The Divines presents a cross-section of life at an all-girls British boarding school: choc full of snobbery, entitlement, and far too much emphasis on social hierarchy. At the heart of the narrative we find a somewhat vague school scandal involving bullying and alienation, but the vast majority of this book was limited to a prolonged hunt to track down the anonymous fellow peppering Polaroids of his “jaunty erection”around campus and girls sneaking away to chain-smoke contraband cigarettes. While I did enjoy the general narrative voice (one that effectively communicated an air of teenage arrogance and self-obsession), I felt as if this book lacked substance... and for this reason, it didn’t hold my attention or leave me feeling intrigued. There was a bit of a surprise ending, to which I think the author did instill a nice sense of dissonance and guilt, but overall I found the “twist” to be underwhelming. I think the most interesting element of the story was the focus (in the final chapters) on how memories of a shared past can vary so widely person by person, but even this I felt like the author could and should have explored more in-depth. I’m between a 2 and 3 star rating on this one, but lean towards 3 stars based on some moments of notable descriptive imagery.

The Divines is one of those books that somehow manages to be incredibly compelling without being the least bit likable.

Our anti-hero Josephine has a fascinating inner life, though the reader can’t hope to warm up to her even by the end of the novel, which I suppose is part of the point of the book.

If you’re a reader who needs your main character to Learn Something, you’ll be mostly out of luck here. Years into the future, Jo has learned little and understands even less about her past.

She mentions something called Boarding School Syndrome, which really might apply to anyone who was bullied in school (of the boarding variety or not). Josephine thinks herself a victim of this, which makes some sense, except that she was far from a true victim as a student. In a world of Have and Have Nots, she was firmly on the Have end of things.

Her misguided perceptions of herself—even years after the fact—make for a perfectly wrought portrait of a woman who still lacks self awareness and any ability to place herself in the proverbial shoes of another. She’s shocked to hear about the way others thought of her when she was a Divine.

Her own insecurities back then prevented her from realizing she actually had it pretty good. And those same insecurities—still present many years later because she never addressed them—leave her shocked by others’ perceptions of her past self and even more shocked at how her peers seem to have rewritten their own histories to cast a more favorable light on them.

Because of that, the book becomes more than just a boarding school novel, and ends up being an interesting meditation on truth. What’s more true than the stories we tell ourselves—real or invented—about the past? What happens when our truths conflict with others’?

It’s a fascinating exploration of how we self-protect, —even from afar—when it comes to our own histories.

Audiobook: I don’t particularly recommend going this route for this book. The format is fine for the subject matter, but the narrator seems to really struggle to differentiate the voices for different characters, compensating by making almost everyone who might be irritating or problematic for the protagonist sound like an unintelligent male. Fat Fran and Geri get this treatment nearly all the time, and Skipper, Rod, and Lauren all meander into it more often than not. It makes for a poor performance.

I read this book without knowing what it was about. It was very well written and kept you interested until the last page. The story follows Josephine in present day and when she was a divine in boarding school

I found this book very interesting. The idea of an elite all female school where a tragedy happens in the past is an interesting idea. I thought the characters were great and had a lot of personality to them.
I do wish the story line just had a little more thrill to it

Compulsively readable is right! Wow, what a captivating read! It reminds me a touch of “Catherine House,” in the way that the teenage female psyche is the driving force in the private school setting . EXCELLENT so far! I read the first third in one sitting, which is a high honor for a book in my reading life!

Now that I’ve finished: I found this to be such a bold, irreverent and shockingly brash tale of teenage school life. I seriously could not put this one down. It challenged me, it scared me a bit. I wanted to look away, but I could not. Well done, thought provoking, original! A big yes for this reader!

What a thought provoking story. After a rude encounter in the town where she attended boarding school, Joesephine starts for ruminate on her time at St. John the Divine. The Divines are entitled, rule breaking mean girls who think they are better than the locals. IThe characters are very realistic and bring you back to the angst and pressures of being a teenage girl.

Thank you Ellie Eaton, William Morrow and Netgalley for thie chance to review this book.

The Divines is a coming of age story. It alternates between Joe (Joesehine) as a young woman at boarding school and as she begins her marriage and "adult life". We get glimpses into who and what Joe thought she was as a young person. As with many teenagers she didn't hold herself in high regard. This view of her younger self is thrown into contrast when she runs into former boarding school classmates. Joe is focused on a girl, Gerry, who was injured during their last year of school. Joe can't seem to part with the past until she finds out the truth of what happened to Gerry. As Joe turns more and more to her past it has repercussions on her current life. An interesting read it thought I felt the ending fell a little flat.

The Divines is a coming-of-age novel that explores the toxic teenage female friendships at a secluded boarding school just before it gets shut down. The story is told through dual-timelines from the perspective of Josephine (Jo) who attended the school in the 90s. There is also a present day timeline in LA where we see how Jo’s time in boarding school affected her adulthood in way of obsession. There is a mean girl, bullying layer to the story that I quite enjoyed on top of the classic insecure, trying to fit in storyline that coming-of-age novels often have. The story is intriguing with solid writing. If you enjoyed Emma Cline's The Girls, this might be for you!

Listen, there are 846 boarding school books out there now. I love 700 of them. However, you really have to hit that one two punch to really make it stand out above the other boarding school books. This was a different take, and it was interesting. It kept my interest and really showed the dark side of bullying. However, I get like the idea was there, but just didn’t get executed the way it should have to make it a higher favored review. It’s nice to see a bully with a conscious later in life.

I enjoyed the journey of The Divines. This is Mean Girls level upped. The snobbiest, the brashest, the elite of the elite. It’s great seeing Josephine go into this new life, changed, but still clinging to the past with remorse. I also liked things were not as she thought. I did like that Josephine did not get the closure she thought she deserved. Funny how sometimes the entitled don’t actually get what they want, innit?

I will say this: The fatphobia and homophobia really just got to me while reading this. I get these teens are supposed to be trash, but it almost was like an afterthought on how to make them trash. It didn’t really add to the plot or make me dislike them any more. It teetered past the point of excessive to where I became uncomfortable reading instead of just getting mad and adding to the writing of unlikeable characters.

Also, the “now” portions are unexplainably detailed. My ADD was screaming at how detailed some of these sentences were. It was like two different people were writing. I felt like I was reading Josephine’s journal and her writing as a freelancer vastly expanded her vocabulary 😂 Lastly, can we stop using the “m” word to describe short people? It’s offensive and icky. Stop.

Overall, I would say I guess I enjoyed The Divines. It did take me a bit to understand what I was reading, and what the author was trying to get across. It was really hard to actually review this, because I understood what the author was trying to accomplish, but I felt like I just didn’t get there. The intention was there, but not so much the execution.

While the writing was excellent, I really struggled reading this book. The characters were well written and complex. However, the plot just didn’t work for me.

The Divines is the story of a group of girls who attend a private boarding school and behave badly most of the time. The story is mostly focused on Joe (Josephine, Sephine) alternating from present to past as she recalls what happened right before the school was shut down and merged with another nearby private boarding school. While I found this to be a page-turner, I wasn't particularly invested in the characters and didn't care for the "mean girl" premise.

This was a decent book but not what was I expecting. I felt that the story was slow at times and the ending felt flat.

3-1/2 stars! Thank you William Morrow and NetGalley for my ARC of this intriguing novel. The story follows Sephine as she tells her husband of the trials and tribulations of her time at boarding school. The author wrote the story in such a way that there was just enough detail to keep you interested without overdoing it. I enjoyed following Sephine’s story and especially liked the ending of this book. I would recommend snagging this one when it is published on 1/19/2021

It's another boarding school baddie book coming at ya... and it's a flop. I had high hopes for this one, but it fell flat. It was one of those books where you finish and then think to yourself "what was the point?". However, I flew threw it - not because I enjoyed it, but because I was waiting for something to happen

Let me set the scene: we get an intriguing prologue involving a dead student dressed in figure skating gear. The book then reverses back in time and builds up to this big moment where we finally find out what happened.

The book is basically about high school bullies and how vicious teens can be to one another. The timeline alternates between the narrator Jo's past and her present - but she never seems to grow or develop in any way? There is some major fat shaming throughout the book as well as internalized homophobia and don't even get me started on how poor Lauren was treated throughout the book. She was basically a joke, a token gay person and I hated that she was used that way in this story. I get that it's set in the 90's, but I was disgusted by "gay" and "lesser" being used as an insult. It added zero to the plot. I think I could have gotten past it if these children had grown or developed as adults but honestly almost every character in this book was unlikable, both as teens and as adults.

Jo just gets worse as the book goes on. She's obsessed with these Polaroids of penises that she keeps in a lock box from her school days and she begins to withdraw from her family but it isn't really explained why. Nothing is explained in this book. Like why the girls all boy by boy's names...

I think the author was trying to make a point that perception isn't always reality, but this book missed the mark big time. Nothing is resolved. Nothing makes sense. I was left wondering what the point of the whole thing was.

The Divines
A Novel
by Ellie Eaton
William Morrow and Custom House
You Are Auto-Approved
William Morrow
General Fiction (Adult) | Literary Fiction | Women's Fiction
Also available as an audiobook
Pub Date 19 Jan 2021 | Archive Date 16 Mar 2021

I don't think our patrons will enjoy this book. It was very dark and there was very little to focus on that was positive. It mainly talked about the meanness of girls towards each other and the effect that has on our lives.
Thanks to William Morrow and Custom House for the ARC along with NetGalley.

2 star

I received an ACR from Netgalley of The Divines

A dual time line book about Josephine, a former boarding school student. The story revisits Josephine's last year at The Divine boarding school as well as Josephine's life where she learns to accept her past.

I enjoyed this book for the most part. The time at the boarding school was interesting because she is popular at one point than was kind of an outcast that friended a townie. It was almost of a coming of age novel while addressing her problems from her youth as an adult.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It had a very dark tone that was easy to fall into. It really showcases how horrible teen girls are towards each other and how it can effect your outlook and future.

This is a hard book to rate and review because I really liked parts of it but was also terribly bored by the main character Joe. I realize the point is for Joe to be an unlikeable character but I do not think she was executed in a way that makes me love to hate her. I just hated her. She was terribly flat and annoying spineless and I found myself beyond frustrated with her 90% of the time.

The present day plot was unnecessarily long and detailed and I hated the ending, though I know it is probably the most fitting end given the lead up to it (but that doesn’t mean I have to like it 🙃). It covers themes of memory and how we view ourselves in the moment and how we remember ourselves and our pasts, especially through the lens of severe self-obsession.

Ultimately, if you like long character studies of unlikeable women I think you might like this but it’s not something I will be recommending.

Not sure what I just read. In this we follow Jo in her current life navigating her new marriage. We also listen as she revisits memories of her life at boarding school.

Some things I really liked. I enjoyed learning about the school, and honestly wish there had been more focus on that. Instead, mostly the book focused on the cruelty of the girls to each other. Which I get, but I hate unlikable characters. And there was so much not to like about the characters. Towards the end of the story we get the sense that Jo is looking for some closure with some of her former classmates. I don't think she ever gets that, and neither do we.

Overall this was a very intriguing read, but fell a bit flat. However, I can see how some people would really enjoy this one.

I didn’t really like this book. I thought I’d like it because I love reading books about England. I didn’t find any of the characters very likable and I didn’t think the end had a very satisfying conclusion.