REVIEW: The Girls Are All So Nice Here (Laurie Elizabeth Flynn)

Book: The Girls Are All So Nice Here

Author: Laurie Elizabeth Flynn

My rating: 4/5.

Premise: When Ambrosia arrives at college, she desperately struggles to fit in. Until she meets carefree and charismatic Sully. Determined to impress, Amb finds herself drawn into her new friend's dangerous games. Although she has no idea how high the cost of their friendship will really be, because sometimes nice girls can do bad things...

⚠️[CW: drug use, rape, suicide, bullying] 

This books is pitched as Gone Girl mixed with of Secret History. And boy, is that right. I'd also add in Mean Girls and a bit of A Simple Favour to the mix. That's the vibe. The chapters alternate between the past and present.

In the past, we see Ambrosia going to college and having the same worries as the rest of us. But she gets pulled towards Sully and, after a while, you question whether Amb is still a puppet or become a mean person. In the present, Amb is married and she gets strong armed into attending a reunion, where someone is digging up the past.

The story is super fast paced but you see Amb spiral into paranoia in both time lines. The ending, while brilliant, wasn't what I wanted after the increasing claustrophobia of the book! But overall, a cracking read!