If you’re going to buy one book this year….….and hopefully not! But this is THE ONE! Wow what a debut. I was totally drawn in to this story and it goes to places you will not expect. I loved the characters and that includes the narrator. You will enjoy this as it really is brilliant. There wasn’t one part I didn’t enjoy and it has a satisfying ending too.
Strong ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Thank you to the publisher Bedford Square Publishers for providing this book for review consideration. All opinions are my own.

This book was brilliant, dark and unsettling, it was like watching a car crash happen in slow motion and not being able to do anything about it, as Elizabeth’s mind began to slowly fracture after her rejection from Harvard Law School. This book was really gripping as Elizabeth’s behaviour was really unhinged and disturbing at times, I don’t think she was the most likeable or reliable narrator but I don’t think she was meant to be. From Elizabeth’s perspective we think Laura is just another mean girl but we couldn’t be more wrong, Elizabeth was obsessed with Laura and why she got into Harvard and not her. Elizabeth put so much pressure onto herself and I think she felt a certain need to be high performing so that she didn’t disappoint her parents. I felt that Elizabeth treated people like toys and that they were disposable, particularly David as he was just a means to an end. This book was deeply unsettling but brilliantly written, I was absolutely gripped from cover to cover. A true masterpiece in suspense.

A witty, incisive coming‑of‑age memoir/novel hybrid about identity, stereotype, and carving out space where you’re told you don’t belong.

Elizabeth was a character that I wanted to both give a massive hug to and knock some sense into all at the same time. She thinks in very black and white terms, views herself and others in terms of percentiles, and falls apart if things don’t go according to her very rigid gameplan for life. So when she doesn’t get a law school spot at her dream school, which she hoped would satisfy societal, familial, and her own expectations, in spite of her being what she deems to be the perfect candidate, she realises that she must sabotage a fellow Asian student who had been accepted in order to gain her rightful place.

All kinds of capers and escapades ensue as Elizabeth spirals further and further into insanity.

Engrossing and absorbing, with plenty of wit, this is everything that Yellowface wished it was!