Thank you so much to Simon & Schuster Canada for the ARC ebook!

This book left me very torn regarding how I feel about it overall. The story itself was good, the main character was well written and the conflicts were interesting. I really liked how the author portrayed the mental health aspects, it was extremely well done. However, this book felt way too long for what it was. Most of this book is very detailed description and lots of internalization. While the writing itself was good, I do think it was too much overall. I would recommend this book to those prepared for a long, detailed read, and those who are looking for a read containing girls boarding school drama, mental health rep and focus, and slow-burn thriller aspects. My overall rating out of 5 is 3.75

15-year-old Sarah is the new student at a prestigious girls boarding school, and soon finds herself battling both internal and external demons.

This book was very hard to finish. It was very boring, long, and just didn’t seem to go anywhere for me. It was also very dark.

I think this book could have been much shorter to help the reader stay engaged.

The only reason I forced myself to finish it was because I was waiting to see who actually dies.

Thank you NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for a DRC. The St. Ambrose School for Girls is available July 11.

*triggers: suicide is one of the main ones followed by a few more

this book was not for me.
i found it far too much of a slow burn; it plots takes a good while to truly kick-off. i believed that the book was going to be a thriller/mystery, which are usually quite fast-paced, but its true plot was about the main character, sarah, getting bullied by her new boarding school's popular girl, greta, and only does the thriller/mystery begin nearing the end of the story.
i thought that this book would have potential and was excited to read it, especially with sarah as a bipolar character, and since it's marketed as a "heathers meets the secret history."

thank you netgallery & simon & schuster canada for this e-arc!!

Okay. I have a thing for unreliable narrators and morally grey characters in boarding school settings, so this was pretty much always going to be a slam dunk for me but the reviews made me nervous!!

I can see why this wouldn't work for a lot of people - the writing is not what you'd expect from a YA thriller (read more adult literary) and the pacing is incredibly slow, but I absolutely adored being in Sarah's head.

This was a just okay book for me. It was very well written, I liked the setting of it. But it was VERY slow to start , I enjoyed the ending it was great. Lots of details sometime a little confusing. But it was a good read. I guess it wasn't for me. But please check your trigger warnings before reading this book. Suicide /mental illness/ murder/drugs. Its definitely a mystery thriller.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the Advance Readers Copy.

🏫 A prestigious boarding school thriller M I X E D with gothic elements and dark academia, “The St Ambrose School for Girls” by Jessica Ward is …
🔪 heavy
🔪 dark
🔪 twisted
🔪 haunting
🔪 emotional

BOOK REVIEW: 🖤🖤🖤🖤/5

Sarah Taylor is the newbie to St. Ambrose and quickly becomes the target for a bully named Greta. Sarah has been recently diagnosed with bipolar disorder and is still getting used to her meds. She does not want her secret or her past hospital visits to be known around her new school. She feels like she already “sticks out like a sore thumb” in this crowd and doesn’t want to give these bullies any more ammunition 😖

When someone winds up dead in her dorm, Sarah’s world begins to completely S P I R A L 🌀. This school is full of sinister secrets and everyone quickly becomes a suspect. Sarah has no idea who to trust .. even herself with her mind blurring the line between what is real and what is not.

This book is the dark academia / dark and twisty book I have been craving lately! It is perfect for fans of Pretty Little Liars, Mean Girls, The It Girl and In My Dreams I Hold a Knife 🔪

Thank you kindly to @jesswardauthor @gallerybooks @simonschusterca @netgalley for my advanced digital copy in exchange for my honest review! This book releases on July 11, 2023!

Thank you Netgalley and Gallery Books for the chance to read an advance copy of The St. Ambrose School for girls by Jessica Ward (aka J.R. Ward). This book is described as a YA mystery thriller, and it hits this mark right on the nose. It wasn't what I was expecting since this is a favourite author of mine who usually writes about vampire warriors and does a marvelous job at it. If you expect to find anything paranormal in this book, there isn't any. This book is about a girl who is bipolar and while a gifted student, she has issues with staying in touch with the world. The beginning of the book is mostly Sarah talking inside her head, trying to keep herself tethered to the real world. I became immersed in the story as it continued, Sarah's manic state and her blacking out, the bullying she deals with, and her relationship with both her roommate Strots, and her Residential Advisor / English teacher, Nick Hollis. The book is dark, but somewhat accurate, not only with Sarah's .bipolar disorder but the bullying. However, I didn't like the turn the author made as the book ended but I do recommend it, but be warned to triggers of mental illnesses, murder, and suicide.

DNF

I tried to read at least 100 pgs
The plot line moved way too slow
Cliche narrative with Mean Girl vibes
The mental health issues (MC is biopolar) gave the book potential to be something more but this didnt come to fruition

I have read this author before and will most likely read them again but for me this book was a miss

I was really surprised to find that this is author J.R. Ward. Please don’t hate on me…her paranormal romance stuff isn’t my kind of thing. BUT…she hits it out of the park with this literary thriller that is also part coming of age. I love a good dark academia tale, especially one with a mean girls twist…Boy, we ladies sure can be vicious.

Sarah, our main character is infatuated with the RA/English teacher at her new boarding school, until he does something she doesn’t agree with. She is a very young fifteen-year-old and her fantasies/delusions about him, death and many other teenage angst issues were very real to her. I loved the way the author wrote these scenes. Sarah has a lot of self-loathing and the narrative of this one was very complex because Sarah is bipolar, her illness is a character with its own personality, thoughts and feelings. There is, of course, a death but we don’t know who the killer is and there are a lot of red herrings along the way. This is a slow burn but I found it worked here, with the gothic vibes and unreliable narrator. It added to the tension and helped me to get to know the characters.

I liked this book a lot more than most as many reviewers have said the mental illness aspect isn’t realistic. I am here to tell you, it is. People with severe bipolar disorder can and do behave like Sarah. She was portrayed very realistically as were her behaviours and the limits of her medications. Well done to Jessica Ward for branching out to thrillers.

Between the gorgeous, atmospheric/colourful cover and the synopsis' comparison to Heathers and The Secret History, I had high hopes for Jessica Ward's novel, The St. Ambrose School for Girls . As much as I wanted to love the book, though, I only half-enjoyed it.

What I most enjoyed about the book is the narrator. I loved Sarah (aka "Sally") as the main character, and her outsider status, proclivity towards black clothes, and her mental health issues are things I can relate to when I was a teenage girl. One of the most interesting parts of the novel is when the reader starts to realize that Sally may be an unreliable narrator; I'm just a sucker for that trope, especially when it's used well. I think the author did a great job of consistently portraying bipolar disorder in an accurate way without it acting solely as a plot device or for the sake of unreliable narration.

My largest issue with the novel is that there were pages upon pages of - if I'm being honest - utterly meaningless descriptions. I have to admit that I began skimming these particular paragraphs around a quarter of the way through the story until the end. Like, Sally would be doing something, and no matter how mundane the action was, it apparently warranted a page and a half of description. Don't get me wrong, I love reading about details in books I read, but the details in The St. Ambrose School for Girls was too much for my liking. It slowed the plot down immensely, which is arguably a slow burn as it is.

The book's first half was incredibly slow and there were points I considered DNF'ing it - but I'm glad I stuck through to the end. The book's climax and plot twist is that (view spoiler), and although it was predictable, it was nonetheless satisfying to finally see some action.

Personally, I think The St. Ambrose School for Girls has a great setting, concept, and narrator - but the execution wasn't as effective as it could have been.

Thank you to the publisher via NetGalley for providing me with a digital copy of The St. Ambrose School for Girls to review. All thoughts are my own and are not influenced by any third party.

This might be trying to do too much all at the same time which didn't leave enough for any one part. Set in the 90's, at a boarding school, bullying, scandals, and mental health but still the story drags for chapters at a time.
this is an author that excels at paranormal adult romance, so romance free very YA historical (sorry, the 90's are now a period piece) didn't work.

Thanks to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster Canada for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review. A book set in an all-girls boarding school featuring a mysterious murder? Sounds great. Unfortunately this book really didn't do it for me. It was a slog to get through, I didn't resonate with any of the characters and that's ignoring the insanely problematic elements. The book is set in the 90s - presumably to justify the homophobia and shaming of mental illness that two of the characters endure. However, there's none of the insight that a book published in 2023 should have. The main character, Sarah, is bipolar and while I can understand for a book set in the 90s she could have experienced people's prejudiced opinions and behaviour toward her due to a misunderstanding of her illness. But instead the author writes as if every negative stereotype of bipolar disorder is true and Sarah is experiencing them to 1000%. She's crazy, she's depressed, she's suicidal, she's delusional, she's violent. I have to wonder if the author has ever met a person with bipolar disorder because, what?

StAmbroseWhen Sarah Taylor arrives at the exclusive St Ambrose School, she's hyper-aware of how different she is from her wealthier classmates. Her attempts to escape her social climber mom and carve a new identity as goth girl Bo are foiled when her mom meets mean girl queen bee Greta on the first day. Fortunately, Sarah finds a friend in her roommate Strots, an athlete too cool to care about what Greta thinks and too rich to ever get into trouble herself.

This social hierarchy boarding school story is given additional layers by Sarah's mental health condition: she's bipolar, and desperate to keep her bottle of lithium pills and history of attempted suicide from her new schoolmates. Things escalate when Greta chooses Sarah as a target of her bullying, and Sarah in turn discovers something that Greta herself wants to keep secret.

The St Ambrose School for Girls isn't quite psychological thriller so much as psychological drama. Ward draws us into Sarah's mind, the rapid swings between optimism and depression, and the bigger picture downward spiral as her attempts to create a good life at St Ambrose are constantly foiled by Greta's bullying and her own mental health situation.

The story is solid, and Ward's depiction of all the ways girls can inflict cruelties on each other is vivid and raw. There's a subplot about Strots' own history with Greta that makes a spot-on, if not at all surprising, observation about the priorities of an institution like St Ambrose, and how these play out in terms of their standards of acceptable behaviour. The fallout of Greta's secret led to its logical, albeit tragic, conclusion, and the mystery it created had enough twistiness that the big reveal wasn't immediately apparent.

Overall, this was pretty good. The pacing was a bit slow, and the tone a bit more somber than I anticipated. (I was hoping for a fun and twisty thriller melodrama.) The story was solid but not especially memorable. Despite the deeper-than-usual dive into a bipolar main character, nothing about the plot especially stood out to me or truly got its hooks in. (I'll defer to readers with lived experiences of bipolar disorder to advise on how true-to-life the depiction is.) So it didn't quite keep me flipping the pages as eagerly as I otherwise may have. Still, the writing was good, and the pacing strong enough to keep me reading till the end.

+

Thank you to Simon and Schuster Canada for an e-galley of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Sarah Taylor is 15 years old, struggling with rather severe mental health issues and about to start life at a new boarding school. Unfortunately, soon after she arrives she becomes the target of the school bully and things escalate from there.
I had times where I wasn't quite sure who the intended audience for this was. It read like YA in a lot of parts but the subject matter seemed to be for a more mature audience.
That said, I did enjoy the story and found the pacing pretty good.
Please find attached my spoiler free youtube review: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8s6ZdtKiFp4

Sarah enters St. Ambrose on a scholarship, feeling out of place and like she doesn’t belong,hoping to be a part of something. Sometimes.
She meets Greta Stanhope, the resident “mean girl,” who places a target square on Sarah’s back. And the malice begins.

We begin to get glimpses of Sarah’s mental health struggles and compulsions. She struggles with making friends, she has hallucinations and feelings of immense sadness. After a few incidents Sarah becomes overwhelmed by it all and thinks about taking her life. Thankfully she has her roommate in her corner and she realizes she has one true friend.

But then there is chaos.

This was an easy read, that I could visualize and connect to the teenage angst. I think the author did a thorough job of describing the emotions and complex nature around Sarah’s illness. She is a strong character, determined not to let Greta break her. Especially once she becomes entangled in the scandals at St. Ambrose.

Thank you Simon & Schuster Canada for the ARC!

This book was not what I expected! Having read previous books from JR Ward I wasn't sure what would come from her Jessica Ward pen name.

This is definitely more of a literary thriller. The main character, Sarah Taylor struggles to fit in at her prestigious boarding school, feeling like an outcast compared to her well-off peers. While it took a bit to get going, I found myself caught up in Sarah's story and wanting to see what would become of her and her nemesis - the ending was twisted and not what I saw coming. The book is set in the 1990s so some of the language and situations definitely fit that time frame.

Trigger warnings abound for this one so please check before reading.

This novel was by no means bad, but I did find it quite slow, at times needlessly triggering, and I found the mental health representation to be less than desirable. I also had very mixed feelings about the ending, though I will admit I was surprised by the twist it took. Jessica Ward is a promising author who, to her own admission in the author's notes, did her best with the mental health representation in this book, unfortunately, it did make the book less appealing to me.

Thank you to Net Galley for this ARC. This book was a bit slower than I was hoping. It was ok. There was a lot of internal monologuing which sometimes felt unnecessary. It was an interesting take on mental illness...whether its a true and accurate take is another story.

[arc review]
Thank you to NetGalley, Simon & Schuster Canada, and Gallery Books for providing an arc in exchange for an honest review.
The St. Ambrose School for Girls releases July 11, 2023

2.5

Sarah, our 15 year old fmc, is the newest student at St. Ambrose — a boarding school for girls — and is attending on the merits of an essay that she wrote the previous summer, submitted by her mother.
With a wardrobe decked in all black, and known as an outlier, Sarah has a difficult time adjusting with all of these new changes. It doesn’t take long at all for her to be on the receiving end of Greta’s (the popular girl) taunts and cruel, sabotaging pranks.

I’m sure there’s an audience for this story, but I personally found it to be quite wordy, and hoped for it to be more thrilling. Things don’t really pick up until the last 20-30% and I got really tired of reading “Hot RA” (a grand 68 times).

I think this would have been stronger if the characters were aged up a bit from 15 to 17.
I also wasn’t expecting this story to be set in the year 1991, which I’m not sure what the purpose of that was other than the ease of not having to incorporate modern cellphones and social media and the fact that the school was very against gay people based on “Christian values”.

The author’s note had me a bit confused as well, saying that the main characters bipolar disorder and symptoms couldn’t be a plot device out of respect… but it definitely was?

- bipolar main character
- lesbian side character
- teacher/student relations (side character)
- unreliable narrator

cw: bullying, mental illness, suicide, hanging, suicidal thoughts + attempts, death, murder, manic thoughts

Wow I loved this book! I was completely immersed in Sarah (Sally's) world as she found her way at the St. Ambrose School For Girls.

Sarah was an unlikely candidate for the prestigious school but her star chasing mother submitted an essay of hers without her knowledge. Before she knew it, she was an Ambrose girl. She doesn't fit the part due to her goth look and predilection for black.

But what Sarah really wants to hide is her bi-polar diagnosis and her stints in mental hospitals. She decides to keep to herself and does not speak up when the local queen bee sets her in her sights. What happens next is a bit predictable, but I enjoyed every page.

This isn't a perfect book, but the characters are well drawn and interesting and I loved spending time at the school. If you like thrillers set in academia this is a fabulous book for vou!