I know some might think it's overdone at this point but as someone who grew up obsessed with "Gossip Girl", "The Clique", "Private", "The A-List", etc. I'm always a sucker for the "girl goes to school with mean rich girls and does anything she can to be liked by them including *insert messed up thing here*" trope. That is a trope, right?

This book is like if Jenny Humphrey got her "It Girl" boarding school spinoff + she was a totally unhinged unreliable narrator. I had a good time reading this, but by the end, I felt like the vibes to plot ratio wasn't quite right. There were a lot of mysterious hints to things that just never got explained or resolved, which was disappointing because I got very invested in the intense and obsessive friendships between the characters. 

The opening of this book is creepy, dark, and a little gross, but it's not from the main POV, it's from someone who was involved in The Episode TM---the thing that FMC, Clare, did that led to her moving to Scotland from France, changing her name, and reinventing herself. The story then cuts ahead to after The Episode TM, and you don't find out the resolution of it until the very end of the book. The framing of this was interesting and got me hooked right away, but I ended up feeling like the middle part was too long without as much payoff, especially after starting on such a dramatic note. The writing was very atmospheric and did a great job building tension, but with that, I ended up a little disappointed that most of the shocking things that happened were off-screen and not described explicitly. 

I will definitely keep an eye out for this author's future work--the execution of this didn't hit quite right for me, but her writing and story were right up my alley.

Thank you to NetGalley, the publishers, and the author for the advance copy in exchange for my honest review.