What do east coast college reunions, mean girls, and secrets have in common? Lots of things apparently but they currently set the stage for this psychological thriller that had me on the edge of my seat from the first chapter!

A ten year reunion brings Ambrosia Wellington and Sloane Sullivan back to their old stomping grounds. College best friends with a reputation for partying and breaking hearts, the past has a way of always catching up.
Ambrosia’s roommate, Flora, tragically kills herself during their freshman year but the events surrounding her death had people questioning if it was really a suicide. Ten years have passed and someone wants to finally uncover the truth- once and for all.

I could not read this book fast enough. Just when I thought I had everything figured out, the last two chapters completely spin in a new direction that truly blew my mind. I loved the characters in this book and the retelling using past and present alternating timelines. While the book centers around hard subjects, I felt that Laurie Elizabeth Flynn does an amazing job tackling them. Thank you NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for the ARC- it truly was one of my favorite fall reads so far. Add this one to the top of you TBR list- available March 9th, 2021!

Wow! Excellent, dark psychological novel about bullying and the horrific effects it can have. Ambrosia and Sully are both returning to college for their 10 year reunion and have some answering to do. Namely about a horrible event that occurred due to their toxic bullying of another student. What the girls don’t realize is that someone is at the reunion ready to seek revenge for what they caused. Impossible to put down, well written thriller that will stay with you. Highly recommended.

Wow. That is my review. Just wow.

Ambrosia Wellington, theatre student at Weslyan in one time line, wife & returning alumni in the other. The story weaving its way back and forth throughout to uncover what happened on a terrible night in Ambrosia's (Amb to her friends) freshman year. While in college, Amb is caught in her desire to be someone she is not. She is also caught between her roommate Flora, a sweet girl who see's Amb as her best, and Sully, a girl whose roommate believes she is crazy, and who does not like Flora one bit. Sully is pretty wild and Flora is tame. Sully parties and Flora stays home. Sully sleeps with every guy she sees and Flora only sleeps with her boyfriend. Amb wants to be adored by Sully and will do just about anything to remain in her good graces, even turning on the people Sully sees as beneath her. Before the year is over, terrible things happen, which haunt Amb until she eventually returns to Weslyan for her 10th reunion at the behest of someone who sends her a note stating that she needs to come to the reunion, as they needs to talk. She goes, even though she is fearful of what the talk will be about. She goes, even though she does not know who sent her the message. She goes, even though her husband knows nothing about what happened that year of college. She goes, even though she knows it might not be in her best interest. Truly... it might not be in her best interest at all.

This is one of the best thrillers I have read in a long time. It is truly one of those books that you cannot put down. I read it in two days. I was gripped by the college antics and the mystery of "who did it?" The character of Amb is both frustrating the read and also easy to understand - who did not want to be adored by the girl or girls they thought were cool in college. Hard not to feel for her, and understand some of the decisions that she made. Her roommate Flora is an extremely likable character, as well. She is the cheerleader of the floor, the psych student that everyone wants to talk to. Sully is the character you love to hate... you know she is up to no good, but you cannot help but want to see what she gets up to next. The story is one that you will not quickly forget, and one I highly recommend you pick up!

*Spoilers ahead* - This book started off promising - dark secrets emerging at a college reunion, the juxtaposition of chapters between past and present, a forbidden love.

But in the end it tried too hard - tried too hard to make certain characters all good and others all bad, practically screaming at the reader - hey, the main characters are mean girls! It lost some of it's luster along the way and I did not believe the obsession our main character, Amb, had with either the boy she was supposed to love - Kevin - or the girl she was supposed to emulate - Sully.

Also - are we really supposed to believe there are 2 serial killers at the same reunion for a smallish liberal arts college?

With some editing and less telling, more showing, this could be a more intriguing tale but as it stands - it was tough to get the motivation to finish.

Special thanks to @netgalley and @simonbooks for an advanced copy of this intense book!
The girls are not nice so don’t believe the title. I read this book so fast just so I could find out what happened. I’d love to say how likable and relatable the characters are but they just aren’t...but it made the book so much more interesting. This one played with my emotions.

I really enjoyed this book. The characterization was very detailed, and because of that I kept wondering why Ambrosia was so drawn to Sully. I was also surprised at the ending!

Thanks Netgalley for allowing me to read this book. Ambrosia Wellington received an invite to her college 10 year reunion with a note indicating that someone wants to talk about a college roommates death ten years ago. Ambrosia put her college years behind her and is trying to move on. This book was well written and kept me interested from the very start.

This had everything I love about a good mean girl thriller--mind games, secrets, lies, insecurities making characters do the worst things, friendship manipulation, and so much more. I really enjoyed having the two different timelines between Amb's time in college and her current life where she is married living a quiet life. I still cannot decide if I like her or not...which is fine for me. I can always appreciate a well written anti-heroine. I would've LOVED Sully's point of view, I think that would've really set this book over the edge for me. There is so much more I want to say but I do not want to give anything away for anyone. I would definitely recommend this as a good campus mean girl suspense story, I bet it will be a fantastic audiobook as well.

Thank you to Netgalley and Simon & Schuster for this ARC! So appreciated.

I loved this book. The college setting was a nice change from so many high school settings. This is definitely an adult book, with lots of adult themes and happenings, but I thought it more accurately reflected a college experience. The jumping between past and present worked well, as we really got to know these characters and see what they were going through. While I wouldn't call any of them particularly likeable, I did enjoy spending time with them. And the ending was a big surprise (and also worked super well!) Here's to more books like this!

This was a great psychological drama. As a freshman at Wesleyan University, Ambrosia (Amb) Wellington, trying to figure herself out and fit in, is drawn into the orbit of Sloane (Sully) Sullivan, who is wild, uninhibited, and able to persuade others to do what she wants. While she seems to be the "It" Girl, Sully is "lost" in her own way, using manipulation and cruelty to portray a sense of power and control. Among the targets of Sully's cruelty is Amb's roommate, Flora, who is the stereotypical "good girl." If she had allowed herself, Amb could have been good friends with Flora, who tried to be a good friend/roommate to Amb. However, Flora seemed to "perfect" and to "innocent/naïve", and ultimately, she had want Amb wanted, which Amb decided to try to take away from her. The cruelty of Amb and Sully had tragic consequences and irrevocably altered their friendship, such as it was, and their college experiences. Fourteen years later, it is the ten-year reunion of the graduating class. Amb has created a new life and is married to a good (but unambitious) guy. She has no interest in attending the reunion, but she keeps receiving e-mails and letters, including an invite with a message that "we" need to talk about what happened that night. The book alternates between the events of freshman year and events leading up to the reunion and the reunion itself. When Amb gets to the reunion and sees Sully, she learns that Sully did not send the note, having received an identical note, which she thought came from Amb.

The author does a masterful job of portraying the cruelty and manipulative behavior of Amb and Sully, as well as how actions or inaction by other students feed into Amb's insecurity and keep her under the influence of Sully and draw out her worst instincts. The revenge scheme, fourteen years in the making, is also masterfully done; a prime example of "gaslighting." Even when I figured out who was out for revenge, I was surprised at how far the person went to obtain revenge and "justice" for Flora.

I received a copy of the e-book via NetGalley in exchange for a review.

From beginning to end, this book was a wild ride. I could not put it down and just had to keep reading until the end. The plot drags you in with it's fast paced story telling. Mystery and suspense mixed with the characters that may not be what they seem will make it hard to not keep reading to see what happens next. Fantastic book that I highly recommend!

This book was absolutely incredible! I cannot say enough good things about it. I tore through it until the late hours of the night because I simply couldn't put it down. The writing is phenomenal and eloquent, and the plot is fast-paced and draws you in front the opening lines. The characters feel so real that you really feel like you're on that college campus with them. This is one of my new favorite books! Very well done!

I actually read this one in between meetings and stayed up late to finish it because I just had to know. For fans of Bad Mommy, Sometimes I Lie and Verity this is definitely a must read. Twisty, veering back between the past and present and unlikeable but magnetic characters. Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the ARC bc I'll get recommending this and looking for more books by this author.

An absolute mess. I'm even embarrassed to say I finished it. Everyone in this book was crazy, narcissistic and mean. It just went on and on and on. Wordy, meaningless characters and a plot that tries and fails. Absolutely do not recommend this one. Actually, I recommend you skip it

Two former best friends return to their college reunion to find that they’re being circled by someone who wants revenge for what they did ten years before

This was was.delicious twisty book!
Ok so I loved everything about this book!
It was completely amazing.

Thanks NetGalley publisher and author for this copy.

Wow, this is a crazy suspenseful thriller. With a bit of an unreliable narrator, lots of suspicious characters, and tons of plot twists, this thriller doesn’t reveal what’s really going on until the very end. I loved the unpredictability of it, and honestly was shocked at the ending. Ambrosia was a main character hard to root for, but I still found myself pulling for her anyway. I thoroughly enjoyed this novel and eagerly await further work from this author.

The girls are not very nice here! They are horrible. Ambrosia Wellington, hero of our story, is grade A butthead. She plots and lies and treats everyone like garbage. She has a secret, something that happened when she was in college, and it involves her former best friend. I thought The Girls Are All So Nice Here was pretty entertaining, but about 50 pages too long. You will read that she has a secret, something that happened when she was in college, involving her best friend, approximately 400 times before you find out what the terrible secret is. Then once you find out what the secret is you're like yikes, that IS a terrible secret, and all these people are garbage and I hate it here. But still a fun read! Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for a copy.

The Girls Are All So Nice Here, by Laurie Elizabeth Flynn, is an unsettling, dual-timeline suspense novel. Ambrosia's keeping some secrets from her college years. Now, with her ten-year reunion looming, anonymous notes hint that someone knows what she and her friend did.

In their freshman year at Wesleyan, Sloane (who goes by Sully), says she gets bored easily. She embraces every kind of experimentation, and Amb is immediately drawn to her wild-girl ways. Amb's already hooked on their intense friendship when she starts to realize that Sully loves experimenting on other people and playing manipulative games.  I didn't buy this twisted-friendship dynamic in The Furies, but here it works. Sully's a Spence girl and Amb's from working-class New Jersey, which plays perfectly into the relationship.  Amb's already looking to build her college identity, and there's an unsettling mix of relatable freshman anxiety crossed with Amb's disturbing dependence on Sully's validation.  Throughout the novel, it's this mix of realistically relatable and darkly twisted that makes the story work.

When the invitation to their ten-year reunion arrives, Amb's married to a man a bit younger than she is, which adds to the feeling that her years at Wesleyan were sort of deleted from her adult life. She's pulled into the reunion, just like she was pulled into Sully's orbit, and at first I wasn't buying it. There were just so many chances for her to skip it or leave early or just not engage, but over the course of the book, it becomes clear that even as an adult, Ambrosia needs that external approval and she's still afraid to make waves or look weird. So, just roll with the whole but why would she go back there? to get to the twisty reveals about everything that really went on in their freshman year. Adult Ambrosia's still a good liar, and she's still worried that she won't look good in front of others, so she could still be manipulated by someone who knows that...

Most of the enjoyment in The Girls Are All So Nice Here is about discovering the twists and wondering who knows what, so I'm going to try to keep spoilers out.  The dual timelines takes us through teenage Ambrosia, falling into Sully's manipulation games in a twisted desire to be liked, and adult Ambrosia, trying to keep a lid on everything that's happened as someone seems to be manipulating her again.

Wow. This book was a wild ride! College mean girls, now back for their ten year reunion where someone wants to the past to finally catch up to them. I really enjoyed the alternating 'then' and 'now' structure this book is written in and the monstrous toxic friendships that Flynn has created! Basically all of the characters fit firmly into the 'love to hate' category. I couldn't put it down.