The description of this book caught my attention: Childhood best friends go to college together and experience something that tears their friendship apart. 20 years later, one of them is dead and the other somehow ends up pregnant by the dead friend's husband and living in her home.
Curious as to how and why this could/would come to be, I took the clickbait and started reading it.

The story is told from two points of view, that of Sadie in the present day and Nikki in the past. Sadie's story takes place about a year after Nikki's death. She is living in Nikki's home, in a relationship with Nikki's husband and struggling with being a new mother, while also trying to adjust to the suburban housewife lifestyle Nikki was living, something which is not at all Sadie's thing. Nikki's story takes us back to her and Sadie's freshman year of college, the year that their friendship ended. As Sadie navigates the present day and starts to think that there is more to Nikki's death than meets the eye, she is guided by the ghost of Nikki, both in her imagination and in literal clues Nikki has seemingly left specifically for Sadie to find. All the while, as the reader, I was questioning why and how Nikki felt such a strong connection to Sadie that she had left these clues for her to find, somehow knowing Sadie would end up living in her home after her death, even though they hadn't spoken in 20 years. It was very difficult for me to believe in this very deep connection that still wasn't strong enough to survive or overcome whatever had happened to the two in college.

The story from the past unravels very slowly for me and I really struggled to get through it. While the present day story also moved along pretty slowly for me, I found the chapters told from the present day to be a much easier read and more relatable.

As is clear in this book's bio, there is an obsessive focus on Sylvia Plath and her death. And like Sylvia Plath, Penny Zang's writing is poetic and artistic and figurative. In addition to Sylvia Plath's strong presence in this book, Loch Raven College, where Nikki and Sadie attend is a character all on its own. Penny's description of the college campus buildings and the general vibe of the school transports you to what feels like a whole different world. Depending on the reader, you may like or dislike the all girls boarding school vibe, where students clad in all black dresses hold seances and are obsessed with death. Unfortunately, this didn't work for me and contributed greatly to my struggle to get through this book.

I wish that I could say that the answers in the end made the journey worth it, but for me that just wasn't the case. The answers to all the questions I had throughout the book just felt incomplete, like I was told the reasons for everything, but I was unsatisfied with them.

Overall, I think that this book just wasn't right for me. It's simply not a style I enjoyed and I'm not necessarily the right target audience for it, but for the right reader, this might be exactly the kind of thing you'd love. My rating is based solely on my own reading interests and unfortunately, I think I just selected the wrong type of book for me.

With thanks to NetGalley and SOURCEBOOKS Landmark Publishing for the opportunity to read and review this ARC before its August 26th, 2025 release.

Stunningly written debut about a college with a dark history of "sad girls" who are obsessed with Sylvia Plath and the two best friends who are forever changed by their experiences there. Characterization of both Nikki and Sadie was fantastic, and the exploration of the mystery behind the Sylvia girls and Nikki's death was very well done. An author to watch for sure!