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sarahmreads's review
dark
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
2.5
Lia is the new girl at Draycott Academy, an elite boarding school that she hopes will be able to earn the track scholarship of her dreams. However, when her move-in day consists of a student being dragged away from the school by the police, it's clear to see that not everything is what it seems at Draycott. Will Lia survive the year?
It was so hard to get into the first half of this book. While it did move at an extremely fast pace that I really wasn't expecting, so it was hard to catch up. It was kind of like trying to jump on a treadmill that's already at its fastest speed. The introduction to the school barely lasted like 10 pages before Lia is shown her room and the drama begins. Once I got a good portion into the book, I finally managed to pick up on the pace of the story.
The plot was very much Ace of Spades and Mean Girls, but not really in the best way. There were so many plot twists, but a lot of them came off as pretty predictable based on the nature of the story. And this story was basically "rich people suck, power to the lower class!" I can't really speak on the authenticity of the Chinese-Indonesian and Asian representations as I am not of these backgrounds. I will say that the one queer character in this story felt very forced. It was like "I said that to you because I like you" and it's never brought up again, because Lia is not queer. Lia also looks away from a stray boob at one party and it kind of just rubbed off the wrong way to me.
Everyone was SO PETTY it was unreal. The bullies had absolutely no depth to them besides "hey we're the mean girls and we love to see you suffer." In fact, almost every other character felt too basic. Lia was basically defined by her track and her own depression and anxiety from what happens over the course of this book. Half the time I swear she was crying or just horribly lying. I also wasn't a huge fan of her inner dialogue or her actual dialogue. Overall, the characters weren't really believable or likeable.
Probably the only real thing that kept me going in this story was seeing how far some extremes would go, because those would be quite amusing although they really didn't make the most sense.
The New Girl is just another rehash of every typical new girl boarding school dark academia story that was just a disappointment and a drag despite being fast-paced.
I received a copy of this story as an ARC from NetGalley. Any and all thoughts and opinions are my own.
It was so hard to get into the first half of this book. While it did move at an extremely fast pace that I really wasn't expecting, so it was hard to catch up. It was kind of like trying to jump on a treadmill that's already at its fastest speed. The introduction to the school barely lasted like 10 pages before Lia is shown her room and the drama begins. Once I got a good portion into the book, I finally managed to pick up on the pace of the story.
The plot was very much Ace of Spades and Mean Girls, but not really in the best way. There were so many plot twists, but a lot of them came off as pretty predictable based on the nature of the story. And this story was basically "rich people suck, power to the lower class!" I can't really speak on the authenticity of the Chinese-Indonesian and Asian representations as I am not of these backgrounds. I will say that the one queer character in this story felt very forced. It was like "I said that to you because I like you" and it's never brought up again, because Lia is not queer. Lia also looks away from a stray boob at one party and it kind of just rubbed off the wrong way to me.
Everyone was SO PETTY it was unreal. The bullies had absolutely no depth to them besides "hey we're the mean girls and we love to see you suffer." In fact, almost every other character felt too basic. Lia was basically defined by her track and her own depression and anxiety from what happens over the course of this book. Half the time I swear she was crying or just horribly lying. I also wasn't a huge fan of her inner dialogue or her actual dialogue. Overall, the characters weren't really believable or likeable.
Probably the only real thing that kept me going in this story was seeing how far some extremes would go, because those would be quite amusing although they really didn't make the most sense.
The New Girl is just another rehash of every typical new girl boarding school dark academia story that was just a disappointment and a drag despite being fast-paced.
I received a copy of this story as an ARC from NetGalley. Any and all thoughts and opinions are my own.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Gore and Death
Moderate: Alcohol, Blood, Drug use, Violence, and Racism
Minor: Drug abuse, Eating disorder, Hate crime, and Vomit
PTSD
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