Reviews with content warning for Toxic relationship - A Lesson in Vengeance

I just finished it a few minutes ago and that was….. what a journey. It is definitely for those craving a horror, dark academia, lesbian, boarding school tale. The writing was beautiful to read and the characters were interesting to know. I especially love love loved all the parallels, especially at the end of the book. A great read.

Content Warnings

allisonwonderlandreads's review

Go to review page

dark sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

In this ya thriller, Felicity arrives at Dalloway, a private girls' boarding school with a dark history, for a second chance at her senior year. She returns from her mental sabbatical to her same room, but all her friends have graduated and her girlfriend is dead. As she faces the rumor mill and her own fears from the night Alex died, she falls into orbit around a prodigy writer, Ellis.

This thriller just wasn't a good fit for me. First, the relationships are sapped of any altruism. Felicity has an absent, rich mother, a cruel, dead girlfriend, and faces manipulation, gaslighting, and fear of being outed as a lesbian while grappling with her psychotic depression. Everything is toxic.

In terms of characters, Ellis especially pissed me off from almost the start. She uses her semi-celebrity status and charisma to pressure everyone around her into getting her way, even when the others push back or bubble over with doubts. While much of my energy was devoted to the anti-Ellis train, I didn't develop equally strong positive connections with the other characters, even the protagonist. Felicity's motivations were always murky to me, and while I think this was a tactic to keep her secrets safely hidden until the right moment, it left me detached from her in the (lengthy) interim.

It's also one of those thrillers where I spent the whole time asking: but WHY would you do that? Also, please don't do that. It lacked the spookiness of supernatural thrillers and the visceral tension caused by more human threats, though the story plays with elements of both. It's a very slow build. By the time things kicked off right at the end, I was hanging on out of a need to know the outcome for a fully informed review, not any sense of excitement.

So what might someone else like about this book? Mental health and queer representation are central to the story, although both feature difficult journeys and toxic situations. If you like a literary intelligentsia or witchy vibe, I think you will enjoy the atmosphere and references here.

Content Warnings

melaniereadsbooks's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.75

Thank you to Delacorte Press and Netgalley for an e-arc of this book!

When Felicity comes back to Dalloway School after a stay in a mental hospital following her girlfriend's death, she is meant to focus on her studies and stay away from witchcraft. But Ellis Haley is in her dorm, and all of the girls are drawn to her, including Felicity. Ellis decides to teach Felicity that witchcraft isn't real by...making them dabble in witchcraft. All the while, Felicity is sure she is being haunted by her ex-girlfriend's ghost...or at least by the ghost of the founders of Dalloway school.

This book! Oh my goodness it was amazing. So so dark and mysterious and everything I wanted it to be. Felicity is such an unreliable narrator and that makes it so you never truly know what will be revealed. I was on the edge of my seat through the whole thing and couldn't wait to see what happened next. I couldn't believe how this story ended, but I loved every minute I spent reading it!

Pub date: August 3, 2021

Content Warnings

librarianlex's review

Go to review page

dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

3.0

Dark Academia is a genre I’m always fascinated with but don’t read enough of. Out of most LGBT ones I have read recently, this one was authentic in its queer characters and allowed them to exist with their identity without it becoming cliche or just a footnote representation. With a hint of meta self-awareness, A Lesson In Vengeance is a study of an unreliable narrator, that in turn causes the reader to question the realities of fact, manipulation, or teenage pranks.

Mental health is represented here as complex and nuanced, building off the meta self-awareness of Felicity’s own thesis of how women’s “hysteria” and mental health is represented in the horror literature. I enjoyed the atmosphere of the Dalloway School and how feminist literature played a big role in the character's personalities and interests. I enjoyed this one, but the ending left me wanting a little bit more or a better explanation. There were a few questions unanswered and the motivation of some of the character's actions left me unsatisfied.

This is a twisty, thriller for fans of Dark Academia who want to see LGBT representation and touch on the stigma of mental health (though, this could have been explored a little more in-depth).

Content Warnings

sunshinestark's review

Go to review page

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix

4.0

Set at a centuries old boarding school with a history supposedly twined with magic, A Lesson in Vengeance is suffused with darkness centered around a girl trying to distance herself from the past that makes this a read that's hard to put down. Felicity returns to the Dalloway School after time spent away following the disappearance and presumed death of her best friend - and secret girlfriend - Alex. Believing magic and the twisted history of five murdered witches who attended the school were involved, Felicity is intent on leaving all things connecting her to magic behind. Then enters Ellis. Ellis is impossibly cool and captures Felicity's attention from the moment they meet. The only problem being Ellis wants Felicity's help in researching the history of the Dalloway Five, the murdered witches. Knowing she shouldn't put herself back into that world, Felicity can't say no. Soon she is once again thrust into a series of events filled with deceit and blood leaving her unsure who she can trust or if she'll ever be safe again.

Content Warnings

More...