As you know, I generally love books set in boarding schools, and this one was sufficiently dark that I enjoyed it a lot. The narrator was good, and the novel weaved seamlessly between past and present. The characters were interesting and I couldn't have predicted what ended up happened either in the past or the present. This book also reminded me a little of Megan Abbott, an author that I love.

The Divines came out this week on January 19, 2021, and you can purchase HERE. I think Imogen Church is a great audiobook narrator and I enjoyed this book!

Thank you to Harper Audio for my copy of the Audiobook of The Divines in exchange for an honest review.

The Divines was a bold reminder of how cruel young girls can be.

It was a very uncensored view of Josephine's years at her boarding school, focusing on the last year she was Divine. It is told with a dual timeline from her younger school age years and her life as an adult, starting with her spontaneous visit to what use to be St.John the Divine on her honeymoon. I appreciated that Ellie Eaton told the story that way and slowly unravelled it all for the reader. It was intense and compelling, and the relationships were so complex. I don't know that I ever really warmed up to Jo, especially by the end of the book when all the pieces came in to place. But I did sympathize for her many times during the book. It had such mixed feelings about her.

I did feel like it ended quite abruptly and I was left confused. I felt like it was oddly fitting with the rest of the book, but as a reader it did not sit well with me.

I was however, very please with the narration done by Imogen Church! This was not my first time listening to her, and she is one that I am going to search for now to see what else I can find that she has done and add it to my list to listen to.

While campus novels are not normally my thing, this was a bit of an exception. There was plenty of character development AND plot, which is a rare sweet spot.

Thank you NetGalley and William Morrow Publishing for a free audiobook of The Divines in exchange for an honest review.

The storyline of the Divines, rich kids in boarding school and teenage angst immediately intrigued me. I enjoyed how the book alternated between Josephine's time in boarding school and where she was now, however I was a bit let down in the lack of development throughout the book for Josephine. She had some good qualities to her and I felt she had so much more potential to have grown from her boarding school experience. Because of this the book just became a bit boring and sad, just a retelling of the awful experiences Josephine had in school and the predictable mystery.

I did however enjoy Imogen Church's narrating, she does a great job of keeping you captivated throughout the book.

This is not an esoteric academy novel, for sure. It’s a boarding school novel using the school mainly for setting and atmosphere. I was hoping for The Orchard or The Secret History, but at a girl’s boarding school. I got something more akin Pretty Little Liars or Cruel Intentions. I found it very superficial, with appearances mattering more than just about anything else. It’s also very crudely sexual. I was constantly taken aback by the vulgarity, and I don’t generally consider myself a prude.

The audio is great, though. Imogen Church has a fabulous voice. Her pacing and inflection are always spot on, as are her voices for different characters. The emotions she can pack into a single sentence is honestly astounding. Her performance was phenomenal, even if the story itself left me cold.

Josephine, our perspective character, is in no way likable. Neither are her school mates. Jo is also an apex unreliable narrator. Unreliable narrators tend to turn me off, though there have been some notable exceptions. Alas, this book was not one of those. I could never get behind her at all, or get invested in either of her stories in the two different timelines.

While I didn’t like the story, or the characters, or the vulgarity of the content, I can’t fault the writing. This book was incredibly well written. The quality of the prose combined with the audio narration were the only redeeming qualities for me. However, those qualities were redeeming enough that I would try something else Eaton puts out.

<b>3.5 stars</b>

This audiobook was off-putting and I honestly have no idea how to feel about this book. After doing some thinking and after reading a couple of reviews about this book, I feel like I have a better understanding as to what the author tried to do here and while for me, this was not a read I would describe as "enjoyable" it was entertaining and kept my attention from beginning to end!

In The Divines, you will follow Josephine's perspective in present and past time. She is very unlikable and I couldn't stand her most of the time. It made me think of how I should probably try to read less book with unlikable main characters. Once in a while is fine but I feel like I've read a few too many... but anyway! Jo is a bully but she sees herself as a victim, the hero of her own story. It was beyond frustrating to see her treat other people the way she did while still considering herself a good girl or whatever because it's what all Divines do. Sigh. I didn't expect this book to end the way it did but like I said, this was an off-putting read.

Thanks to Netgalley and Harper Audio for an advanced audiobook.

It is hard to put a rating on this book. The Divines was beautifully written, ripe with lush prose and honesty. It’s a book about discovering sexuality, the loss of innocence. It’s a book about the power struggle between the privileged and the normal people. I understand what the author was trying to accomplish in this coming of age story, but I’m not sure it quite paid off.

Josephine attends a posh all-girl boarding school, where they scoff at the townies and flaunt their privilege. I didn’t find her or any of the other characters entirely likeable, but I would say most teenagers aren’t entirely likeable as it is. Most of us did thoughtless things, were filled with angst, eager to please, followers of the herd, desperate to be cool. Any or all of these things.

Nothing about this book was anything I hadn’t read before. Snotty girls treating each other badly, being hurtful towards each other, losing their virginity in a less than ideal way. Girls that grow into women and are unreliable narrators of their own life. This could have still worked. Women need stories that analyze their relationships with each other. The thing is, it all built to this ending that was lackluster, ended abruptly. It felt like there was no pay off for it.

The narrator was phenomenal though, and like I said, the writing was gorgeous! I think that many people will absolutely adore this novel.

Thank you to NetGalley and Harper Audio for gifting me a copy of this gripping Audio ARC. In exchange for a copy of The Divines, I offer my unbiased review.

They called themselves The Divines. A group of posh young girls attending an English boarding school. These girls are awful, truly nasty to their teachers, peers and the local townies. They torment each other, showcasing the worst qualities in young girls. Recalled by Josephine, now a new mother, she is still unnerved by the trauma experienced while attending St. John’s of The Divine Boarding School.

Although this book is very unsettling, difficult to care for any of these vile girls, I could not stop listening to Imogen Church, as she brilliantly narrates this disturbing story. Part coming of age, part mystery/ psychological thriller this debut is compulsive.

I was impressed by author Ellie Eaton’s ability to weave the current scandal surrounding Larry Nassar into this story. I’m surprised how deeply this story held my attention. I’m excited to see what Ellie Eaton writes next.

I'm attracted to any book with a comp to Normal People in the description, but I'm finding this is one that gets thrown around a lot lately given the massive success of Normal People. In this case, I didn't really get the comparison. This is very much a female boarding school, coming of age story, and overall it wasn't really my cup of tea. There's also something deeper here though too, which doesn't really reveal itself until towards the very end and this is where this book really shines. While the entire book examines an adolescent past, the end is what makes you question our memories. How accurate are own memories of the past? This is the question this book leaves you with.

To be Divine, well, that meant everything to them. Attending the elite boarding school meant so much to them, their mothers having also attended. Meant so much…until it didn’t.

The Divines is the debut novel from Ellie Eaton and follows two parts of one character: Josephine both in her thirties as well as her teens. We first join Josephine on her honeymoon where she finds herself near the school she attended for part of her school years. While walking by to look at it, she learns that the townies still have strong opinions about the Divines, even fifteen years later. Realizing this, our protagonist begins to reminisce on that time in her life, a time when the girls went by male names, when friendships were more complex than they should be, and when, right before St. John the Divine closed its doors for the last time, a terrible thing happened to one of the girls.

This is not an easy book to review. The audiobook is narrated by Imogen Church, one of my favorite narrators, and she does a wonderful job bringing Josephine/Jo to life. But frankly: Jo is not a great character. I don’t have a problem with this — I love a book with unlikeable characters. However, it is nice to have at least one character you are rooting for and, frankly, there aren’t a lot of characters I found myself teaming up with. I feel like some of the more minor characters did not deserve what was given to them and having some closure with one, in particular, would have been nice.

Told in two parts, we get to hear about The Divines as Jo remembers that time. There are things, though, that do not add up, making the reader believe that maybe Josephine’s memory isn’t the best for telling this story. There are things we never find the true answer out about, which can be frustrating. In between the flashbacks we have Jo in the current. Newly married, working as a freelance journalist, trying to start a family. Josephine is obsessed with her past and cannot part from it, keeping items in a box that she brings out constantly to stare out while thinking of the past, looking up old schoolmates online.

While I understand the reasoning behind the duo-perspective, the back and forth did not work for me in the way it was written. I found myself enjoying the past much more than the present, until the end when the present ended up back at that school. I had all about given up on this book until the end happened. At the end of the story, Josephine attends a reunion and gets back in touch with some old friends. Hearing them discuss their memories of different situations in the past had me really re-thinking a lot of her story. While this book ended up not being for me, I greatly enjoyed the ending, something I’ve noticed in other reviews some readers have not enjoyed.

Ellie Eaton really put her all into this debut and I look forward to reading from her again. The writing was beautiful, but it was just lacking something for me. I think anyone who enjoys reading stories with that dark academia aesthetic, with discussions of toxic friendships and how your youthful decisions can come back to haunt you, may find this book words for them.

Major thanks to NetGalley and the publisher, HarperCollins, for the ALC copy. I received this copy free for review. All thoughts are my own.

The Divines chronicles the life and times of a formless, rich, selfish teenager as she becomes a less rich and less selfish, although still largely formless, adult. In trying to cast Josephine as an everywoman, she becomes a no-woman. The same rings true for the rest of the divines. Eaton does a whole lot of telling and little meaningful showing, and while the ending was a nice little quirk, I was left wishing for something more. I have to wonder if a Catholic high school experience is a prerequisite for appreciating the book.

Eaton’s literary boarding school debut has it all: pretentious, snobbish, viscously cruel teenage girls. Drama, drugs, alcohol, smoking, and sex. However, this is not your typical boarding school story. Eaton takes us on a wild ride into the psychological world of dark academia with her extraordinary writing skills.

In The Divines, we follow our narrator, Josephine, in alternating chapters as she recalls and processes who she was, what happened all those years ago, and how it all shaped her into who she is. It’s like a complex character study where Eaton focuses on just how tenuous our memories are.

What I liked: Eaton’s incredible writing and how she addresses the negative effects of elitist education by having Sephine (this is the name Josephine goes by in her adult life) send her Mother an article about Boarding School Syndrome, which is very real and includes anger, depression, anxiety, failure to sustain relationships, fear of abandonment, etc.

What I didn’t like: It just really dragged on for me, and this is with me listening to the audiobook version narrated by my absolute favorite narrator (and I listen to a lot of audiobooks, folks), so it’s not that. It could just be that I wasn’t in the right headspace for it with all that’s going on right now.

If you like mean girls boarding school trope, and like literary fiction, you’ll probably like this one. If you don’t like more complex reads, and the obvious boarding school trope, then it's probably not for you.

With how “The Divines” starts, you would suspect that there is going to be a really interesting and dramatic backstory in the protagonist’s high school past. However, that drama never really materializes. The novel was vaguely interesting, but the flashbacks fail to adequately connect to the present. It’s an alright book with some racy storylines, but I failed to really understand the “why” behind this story. I was excited for this one, but it’s just a 3 star ⭐️ rating for me. Thanks to Netgalley for the advanced copy.

The Divines by Ellie Eaton is a fascinating novel about Josephine, a 30-something newly married professional still haunted by memories of the actions of herself and her vapid, cruel classmates as teenagers. The novel is told in dual timelines during Josephine's time in boarding school in England and present day as a nomadic married woman. The writing was very good and I liked the ruminations about our own behavior and the lengths we go to fit in as teenagers and how our formative years stay with us. This book is filled with unlikable, selfish, entitled characters, so it was frustrating at times how awful and oblivious they could be. I liked the ending, but it offered limited resolution and left me with questions about some of the characters. Imogen Church excellently narrates the audiobook. I sped up the narration, so it was perfect and really kept me intrigued, so I binged this in 3 days.

Thank you Harper Audio and NetGalley for providing this audiobook ARC.

The Divines takes you on a ride between present day and a snobby boarding , St John's the Divine school in Britain, where the author uncovers the story of what happened to one of the young women from the school. Josephine, the main character in our story left her life of being a "Divine" what feels like a million lifetimes ago and yet, she cannot let go of her last roommate, the most unpopular girl in the school, Gerry. This young woman haunts her memories, and brings her to constantly look her up and think about that last year at the school, so much so that it is interfering in her present day. Now, she finds herself with an invitation to a school reunion, bringing her past into even sharper focus.

The characters came alive through the voice of Imogen Church, who I already loved from so many other books I have listened to. Unfortunately, for this listener, the book dragged on some. I wanted to love it, and I certainly did not dislike the book, but I was not captivated as I would have liked to be. Still, I needed to know what happened with Gerry and where all of Josephine's memories were leading her to, and I was truly surprised by some of the twists in the novel.

Thank you to Harper Audio and Netgalley for the opportunity to listen to this book in exchange for my honest review.

“You’re not still worrying about that silly article you sent me ages ago are you? Boarding school..what not.” “Syndrome,” I say...“Utter drivel,” she says.

The girls of St John the Divine, an elite English boarding school, are coming of age in a cut throat environment that examines just how awful females can be to one another. They smoke, chase boys, harass their teachers, and fancy themselves divine indeed. When a tragic accident shuts the school down for good, how will their time as “divines” shape them in adulthood?

Having gone to boarding school myself, I am a sucker for any book set in one. It brings me right back to my high school years and I love to read about what people think boarding school is really like. I laughed as they talked about “townies,” as this is a real thing and it’s exactly what we called the kids that lived in town. But that’s where the similarities ended. These girls were AWFUL. I imagine these types of bullying situations exist, but wow.

I enjoyed following Josephine’s story, told in a dual timeline between her boarding school days and her married adult life. It is refreshing how openly and honestly periods, sex and an adolescents changing body are portrayed. I am sure many women can relate to Josephines letdown after her first sexual encounter (thinking is that it? and ouch!), as this is NOT how the first time is portrayed to us in the movies, amiright ladies?

Imogen Church narrates this audio book and she does a great job. I just love her accent! She really gives Josephine’s character life. You can feel the emotion in her voice and, if I’m honest, I could listen to her talk all day 🥰.

Thank you to Netgalley and Harper Audio for this audio ARC in exchange for an honest review. Publication date January 19, 2021.

It's always difficult for me to connect with a book when the majority of the characters are entirely unlikable, such is the case with The Divines. However, I found it to be a slow paced yet fascinating story of how cruel teenage girls can be especially when left largely unsupervised. The Divines, the group of boarding school girls afforded too much privilege and too little accountability get into situations far above their level of maturity and some are left with physical and emotional scars that last far into adulthood. The narration was well-done and I found it most comfortable to listen at 1.25 speed. The slow pace of the story initially made it a bit challenging to become invested in the story but overall it was quite an enjoyable read.

The Divines lives up to it's title. The switch between past and present keeps reader engaged and interested in Josephine's (Jo) life and the trajectory of events. It was interesting to see how Josephine changed from her boarding school days to the modern day narrator that the reader comes to love. Even during her time as a Divine, it was interesting to see how she was different from her schoolmates and her willingness to befriend an outsider. The need to find out what happened to Gerri Lake propels the narrator and the plot along. The ending was surprising but in a good way.

Ahhh what an intensely unlikeable cast of characters! I usually really enjoy books set in boarding schools but this one didn't do it for me. I didn't like the narrator but I don't think it's because she isn't good. I think it's because I didn't like the main character.

Also, the whole giving all the girls a boy name was often confusing.

3.5 ⭐️⭐️⭐️🌗

I went into the Divines expecting some dark academia and good social commentary on the difficulties of teenage experiences in all kinds of relationships. I sort of got more of what I’d call grungy academia and 3/4 commentary.
The book leaned heavily into the grungy, dirty descriptions of Josephine’s life at both her preppy, old fashioned boarding school in ‘96 England and throughout her late 20’s- early 30’s and her marriage and parenthood. I thought the author was quite good at prose and her descriptions painted very good visual pictures. As a note, the book is definitely not for everyone if you’re sensitive to language and sexual content.
As far as the commentary, some of the things such as the isolation borne from superficial friendships and the ruthlessness of cliques is pretty well-done. I liked viewing adult Joe’s viewpoint on the things she did and said as an adolescent because that often provided the needed commentary (i.e. recognising that she did something out of insecurity but it was still wrong). However, there were a few certain (major) parts of the plot that I felt were not handled to the extent they needed to be given the seriousness of the topic, particularly in relation to the plotline with Stuart.

While I didn’t mind the twist at the end, the actual ending itself left MUCH to be desired for me. The book did such a good job at showing Josephine’s gradual unwinding and struggles with her friendship with Lauren in the past and her husband in the present. The emotions connected with those relationships were so visceral and well crafted. I felt the characters’ hurts, wants, and needs intensely where I needed to and it worked. I was invested in that as much or more than with the main plot of what happened to Gerry Lake. The book ends abruptly without satisfactorily concluding either Lauren’s or Jergen’s story arcs with Josephine though. They were the most constant forces in the book with Joe and I was disappointed that there was no resolution at all for them. I recognise the author’s choice to end it abruptly was supposed to make its own statement, however, it didn’t work for me at all and really didn’t help my enjoyment of the book.

However, beyond those few points, I think the writing style was very good and there were lots of moments that I genuinely enjoyed. I think the author is good at writing very real characters and the execution of the many different relationship story arcs and social commentary just needed some tweaking. And while the ending didn’t work at all for me, I think it may stylistically work for others.

I would tentatively recommend this book to those who like gritty books with a “preppy” backdrop but with my aforementioned caveats front and center. I think it could definitely work for a lot of people and offer an engaging reading experience.