Reviews with content warning for Death - All These Beautiful Strangers

Prep school, secret societies, an unexplained disappearance, dangerous games. These are just a few of the elements of All These Beautiful Strangers.
17 year old Charlotte has been tapped by the secret society at her new england prep school. Still haunted by the disappearance of her mother 10 years earlier, Charlie tries to balance trying to become initiated into this society and figuring out what happened to her mom.

This was a beautifully written and tense thriller. The characters were so well put together and the delivery of information was so nice. I loved that there was things eluding to things that happened but it wasn’t as blatant as “that was then….. before… the thing happened” and then having to wait to find out. It was so well paced and we found out the information alongside the characters. Some things were predictable, but they were still fun to figure out. I don’t find predictability a problem, i think it’s fun to put together the clues and find out.
One thing i really didn’t like was in chapter 13, Dalton went on a tangent to Charlie about how she wasn’t like other girls and that’s why he liked her. The “you’re not like other girls” thing is so tired. other than that, i think it was a strong story with incredibly strong writing. I wish this author had more books!

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lucy33's review against another edition

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mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.5

let me paint you a picture. girl sat in library reading book during PE due to girl's chronic illness. girl turns page in book. girl turns more pages. the girl feels her SOUL seeping into the pages of the book and clinging onto every word like they can become her legs to do PE, except girl doesn't want to do PE because girl wants to just sit and read this book forever because of how beautiful it is and how everything fits so perfectly and just how in love girl is.

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lillyfei's review

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dark mysterious medium-paced

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

3.25

17 years ago, Charlie’s mother vanished. No one knows what happened. Charlie wants to move on and focuses on her new life at an elite school. She finds herself as a prospective recruit for a secret society with a rigorous initiation process. As she plays the game to join, she also learns she will be dredging up her family’s secrets and maybe finding out where her mother went.

This seemed promising, but I found it to be a bit confusing. There were two different plots I was following-- Charlie’s life at school and the mystery behind the elite group, The A’s. Then, there was the plot about Charlie and her mother. The alternating timelines made sense and then they finally converged and everything started to come together. However, the resolution left me wanting more.

There was no thriller aspect to this story, so I would just classify it as a YA mystery. I was hoping for more character development and depth. Not just from the high schoolers, but the adults too. Instead, it just seemed like high school drama followed them throughout life and Charlie is just now bringing it all to the surface.

This could be a good story for someone looking for a dark academia mystery, it just wasn’t the one for me.

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cereads's review

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

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