Reviews

Just couldn’t get into this. Couldn’t wait for it to be over. Some good writing so have given extra star but it didn’t hold my attention and I find it a lot of waffle.

The amount of whine with this rich people cheese.

Okay, to start off, I wasn't feeling the story until it switched from then to "now". Once in the now it picked up a lot.

Then: 1990s poor girl, Louisa, magically gets into that one Catholic rich girl school on scholarship. She ends up friends with the "not-like-other-girls" girl, Victoria. Victoria is very rich but feels in school she can be "different". The two meet in the class of the Hot Art Teacher, HAT. Through in the resident mean headfirst, Helen, and the cast is all here.

Now: It has been 25 yrs since HAT and Louisa vanish, and rando reporter, RR, thinks she is going to Crack the case because she had a distance connection to Louisa.

Review:

Then is thin, lacks world building. If one has read a book with this kind of setting, they will have some idea about what the author was going for. However, really everything is pretty much just implied. We should hate Helen because she is doing her job as head girl. She is a bit elitist but really never displays it. We should fear the nuns, yet really have to times to illustrate why, we'll circle back to this.

Now as it is more about finding the pieces, it didn't need the world building, though we seem to get more. Even in these chapters as we get closer to the end they began to feel a bit flat.

The mystery started so strong, but we are given so many red herrings that go NOWHERE. In the now part, the nuns are mentioned often but are never really looked into or again we are given little reasoning why we should care about them, outside why did they wait to call the cops. In the Then sections, there is constant mention of Victoria's BFF from the year before disappearing. It is insinuated she left due to Victoria or the nuns or HAT or parents or who knows! It is never really explored and like the nuns felt like the author was going for something but forgot about it in the last 3rd.

One area I would have stopped if not being so close to the end was Louisa making all the excuses for HAT. Louisa is this brainy girl, and mentions how she can see HAT playing around with different girls, their emotions, and whatnot. Yet, she keeps talking about how she knows "he didn't mean it", "how he is such a great teacher" (this is never illustrated as we get all of one class with him and it was 99% him blowing the hottest of air from his mouth and bum). He never meant for it to get this bad, he isn't a bad guy. LOUISA! She has seen how people get used because of "love", we know because she hits us over the head with it. She sees HAT not being above board and yet still, but he is a good guy. I'm not saying slam him, but call a spade a spade my friend.

Without give too much about the end, it felt lack luster. Most of it is girls whining about HAT and how they do or don't love him. With the epilogue, trying so hard to give a cringy moral of the story.

Idk, about this one. It could have been something great with a bit more added but as is I pass skip it.