My knee jerk reaction: Holy crap. It’s been a long time since a book has made my stomach turn. I would also like to preface this review by saying, this book has inspired me to listen to Slipknot- Iowa for the first time in years and I’m still thoroughly enjoying it so take that how you will.

Thanks to Netgalley, Simon & Schuster, and Laurie for an advance copy of The Girls Are All So Nice Here.

Amb Wellington is not the girl she was when she attended Wesleyan College. She’s worked very hard to put that past behind her and kept it hidden from her husband, as well. But come on now, we know the past can’t stay buried, right? She tries to ignore the invitation to her class reunion, but her hand is forced when a mysterious note shows up saying, ‘we need to talk about what we did that night.’ At the reunion Amb’s past slams into her like a wrecking ball, a wrecking ball formerly known as her wild best friend Sully. As the weekend progresses, Amb and Sully gain more questions than answers. Who actually did what? And who knows, or thinks they know, the truth?

OH. KAY. While that synopsis sounds like your run-of-the-mill thriller, this book is not it. Thrillers by nature are dark, but this book is pitch freaking black. A dive into female friendships, toxic relationships, and of course, morally gray characters. Even the ‘good’ and ‘nice’ ones are questionable in their motives. So like I said, story sounds typical, the past is catching up to our MC, she’s got secrets coming to light, she’s being blackmailed, etc. But the story really does transform into a character study of our core cast, while using an interesting setting to do so. The twist was so intense, I never saw it coming. My jaw actually dropped reading the first page of the last chapter. The story is good at making you question each character, their truths, and their psyche.

What set the characters apart for me initially was the setting of a college reunion and a flashback to the college-aged Amb who wanted to reinvent herself by going to college. Amb is a very calculated character from the jump, but she also needed the push and confidence that only another ‘cool’ person could instill in her; enter Sully. Sully is impulsive, reckless, and oozes confidence and the lack of giving a fuck. I can’t recall meeting a character like her in any thriller I’ve read, and despite all her flaws and toxicity, everyone is drawn to her, including me as a reader.

This was my first Laurie Elizabeth Flynn novel, but it definitely won’t be my last.

This was a pretty good book! It follows Amb, a woman attending her college reunion with her husband. She didn't want to go; who would? But when she got threatening notes in the mail, she had no choice. She had to go back and solve the mystery of what happened to her freshman roommate 14 years ago.

I liked this book but didn't love it. Unfortunately I figured out who was behind the threats pretty early on. However, I did NOT figure out what happened to the roommate, so I was still semi surprised by the ending. If you like thrillers set in schools, pick this one up!

If you want a truly tragic and disturbing tale about mean girls, this is the book for you. Ambrosia (Amb) wants nothing more than to be part of the "in" crowd. She will literally do anything to get there. Sloane (Sully) is that wild thing that doesn't give a s**t about anyone. She uses people like playthings. Something happens back there at Wesleyan and now that their reunion is coming, someone wants them to pay.

It was hard at times to read how Amb and Sully acted. They were mean but I always felt like Amb really didn't want to be but I am not so sure. It is a deep look at a woman's self esteem and the need to be seen. It is also a dive into being so bad that bad things happen to other people.

Thanks to Netgalley and Simon and Schuster for a copy of this book.

This book gave me Mean Girl vibes by the synopsis which is why I picked it up.

It did deliver those mean girl vibes with our two main characters Amb & Sully who are the mean girls. They played their part well as mean girls. The bullying in this made me mad and made me feel for the victim.

However, this was very predictable. I noticed It would drag at every end of each chapter. I felt like the author wanted to leave the reader with suspense but when the points were finally made after being built up for chapters, it was very guessable.

Reading this did make me wish I got the college dorm experience but also made me realize why I didn't go, so much drama!

I did like the then & now point of view, definitely added to the story, and telling the two timelines apart was not difficult.

Thank You, NetGalley & the publisher for the early copy!

An "I Know What You Did Last Summer" story set at a college reunion.

Ambrosia doesn't really want to go to her college reunion, but her husband and friends talk her into it. Something terrible happened back then, something "Amb" (wow that is an awkward nickname) doesn't really want to think about. But she's going to have to.

On the whole, this was entertaining. The story alternated between past and present and took a bit of time to get going. I wished more details about what actually happened had been placed a little earlier, as for most of the book I was just waiting to find out. The last quarter or so of the book was much more suspenseful with a nice twist at the end, but I'd have preferred the reveals to be a little more spaced out.

Thank you to Simon & Schuster and NetGalley for providing me with an advance copy of this book to read it in exchange for an honest review.

The book opens with main character Ambrosia "Amb" Wellington being invited to the ten year reunion at her college. Her immediate response is no, she is not interested in visiting the demons of her past. As we continue reading we go back and forth from past to present. The author weaves us through the events of her freshmen year of college and her struggles as a married adult. We learn of Amb's complicated relationships and greater need to be accepted and fit in. This acceptance is what leads her to decisions that she will regret in her adult life.

As she returns to campus for the reunion, the ghosts that have been haunting her become real. As she faces past friendships and nemeses, she feels like she is 18 again and losing control.

I wanted to give this book 4 stars but I landed on 3 stars. This book was very similar to another book I just finished and that may be why I got stuck at 3. Overall, the author did an amazing job with character development and storyline. I honestly didn't see the ending coming (I figured part of it out toward the end, but the last chapter through me for a loop).

I found this to be a quick read, it kept me engaged and I would recommend to friends.

I was granted access to this book through Netgalley in exchange for an honest opinion on 3/9/21. However, it will not let me download it. This is very disappointing because I want to read, but it will not allow me to.

This was a solid, psychological thriller that had some scary moments in the end. It flashes between the protagonist’s mean girl college days and her present adulthood. You spend most of the book trying to figure out what happened during the college years and why the main character is so shady as a 30ish year old woman. This book kept my interest and had twists I didn’t see, but some of the bad girl behavior was just soo unbelievable. I can suspend some reality, but the actions of some of these women were so outrageous in the book, it just took away a bit from the story. Good, solid read so I’ll give it 3 ⭐️ stars.

Devastatingly dark, The Girls Are All So Nice Here is a deep dive into the toxic minefields that all women face either as part of or as victims of. Ambrosia "Amb" Wellington has been taunted with messages about her past during her time at Wesleyan as well as being invited to her class reunion. What follows is a look back at Amb's freshman year, and at her relationships with her roommate, Flora, as well as resident mean girl (with all the dizzying and dazzling power that comes with it), Sully as well as a look at Amb, Sully, and the mystery of what happened to Flora.

I guessed both of the twists early on, buy Flynn excels when she writes about the knife edge of teen girls' toxic friendships and their ability to destroy each other. (She's written some outstanding YA novels)

The kicker at the end was super dark and wow! Just the perfect end to this (very dark) psychological thriller. Very highly recommended, especially for fans of Gillian Flynn, Sophie Hannah's early police procedurals, and Karin Slaughter.

Just a great, great read!

It's time for the 10 year reunion of Wesleyan University. Ambrosia has been living with a secret of having done something really bad when she was a student. All the new students are seeking friends. Ambrosia's roommate thought they were best friends. Ambrosia wanted to be best friends with Sully because she got a lot of attention. Sully is a hardened mean girl and Ambrosia got caught in her web and they became inseparable. They take things too far and others suffer. This is a twisted story of lust, mental illness and revenge.

When Ambrosia was in college, she and her best friend Sloane (Sully) Sullivan played with people's lives with serious consequences. Now on the eve of their college reunion, they are getting anonymous letters alluding to what happened then. Ambrosia is not that person anymore, but if the truth of what happened gets out, it could destroy the new life she's built for herself since that time. This novel says a lot about the way girls treat other girls and what can happen when that is taken to the extreme. It is absolutely heartbreaking and horrifying and yet you won't be able to put it down.

This was truly a shocking psychological thriller for me and a new author to me. Definitely recommend this one.

I received a copy of this from NetGalley in exchange for fair and honest review.

If I could, I think I'd give this one 3.5 stars. I thought some of the commentary about being a young woman and the depths we can go to in our yearning for acceptance were sharp and insightful. However, I just didn't feel sucked in to the book, which is the hallmark of a really good thriller. The constant narrative switching made sense from a plot perspective, but it disorientingly broke up the flow. I also managed to guess where the book was going before the end, which also might have made it less impactful for me.

Ambrosia Wellington is going to be an IT girl in college, she just knows it. She's spent all her time and money studying the other half, except she landed the good girl roommate and within a week she knows she's being left out of things by the others in her dorm. Enigmatic and boy popular Sloane "Sully" takes her under her wing though, taking her to all the parties and getting her access to all the boys. This is all she wanted.
Ten years later and Ambrosia has left the mean girl days behind, so far behind she pretends they never happened. Her husband knows her as the studious girl, but an invite to her reunion is about to unveil all her secrets. What did Amb do at Wellesley College and who else knows about it?

The other girls may have been nice, but Amb sure wasn't and Sully was even worse. Laurie Elizabeth Flynn took me back to college days, in my case I loved my sorority and college experience, but Amb's choices her freshman year are things she could never come back from. I felt for Amb through out the chapters told from her past perspective, her eagerness to fit in is so relatable, but adult Amb is a hard character. She hasn't matured at all and what little remorse she does feel is so quickly pushed to the side in favor of a "friend" who left her in the dust. While the book is very new adult in the drama of the past, the present chapters holds all the thrill. I liked not knowing who was out to get Amb and Sully, each little incident building up to the secrets the girls hold tight to, but there were so many holes and the big reveal lacked the shock factor I really want out of a thriller read.

The Girls Are All So Nice Here is full of very realistic incidents. It's a fiction novel, but the choices the girls make as college students are choices we see young adults make every day. College is freedom and what some people do with that freedom is shocking. Laurie Elizabeth Flynn delivers a thrilling novel about women and revenge.

Thanks to Netgalley and the author for the advanced copy for an honest review.

Amb has tried to move on. Tried to leave the past behind and forget her first year of college. Well with the 10 year reunion coming up and her new husband who has heard so much of his wife's younger partying ways, they are on the way to uncover what Amb tried to bury. To forget.

The Girls Are All So Nice Here will have you guessing till the last page. It's a fast paced, one sitting, 5 star book!

This book was close to my past as I also was in college during the 90's. I put my friends in the character's places and with the juicy twists, was surprised and shocked by the ending. PS, Don't fall prey making decisions to make others happy. Live for yourself!

5 stars!

This had several elements that are my typical fictional go tos- campus novel, wealthy people behaving badly, and on the positive side for this book, it made me feel very intense feelings about the characters and their choices. Those feelings were mostly loathing, of course, because everyone in this book does truly awful things to each other. It definitely will make readers think hard about the ability to hurt others we have, particularly in those late teen years when freedom is new and character isn't as well defined.

Just a heads up, this book is NOT about nice girls! I wanted to dislike this book solely based on the characters - but I really could not put it down!

This book switches back and forth from the point of view of Ambrosia, between her freshmen year of college and 10 years later, during her reunion. Ambrosia and her friend Sloane were wild mean girls - making college miserable for others. Everything they did was for a shock value. Ambrosia was coerced to return for her college reunion - she believes to discuss what she and Sloane did one night - but was that really why? The ending is shocking, the things these girls did to others goes beyond mean. Reading this book felt like watching a train wreck… you just can’t look away despite how horrific it may be! Laurie Elizabeth Flynn writes a book that is unbelievable at times and difficult to put down!

Thank you to Netgalley and Simon & Shuster for my advanced reader copy!

📚 𝐁𝐎𝐎𝐊 / 𝐑𝐄𝐕𝐈𝐄𝗪 📚⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣
⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣
Title: #TheGirlsAreAllSoNiceHere
Author: @laurieelizabethflynn
Publisher: @simonandschuster
Pub Date: 3/9/21⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣
Type: #Paperback #ARC⁣⁣
Genre: #Mystery #Thriller⁣
Must Read Rating: ⭐⭐⭐

My thoughts:

-Holy moly! This was one hell of a twisted and wild ride! Fair warning - this book is SERIOUSLY messed up. I don't think I've ever read a book where the toxic relationships between female friends ran so deep. These characters will get under your skin and stick around for a long time after you finish this book. And speaking of characters, I literally hated every single one (except maybe Amb's husband, albeit a bit aloof). I had a very hard time connecting with Sully and felt like she was a tad too over the top in some parts of the book for it to be realistic. I know there are a LOT of Sully's out there and I am just grateful I never met one!

-I love books that are set on college campuses and this one did not miss the mark. There were so many "throwback" memories of my girlfriends and I getting ready for the night, shopping around in each other's closets and talking about cute fraternity boys we hoped would notice us. That's about where the similarities ended. For one, there was no such thing as "sex parties" (at least that I was aware of) and while people hooked up A LOT with random guys, it didn't feel as dirty as it was portrayed in this book. There were some squeamish moments that left me completely disgusted.

Would I recommend this book? I am not sure. I enjoyed it, but I didn't love it. I think I am the odd one out. I found it be too much and I really hated the way that the characters idolized Sully and turned their backs on each other. Not to mention, there are some scenes that are truly disturbing and I don't think a lot of fellow readers would like a dark book like this one. The ending was unique, so I will say the book redeemed itself in a few different ways. Overall, this was a quick read and I am not disappointed that I picked it up.

My skin is still crawling from this book. The Girls Are All Backstabbing Evil Snakes Here, wait.. no, that's wrong. The Girls Are All So Nice Here by Laurie Elizabeth Flynn is a doozy. Ambrosia Wellington has received a card, telling her to show up to her 10 year college reunion at Wellesley, to discuss the tragic events that took place during that time. Amb has gone to great lengths to put that time behind her, but it becomes clear that someone else has gone to even greater lengths to learn the truth. The truth of what happened in the first few months in the Butts C dorm, what earned it the Dorm Doom moniker, and exactly what role Amb, along with her former best friend Sully, played in it.

I'm in a pretty bad reading slump right now, but this book hooked me fast. It's told in alternating timelines, the present day, and the events from Amb's freshman year. I think every woman can clearly recall the angst of being a teen girl, along with the insecurities and the desire to fit in. Flynn was certainly able to capture that particular time and its mindset, and brew it into a much darker stew. Listen, there are no sympathetic characters in this novel. I spent every page in a rage, a disbelief of the escalation, the destruction that was taking place. That rage just kept on simmering until it was fully cooked, and I was ready to explode. But no matter how mad I was, how sad I was, I kept turning the pages. I had to. There weren't any real surprise twists, I had it pretty much figured out very early on, but the very end did get me. There are some crazy dynamics in this book, and some seriously unlikeable characters. Despite that, or maybe because of it, this is a compelling page turner. I felt relief when I reached the last page, and thought to myself, "what in the *bleep* did I just read?"  I'm pretty sure you will too. Rounded up from 3.75 stars. Thanks to Simon & Schuster and Netgalley for the advance copy. This book will be released on March 9, 2021.

Wow! Dark, sick, and twisted story of Wesleyan graduates Ambrosia “Amb” Wellington, her manipulative friend Sloane “Sully” Sullivan, and her sweet roommate Flora. Their 10-year college reunion is coming up, and the girls are receiving letters wanting to discuss what they did over summer while at Wesleyan. Amb doesn’t want to attend, but her husband Adrian seems to think it’ll be fun. Little does he know he’s in for quite a ride.
There are huge trigger warnings throughout, which I won’t discuss because they will give away the plot, but just be warned.