Thank you Jenni Howell and Roaring Book Press for this arc!
I saw this all over instagram and loved the cover. I loved the synopsis. It held the promise of a juicy dark academia novel.

However it did not hit the mark for me, and this was a bummer, I was really excited for this book and really wanted to like it. I spent the majority of the book unsure of what was going on. It was easy to get lost in the philosophical conversations referencing the matrix and if you could really trust your senses. Trying to keep up with that, the Shakespeare quotes and the zig zag plot was a lot. It felt like there was always too much going on and personally it was hard to keep up with. I am giving this 2 stars for 2 reasons.

1-The concept with our main character talking to someone unknown through leaving notes in an old book was fun.
2-The truth behind the mirrors was neat! It had so much promise. It’s something I had not seen before
I would have liked more of the ghosts and mirrors.

This book was chaotic,and not in the good way.
I will say it DID feel like a bad 2010 teen horror movie, which could have been so fun if that was the intention. Instead it felt forced to be more serious than that.

I was going to DNF, however my best friend was also reading this to review. I felt like her and I needed to ride this weird confusing ride to the end.

DNF at 20%
I'm sorry, I just can't do it.

The writing and the way the character was thinking felt overly convoluted and it was so hard to get into.
I didn't connect at all with the main character, and when the supernatural element was introduced, I could tell where the story was going to go, and I don't think I care enough about the murder mystery or the entire cast of characters to keep going.

The vibe of the school also felt very strange and unrealistic, like how can you get accepted into a super rich high end school like that??? And there is like 5 people per class. Maybe that's part of the plot, but I guess I'll never know.
I might have sticked with it if I read it a few years ago when I was more into young adult books, but I can't be bothered now, it's just not for me, I'm not the target audience anymore.

Thank you NetGalley for the early copy!

Oh... this book...

What a pretentious spiral of nothing.

The idea of this book was AWESOME. I liked the book world... but that is all.

The main character was INSUFFERABLE. Her continuous internal dialogue made me want to stop reading, but my stupid curiosity kept me reading... Unfortunately.

The mystery and the ambiguous mirror of it all was SO INTERESTING... but the main character just killed it for me. I just wanted to actually do some detective work instead of just complaining... I just couldn't do it.

Also... the ending.. it was a slap in the face... GAH.

I had such high hopes for this book anddd it was kind of a flop.

Did not finish. A bit too much like the comps mentioned, but also not interesting enough to stand out. World building felt fine but did not propel me along.

I was interested i reading Boys with Sharp Teeth because reviews mentioned it was relatable to The Raven Boys - which I loved and We were Liars. This tale has dark secrets, regarding murder and revenge. Sam has recently been found face down in the creek. His cousin is out for revenge, by lying and cheating her way to justice. It kind of drags along, lots of emotional feelings, most irrational.

The cover won me over in an instant! This was an intense read that had me interested immediately. I loved the gothic horror vibe, however, some of the sentence structures had me constantly going back to reread pages. It was a little confusing at times, but I still managed to get through this.

I liked the pacing. The writing was well done and it set the atmosphere. The plot was well thought out and written. Fun read!

I did not finished this book unfortunately.
Thank you for this opportunity.
I hope others loved this book.

I love a good dark academia setting with a moody atmosphere and mysterious characters. I thought the plot itself had a lot of promise and I was intrigued enough to read it through the end, however, there was often thick prose that was hard for me to digest. I did appreciate the characters and the tension, but I found that this book took me a little while to finish.

This is unfortunately going to be a DNF for me… this plot felt so chaotic my brain hurt just trying to decipher it! This felt so messy & unorganized as well. This book felt wayyyyy too long and def could’ve been shorter!

From the very beginning, it feels like the reader is dropped right into the middle of the story, with little sense of where they are in the plot. The characters don't seem to contribute much to the story and come across as rather underdeveloped. Most of them are hard to connect with and lack any real depth. The story tends to drag, and instead of building excitement, its slow pace can make it feel a bit dull.

I thought this was very good and I will have to add this to the shop shelves. Thank you for the chance for us to review.

It’s hard to decide how I feel about this one. I absolutely loved the mystery, atmospheric writing, and that classic eye roll inducing pretentiousness from dark academia characters. It had the bones for everything I like in a dark academia but at the end of the day it is a story I will probably never think about again. I think this writer has so much potential. They the dark, moody setting and characters down perfectly and just needs the right plot. I will definitely be tuning into their next book to give them another shot.

I very much appreciate being given the opportunity to read this book as an ARC. However, I simply didn't enjoy it.

What Boys With Sharp Teeth promised was something like The Raven Boys or The Secret History or both. It was clear that the author was heavily inspired by The Secret History as many were before them. Unlike Tartt's contemporary masterpiece, this was a tedious slog with little to no pay off at all.

The school is trite at best with only 3 students ever described (Victoria doesn't count), and like 2 teachers. The co-ed dorms feel like something out of a Harry Potter fanfic. This is dark academia as described by someone who did not want to build a setting but simply wanted to tell a story. Not a crime, per se. But I'd say for a genre as atmospheric as dark academia, this was a bit of a miss.

I liked the murder mystery which is why this isn't just 1 ⭐ but by the final third of the book I was fully skimming my way to the end. The prose is thicker than molasses. It uses far too many words to say very little at all. This book desperately needed another editing pass. The prose would be better utilized in a short story. It simply is too verbose for a full length novel.

The supernatural elements were also a bit derivative. I was getting Mike Flanagan's Oculus out of the mirror elements. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't interesting. Boring. And it took far too long to expose.

This book started off amazing, it was gripping and suspenseful and difficult to put down. It was moody and atmospheric and everything you want from a dark academia and then the last half of it got weird and hard to follow. The tension between the characters was great but I found it hard to really connect with any of them. All in all, it was a fun book and I enjoyed it but I didn’t love the ending.

The idea of this story got me to read it. Unfortunately, it wasn't that good for me. I liked the idea of a girl going to an academy to get justice for her cousin who she believes was killed by particular students. I figured there would be more of something to keep me entertained throughout the story. But there were too many things that didn't sit right with me. From the way Marin was able to attend the school, to the two boys who "somehow understand her better than anyone every has." I didn't feel like they had much of a connection. The romance wasn't much, unfortunately. Not to mention, I feel like the book leaned more towards the philosophical, and less on the paranormal, like it was marketed.

The book started strongly, with interesting plot development and character backgrounds. I was drawn into the mystery and atmosphere of the book, and was immersed in the writing. However, the book lagged towards the middle, and the ending felt a bit rushed due to the overall slower pace of the book, with ends getting tied up quickly to finish the book. While the premise of the conclusion and the solution to the mystery may be a tad confusing for some readers, I found it interesting, and was generally satisfied with the ending.

This is a murder mystery-esque story, about a girl that plays the part of a boarding school student to infiltrate a friend group, figure out who killed her cousin, and exact revenge. But along the way being human and having feelings seems to get in the way, cloud judgement and confuse her on who actually is the bad guy, and who is the good guy? Mix in a little paranormal, and you too will love this book.

The imagery that Jenni Howell creates with her words was truly beautiful and exquisite. I constantly found myself in awe of her descriptors, and her voice kept me hooked and coming back for more the entire time I was reading this book. Definitely worth the time!

A great new take on the vampire trope from a modern perspective! Howell has made a fan of me with her elegant prose and well-described settings.

Welcome to Huntsworth Academy, where kids rule the school grounds with very little rules. So when Marin arrives to investigate the alleged overdose of her cousin, she quickly becomes enraptured by Adrian and Henry, who have secrets of their own. Marin is convinced that her cousin has been murdered, but could supernatural elements be at play? And just what are Adrian and Henry hiding?

Rating: 3/5
Spice:0/5

Tropes:
Dark Academia
Unreliable Narrator
Paranormal Suspense

Triggers:
Underage Drinking
Unaliving
Mentions of Overdose


My Thoughts:
Oh, I wish I could have liked this book more. For me, the pacing fell a bit flat about halfway through the book and I found the ending to be a bit uncomplicated while also being confusing. Even though the writing itself is good, the plot didn't hold me like I wanted it to, and I was a bit disappointed that all the angst didn’t go anywhere relationship wise.