tree Press, the publisher, has on its ARCs. The protagonist is not a perfect girl or as reliable a narrator as she confesses, but her strong personality, street smarts, and dogged determination not to completely lose her sh!t when the paranormal comes knocking is something I thoroughly enjoyed reading about.

Was this review helpful?

Frazer Lee takes us on a surreal and scary ride as we follow Emily through her incarceration at Greyfriars Reformatory for Girls. She and several other girls arrive, and it isn’t long before they realize something supernatural lives within the reformatory’s decrepit walls. Well-written backstories for all the girls give their characters great depth. And of course, there is the despicable reformatory principal, but one of the girls may have her beat in the evil category. Terrifying, gory scenes are executed with top-notch prose that makes them come alive. All mysteries are solved, and there are many, with a great ending.

Was this review helpful?

Frazer Lee writes great scary, supernatural, haunted and ghostly fiction. Greyfriars Reformatory is an excellent example of his storytelling.
The story pens with a rickety old bus transporting a small group of girls to the aforementioned reformatory. They are locked in chains. All have been adjudged guilty of crimes warranting their committal to an institution run by the formidable Principal Quick. Each of the young women has a part to play n this story as the plot unfolds but it is Emily with whom we develop the most empathy, as the increasingly strange and inexplicable events unfold.
They are only just arriving when Emily sees a strange girl, dressed in the grey uniform they must all wear, gazing down at them from the clocktower – off bounds to all inmates. As time goes by, they will each see her. But who is she? Emily has dissociative disorder and has trouble working out whether memories she experiences are real or merely induced by her cocktail of medications.
As the rest of the bunch, they are a motley crew indeed. Each with a harrowing story in their background. Each with their own demons.
Greyfriars Reformatory kept me royally entertained from beginning to end and, for me, represents my favourite Frazer Lee novel to date. At one point, I really thought I had worked it all out – only to find I could hardly have been more wrong. The author skillfully weaves the threads of this absorbing tail into a web of fear, ghosts, revenge and terror. Fabulous stuff!

Was this review helpful?

Thanks to Netgalley and Flametree Press for providing me a copy of Greyfriars Reformatory in exchange for an honest review.
Halfway through the book, it occurred to me that the book could best be described as "shrill." It was a screeching, hysterical, gory slash-fest with an unreliable narrator and a circuitous storytelling approach. It moved quickly, and kept my attention, as I really wanted to figure out what was going on.
The characters were not fully developed, but I don't think they had to be. They were sketched out, and that was enough to serve the purpose.
It was a pretty badic short horror story that really delivered on the spooky and gruesome fronts.
It was also not exactly for me, largely because of the ending, which I found not just unsatisfying but deeply frustrating. I hate getting to the end of a book that I wasn't really enjoying and then seeing how it ends, feeling like it wasn't worth it. Which is just how I felt, here.
That said, though, I actually think that a lot of readers, especially horror lovers, will strongly disagree with me. It really is a matter of preference and I can see people enjoying this very much. It was by no means a bad book, I just wasn't the right reader for it.

Was this review helpful?

#NetGalley #GreyfriarsReformatory #FlameTreePress

Well, I have to say that this was my first title by this author and I quite enjoyed it! I felt like a kid again, in the best way possible! It brought back all the spooky feelings I had as a kid watching Halloween or Phantasm, the creepy, chilly, scared feelings as only a kid can experience. If you read this book I think you will understand what I mean.

Emily was a mentally ill teenager who was sent to a girls reformatory school. She arrives there on a bus with several other girls of similar ilk. They have been sent there from several institutions by the court system. A hard nose principal, Ms. Quick. I especially liked the background on all of the girls that was eventually learned in the latter parts of the books. Also, there was this "ghost" girl in an old grey uniform much like the girls wore, that some of them kept seeing and ended up bringing much terror upon the girls. I don't want to spoil it for anyone so I can't say much more.

This story was so good and I encourage anyone who enjoys good clean fun and horror to please give this book a try, I guarantee you will like it as much as I do. And check out Flame Tree Press for other great titles!

Was this review helpful?

Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC of this book. Another creepy page turner by Lee. I will read anything the man writes. Highly recommend.

Was this review helpful?

Greyfriars Reformatory by Frazer Lee was a thoroughly enjoyable horror tale about a girl's reformatory school that has some hidden secrets and a tyrannical principal. Our story begins with a group of girls who are being transported to the reformatory. Each girl has committed some act which has caused her to end up at the reformatory, but nothing is revealed to the reader at first. Our main character actually refers to herself as an unreliable narrator on the very first page of the story and straight up admits that she has problems, has been institutionalized, and is heavily medicated. As a result, we readers can never be quite certain that what we are reading is actually what's happening in the story. Now, this is not a new concept and initially I thought this would be another repeat of the trope of mental illness and unreliable narrators that is written so frequently in many horror and thriller novels. But, what followed was a very fast paced and fun tale that I devoured in one sitting. As I was reading, I kept thinking that this story could easily be adapted into a horror movie. I recommend this book to anyone want a light easy to read horror story.

Was this review helpful?

I started reading Greyfriars Reformatory as soon as it was available and finished it about 4 a.m., so you know it had to be exciting. It was interesting in how it was written. Each girl was a kind of stereotype, but right before they met their demise, they each got their own chapters about their backgrounds. Although all the girls were different, whether a lover, a father, a customer, or a boyfriend, each girl got into her predicament because, as the old saying goes, "He done her wrong."

Is it a ghost, the principal, or one of the inmates after the girls? Each page is another dilemma, dilemmas that kept me reading all night. Some things made me ask questions, like why does this girls' reformatory have no employees, but the author answered them before the end of the book. I still kind of wonder about the butterfly in the story, but in some cultures a butterfly is the soul of a departed person. and the butterfly appears about the same time as another inmate disappears.

Read this book, don't break the law so you end up in a squalid institution, and take care of butterflies whether they are someone's soul or not, because you never can tell.

Was this review helpful?

This was a great read, one that keeps you interested from page one and never lets go. The characters are all.wonderfully intricate, each getting their time to shine as it were. Principal Quick is a fascinating character, and the lead protagonist Emily, a troubled girl sent to Greyfriars Reformatory, is so well written and filled out you feel like you know her. All the characters as are.
This is the second book I've read from Frazer Lee. He really knows how to drag you into a story. The plot is in depth. So many twists and turns, keeping you guessing and never allowing you to get bored.
This is a brilliant ghost/horror story. One that's made it to my 'Ineed to read this again soon' pile.

Was this review helpful?

When Emily's is institutionalized at Greyfriars Reformatory the nasty principal and bully are only the surface of what she'll be facing. I loved that right away readers are cued that Emily isn't going to be a reliable narrator and that sets the shaky ground of real and unreal. The story has a few perspectives, letting you into the minds of haunted young ladies that are also there, but are they haunted by more than dark pasts? Is there something there, something supernatural with as much if not more malice than Principal Quick?

The story moves at a cracking pace, filled with twists as it delivers both an atmospheric ghost story and a gruesome horror show. I happen to enjoy both types of horror and I'm always thrilled when the two blend in such a way. This will appeal to fans of all ranges of horror and thrillers.

Was this review helpful?

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. The character development was really well done and I enjoyed learning about each of the girl's pasts and what led them to the reformatory. I was genuinely frightened at points during this book and feel the author did a great job of setting an eerie atmosphere and letting the reader's imagination run wild with it. Great book for horror fans!

Was this review helpful?

I quite enjoyed this one.

It was fast paced and drew me in from the first page. I do love a good unreliable narrator, and it is a bonus when they are up front and tell you they are unreliable. I do wish that we could have seen more of the girls' backgrounds, but the book being as short as it is it is a minor complaint. The book's cover first caught my eye because of its creepiness and the book definitely delivered in that regard!

The twists and turns came quickly and kept it very entertaining. This is something different and I recommend it to horror lovers who are like me and love a creepy ghost story.

Was this review helpful?