Reviews

Within the walls of Wodebury Hall, an elite boarding school in the English countryside, reputation is everything. Aspiring photographer Iyanu is a bursary student and prefers to keep a safe distance behind her camera. Meanwhile her estranged cousin Kitan’s wealth, beauty, and popularity makes her life seem perfect. But Kitan struggles with the sacrifices she makes in order to fit in within Wodebury’s inner circle. When Iyanu’s photos are stolen and shared around school with everyone’s secrets written on them, Wodebury explodes into chaos. Both girls are desperate to unravel the mystery of who stole the photos and why – but doing so might change them forever.

Everyone’s Thinking It is a really good mystery story with a lot of messy but great characters. It’s a story where the teenagers feel like teenagers. Sometimes they don’t listen when someone’s trying to explain their actions because they’re hurt, or they jump to conclusions, or bottle things up; all very real and relatable things. All the relationships are believable, whether it’s a blossoming romance or a ride or die friendship like Iyanu has with her best (and perhaps only) friend Navin. Equally the friendships between some of the girls are the ones that are great half the time but then horribly two-faced another. Female friendships can be excellent and really empowering but Everyone’s Thinking It shows how depending on the girls/women in that friendship, they can be terribly toxic too.

Everyone’s Thinking It is a dual-perspective novel with chapters alternating from Iyanu and Kitan’s point of views. However, there are a lot of characters, their fellow students and friends, and the various relationship dynamics between them all can be a bit hard to keep track of if you’re not paying attention. I can be known to do this and it did take me a while to keep track of and differentiate between some characters, especially a set of twins who are both rugby players.

I did find Everyone’s Thinking It a bit slow to begin with which was partly because I was trying to keep track who had been dating or was distantly related to who, and partly because the story just drops you into Iyanu and Kitan’s school year. They’re in Year Twelve (making them sixteen or seventeen depending on their birthdays) but references are made throughout to incidents that had happened in previous years, things like friendships breaking down or rumours circulating, so you know there’s bad blood between some characters but not the reasons why for a while. Though I didn’t go to an elite boarding school, or any kind of boarding school, I think it captured how incidents that happen at school can follow people around for years.

Dark Academia tends to be paired more with the fantasy genre or in a historical setting but I feel like any work that’s set in the world of academia and tries to confront the idealised version of elite institutions can be dark academia. Everyone’s Thinking It has a contemporary setting but it’s set at an elite school with hundreds of years of history. Most students (if they have the money to do so and most do) board there while others like Iyanu and her younger sister are day boarders and live at home due to not having the money to spend on accommodation. Iyanu and Kitan have to figure out how to fit into this elite world in different ways, whether that’s changing how they act or by going shopping in charity shops in the more expensive areas of London to find the “right” clothes.

While a lot of dark academia is more vibes than anything else, having the protagonists of Everyone’s Thinking It be Nigerian and having them have to (unfortunately) confront racism, and specifically things like blackfishing, colourism, and misogynoir, in an elite school shows the everyday racism they face in this institution, whether by fellow students or by teaching staff. It’s more of a critique of an elite boarding school than coasting by on the history/vibes of the school and though Iyanu and Kitan aren’t the only students of colour at the school, they are still in a minority because they have a lot darker skin than their fellow Black students.

The mystery surrounding the photos is really good and Iyanu and Kitan both go about investigating it in different ways. Because of their different social circles, they each get different information so it’s not until the girls start trying to bridge a gap that’s been between them for years that they start to fully put the pieces together.

Once the photos get stolen and people’s secrets are out, Everyone’s Thinking It is a proper page turner and I read it in just two days. Iyanu and Kitan both make mistakes but a lot of the time their hearts are in the right places and they’re just doing what they can to get by in an environment that’s so elitist. There’s a lot of twists and turns as they try and figure out who had the most to gain from this stunt and how all the various threads are pulled together is really satisfying.

usedcrock's review

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emotional reflective sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.25

chinue's review

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funny hopeful lighthearted relaxing fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

3.0

Content Warnings

elizabethwebb's review

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reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.75

buhdumbitch's review

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emotional funny inspiring reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.75

emmalemonnz's review

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3.0

This book will be incredibly meaningful to a lot of people. That's the beauty of art. It can mean different things to different people.

For me though, I'm sick of reading books and watching media with people in these super-wealthy environments. The rich boarding school kids and their clothes are not my jam. The story/ies would be so much more interesting to me in a different setting. I just find it so hard to care about people in these settings, even the ones there on scholarship, because they're still living in a world I have zero interest in and cannot relate to.

A lot of people who deserve representation get it in this book. BIPOC, queer (especially bi) and anxious folk will see themselves on the pages. That's really important. I'm glad this book exists. It's just not for me.

iselenris's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark funny inspiring tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

10/10 absolute banger

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