Topical, attention-grabbing, a page turner. A satirical book about sororities, tradwives, the myth of "having it all", and the in-fighting within the feminist movement. And of course, cannibalism. I can see this being a popular booktok title.

Thank you to NetGalley and Tor Publishing Group for providing this book, with my honest review below.

Girl Dinner is a refreshing look at womanhood and how a certain group of women may take their power back. Focusing on two characters, Sloane, a doctoral professor with a new baby who is at a local university in a job her husband got her (after leaving her own tenure track position for him to pursue his) and Nina, a sophomore who is working towards being a lawyer and trying to get into a local sorority with high achieving woman. Both are struggling with defining who they are and will be, and both get caught up in The House and its secrets.

I found Sloane a bit pretentious to start in her thoughts (which seemed to be the point) but she grew on me. Meanwhile Nina endeared me from the start through her conversations with her sister Jas, though her motivation behind joining The House was a mystery that went nowhere for me. The two are in very different positions but their search for meaning in sisterhood and themselves was fascinating. More than that the mystery to The House and the girls and women in the sorority was fascinating and I loved the reveal there. A bit scattered maybe but a solid addition to the horror and mystery genre that appeals in these fraught time for all of us (and especially women).

Thank you to Netgalley for the ARC!

This was hard for me, the concept sounded really engaging but I was just bogged down in the psychological debates between the characters, to the point where I was just begging for more plot. This felt more like a non fiction book that had the light set dressing of fiction.

Jennifers Body x Fresh x Promising Young Woman in this story about a unique exclusive sorority that has an unlikely answer to why they are all so beautiful and perfect... and two women are about to discover the lengths that they will go through for community, love, and acceptance.

I had really mixed feelings about this. I thought it was fairly boring until halfway through, and then it didn't go far enough. I wanted it to be more visceral, more violent, more cannibalistic. I have read so many books about how hard it is to be an academic and a mom and a married woman - 2024 was really full of marriage plot books - and nothing about Sloane's particular version of this was interesting or special. Like I literally read Liars and Colored Television in the last month!!! Nina was compelling and if the book had leaned more into horror and dark academia I think it could've been more memorable and special.

This was. Unhinged. As someone with a sociology degree, reading the first half of the book in many ways felt like my entire undergrad experience. The sociological dithering in the first half made sense in the second in that it was like watching a woman who has done nothing but think and consider and ponder the ethics of womanhood realize that maybe nothing matters. Like watching a life’s work collapse or perhaps find it’s inevitable correct conclusion. In the end, white women are gonna white woman, and loneliness is a hell of a drug (we all long for The Sisterhood). What would you sacrifice to get everything society tells you you should want (and that you might also just… want)? Would you sacrifice your womanhood? Your goodness? Your humanity? What do those words even mean?

I will say that parts of the first half read kind of like a sociology article and were a little bit harder to get through, but otherwise this was really fun.

Thank you to netgalley and Tor for the advanced copy in exchange for my honest review.

This is a "eat or be eaten" kind of world, and these girls are ruthless. The story is told from two different perspectives: Dr. Sloane Hartley, a struggling new mom who is trying to juggle raising a child, an absent husband, and getting back to work, and Nina Kaur, a girl who had a bright future... but is trying out for a sorority in her sophomore year in order to find a community of her own and a way to success. Sloane is tired, she's tired of her clothes not fitting, of her husband who isn't around and always neglecting both her and their daughter, and trying to get back to work at the university. Sloane years for some peace, for some time for herself, to be a good mom... but it's just all piling and the pressure is making her slowly lose her mind. Then there is Nina, a girl who is determined to succeed, driven to find a way to get into the best sorority that would offer her not only sisterhood but connections into her future dreams of being a lawyer. Nina has gone through things in her Freshman year and hopes that despite that, she can win over the girls at The House, an exclusive sorority. Nina and Sloane both find themselves being drawn into the House, as Nina is accepted as a new pledge and soon finds herself dealing with not only the power plays within the group, but a dark secret to success while Sloane finds herself as the new academic advisor to the girls... and discovering that her husband might not be as innocent as he says... and that Sloane herself might be the only person to find a solution to her problems. When I tell you I was absolutely gasping and had my jaw wide open while reading the last 40% of this book!!! It starts off slow but when it picks up it immediately picks up and things go wild. This was such a delightful read and definitely one I would highly recommend for my female rage girlies, because the commentary on women, on the way we grow and how aging, beauty, and relationships all impact us in this was just so well done. I had an absolute delight for this one and I will say, my appetite is fed!

Release Date: October 25,2025

Publication/Blog: Ash and Books (ash-and-books.tumblr.com)

*Thanks Tor Books for sending me an arc in exchange for an honest review*