Thank you to Netgalley for the ARC to read and review. I thought I knew this author. I was taken completely by surprise by the book. I clearly didn't know of her or any of her work. This is a fascinating, extremely uncomfortable book. Using each chapter to tell a different character's perspective of what transpires at a boarding school, the dark underbelly of privileged life slowly gets revealed. It is not pretty. I actually was reminded of Lord of the Flies where the absolute worst of young boys slowly evolves after time alone together. The boarding school seems to have no visitors, no contact with the outside world except a coffee shop in the nearby small village.
Using many protagonists is a great trick in presenting the different views of adults and teenagers. And though I was uncomfortable, having trouble believing some of it, it held my attention to the end.

This book was hard for me to get through, I thought the idea about sinister happenings at a boarding school was a good idea. I just wanted a little bit more something to keep me interested while I was reading. I just got so bored throughout some parts of the story it just made it tough to get through. The only reason it has 4 stars is because of the girls at the school and their willingness to fight. I also enjoyed the ending because all of my questions were answered and the ending was fast and clean cut.

Teacher Alex Witt is new to Stonebridge Academy. As a new teacher trying to learn about her students and get the lay of the land, Alex uncovers some pretty disturbing things going on. As she investigates further more and more people get upset. And the lengths the will go to maintain the status quo is pretty chilling.

Every chapter is narrated by a different person. Make sure to read the chapter title to see who is speaking. I’m not a big fan of the shifting point of view but I got used to it. I really enjoyed the characters Gemma and Linney. The male characters were all pretty slimy. Not much to redeem them. When the girls try to get revenge I didn’t feel bad for the boys at all.

The book is fast paced and has a strong message about the objectification of women. I found myself eagerly anticipating what would happen next.

I received an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for my honest opinion.

Boarding school stories are always going to be an auto-request from me which is probably why I had such high expectations going into this one. I read a lot of YA (not that this is YA but teens could get into it) and maybe that's why I saw a lot of familiar tropes of the genre. Perhaps a reader who isn't as immersed in those kinds of books might discover it differently.

I did like the shifting POVs from chapter to chapter. The author gave us perspective from teachers and students alike and that was great. I didn't find it particularly feminist, though, which was disappointing based on the blurb. If I didn't expect that, maybe I wouldn't have noticed.

Thanks to Netgalley for the arc to review.

Never judge a book by your first impression.

When I opened this book and saw the chapters were all titled by different characters names, my first reaction was a loud groan. I do NOT like books written in first character by a whole bunch of different characters.. It's rarely done well.

I was wrong about The Swallows.

With Chapter One and the musings of young new teacher, Ms Witt, I was grabbed by the wrist and led on a brisk walk among the troubled inhabitants of Stonebridge Academy. We hear the innermost thoughts, reactions and erroneous conclusions of various students and faculty to the things happening around and to them. Daily life at school begins to go horribly awry when the new teacher arrives in her first class 15 minutes late and makes a different impression on several students. Secrets come out, secrets stay hidden, wrongs begin to fester, and when everything comes to its inevitable head, the resulting big bang shakes the school to its core.

I devoured this book in just a couple of sittings. It was that engrossing. Quick pacing, engaging inhabitants with interesting mysteries in their pasts and presents, there wasn't a single misstep in this tale of how a private school does everything wrong and brings about its own implosion. You can't go wrong grabbing this book for a quick beach read, a rainy afternoon on the couch with a fluffy throw, or a wide awake at midnight but don't want to turn on the tv.

While not perfect, this completely topical book is definitely intriguing. The jumping POVs were a bit jarring, and I thought a bit more character development was needed to pull off the sheer number of characters, but overall this was a very entertaining read (and I sincerely hope it gets optioned as a series - I would love to see these sorts of dialogues discussed among a larger audience). Based on this novel, I would absolutely see what else Ms. Lutz has to offer!

This book was unique and unlike any other book I have read. There was a strong feminist message throughout that I think books about teenagers are definitely missing. I also loved that the POV changed every chapter to a different character. Occasionally that can be confusing, but in this case, it worked!

'The Swallows,' is a novel about teenagers at a boarding school, and some coming of age ideas/experiences. The story takes the point of view of various students and teachers, giving us the opportunity to learn thoughts and motives that we may not otherwise know.

My only cons are for personal reasons. It can be difficult to read about cliques and social statuses within a high school. The way teenagers treat each other in the book occasionally seemed over the top, but then I remember that teens can be some of the meanest versions of ourselves.

Cannot wait to read what else this author has to offer.

The Swallows is a fabulous book with a great storyline. The characters are well developed and the story is well written. Lisa Lutz is a fantastic author.

I loved this book. Lisa Lutz has created a world full of empowered teenage girls who fight back against the misogynistic boys at their boarding school. The girls make you cheer, the boys make your skin crawl, and the story keeps you turning pages. I enjoyed every minute of it.

Thank you to netgalley, the publisher, and Lisa Lutz for providing me with this ARC. I have read all of Lisa Lutz's books and whenever I see a new one available, I have to read it. I loved the concept of a book set at a boarding school. I also enjoyed the complex characters that were a part of this story and learning more about many of them throughout. I am also a sucker for chapters that are told in varying points of view. For me, a story always flows very quickly when this method is used. This book was a very quick read for me and I continued to plow through it to the end. That being said, I wish the girls had a reason to revolt other than being on a "blow job" list. The whole concept of the Dulcinea Award made me uncomfortable and even the main teacher having to provide a "when to blow" flow chart, was highly ridiculous. These girls were pressured, etc...but they were not forced into providing this "service" to the boys. The bet way to revolt once learning of this awful award is to simply refrain and find better guys to spend your time on. The entire crusade and end result felt too over the top for what it stemmed from .

I am a big fan of the Spellman books and wanted to give this one a try. I do enjoy the snarky style of writing that the author has. The theme of the book is relevant to today. I did like the idea of empowering girls to no longer be victims. The story featured a escalating war between girls and boys. in a private boarding school. The story is told in first person point of view from several different characters. I liked the aspect of hearing from several different characters like that, however, I think they sounded too similiar. I would have liked that their personalities were more distinct in their recounting. Gemma was a main ringleader among the girls but her motivation was tentative at best. Alex Witt supposedly suffered some issue at her previous school, but that was also not well enough to justify her reaction. The girls final act was a surprise as they weren't sufficiently developed enough to be lead to such a violent act. It was an interesting read that could have been developed more.

While I enjoyed this book overall, it was in that nebulous, something isn't quite right here, perhaps if I carry on this feeling will become less persistent, kind of way. Alas, the odd feeling remained for the duration of my reading. Also I don't know what I was supposed to get out of the tree massacre.

A well-told suspenseful story with a timely message
Alexandra Witt arrives at her new job teaching at Stonebridge Academy, a private boarding school, and is immediately thrown a bit off kilter, when the class schedule she is given on the first day of class consists of a completely different set of courses than the ones she had been asked to teach. Then she finds a dead rat in her desk drawer, which she soon realizes was an omen more than an aberration. The social hierarchy at Stonebridge is ruled by The Ten, a group of male and female students who direct student social life. Alex gradually comes to realize that the male members of The Ten exert further control with a secret website called The Darkroom, known only to the boys, where participating male students plan and report on their sexual prowess. As rumors leak and spread about The Darkroom, sparks begin to fly. Alex tries to support the girls, but ultimately the situation gets out of control and produces consequences beyond what anyone could have predicted.
The Swallows is structured in short chapters written in the first person by the primary members of the cast of characters. This structure is hard to pull off well, but Lutz does it beautifully, giving each character his or her own distinctive voice and showing them as real humans. One of the most intriguing was Finn Ford, a male teacher. As I got to know Finn I veered between considering him a total jerk and a decent guy and ended up deciding he was something in between, just a flawed human like most of us. And then there is Alex Witt, the protagonist: “Some teachers have a calling. I’m not one of them. I don’t hate teaching. I don’t love it either. That’s also my general stance on adolescents.” With this as the opening line, I knew right off this book was not going to be Good-bye, Mr. Chips!
Despite the smile the opening provoked, I do not consider this a humorous book, not even “darkly humorous”. It was hard for me to “swallow” the depth of the bad behavior at Stonebridge Academy. I found it difficult to believe that the student behavior could be so bad or last as long as it did or that the authorities would be blind to the students’ activities, even in a “second-rate” boarding school for children of the wealthy, and I was not sure I wanted to read about it. Once I got past that, though, the book was beautifully done and really gripped me.
I opened The Swallows expecting enjoyable psychological suspense in an interesting setting. It was all of that and much more, with well-drawn characters and a well-delivered message (in more ways than one!).

Overall this book was just ok for me. I felt like some of the writing could have been reigned in parts. Too much info about characters that didn't really help with the plot of the story. I've read books by this author and have liked them...so maybe this was just me not clicking with the book.

Thank you NetGalley for the book. The story was not at all what I expected, especially from Lisa Lutz. While I struggled a bit a first to get into the story it soon captured my interest and was hard to put down. It was just the right amount of dark and twisty. Would recommend to others.

Darkly funny suspense, with smart, strong female protagonists (echoes of Olivia, Izzy and Rae Spellman). The plot was both timely and, sadly, perennial, although the ending felt a little abrupt? Or maybe I just enjoyed it enough to want more!

This novel was different than what I usually read, but it took me by surprise! The premise is awesome - a boarding school going through a gender war as staged by a teacher? Sign me up! While there were some slow parts, the quirkiness of the story mixed with the totally unexpected ending kept me interested. I would definitely recommend this novel to a friend!

So, Lord of the Flies, boarding school edition. A co-ed boarding school has a history of retaliation against teachers who try to shut down or even slow down a group of junior and senior boys who have a ranking system for sex acts performed by girls. The system is kept on a database called the Darkroom.

The problem is always those pesky teachers. In this case, Alex Witt, a teacher who apparently learned very little from her last confrontation with a nasty student. Once again, she sets herself up as an ally to the girls who have made it their mission to take down the Darkroom and the boys behind it.

The boarding school is actually a joke. The headmaster is clueless. He hires Alex to teach creative writing for which she has very little training and no academic experience. To say that the staff is underqualified is understating the case. The book is creepy but not creepy enough. There are too many characters to follow as how different can a bunch of high school kids be, really? They want war but don't know how to fight and the Malfoy leader of the boys is way sneakier and much more ruthless.

Had there been no adult intervention, left to their own devices these kids could have really done some mischief making beyond plotting in the furnace room as they munch licorice and text. Unforgettable, no. Good for a read on a long flight or a beach trip? Yes.

I’m not entirely sure how to review this book. It has some weaknesses, it slogs a bit here and there, and then there is the catastrophic ending which… I seriously feel fine about. A line near the end reminds us that while we’ve been trying to get girls to “find their voices,” in this book they stop using their voices and start taking action. Which is better? Without agreeing that what the girls did was right, I can still say that I understand why they did it. I can say that I don’t feel badly for any of these fictional male characters. I can say that I’d love to see the whole thing come alive on screen. It’s a work of fiction and I stand by my enjoyment of what happened in this fictional story.

But as I sit here trying to write the review, my enthusiasm is waning. What was the point of Ms. Witt, big picture? What was the point of several of these characters? There’s a lot going on but it’s mostly smashed together and there’s no real reason for a lot of story threads. The phrase “plausible deniability” is tossed out so many times it took me right out of the story. I read an ARC so perhaps some of those instances will get trimmed out. But… where is the rest of the school in this story?? I was wondering how the boys could have so many entries in their stupid database when there seemed to be less than 20 students, and then I remembered the school population was supposed to be around 400. Where were the other 380 students? Why did the *entire school faculty* consist of two teachers, one coach, one librarian, one dean and one very inept counselor? The world the book creates has absolutely no one else in it even though it’s stated that there are 400 kids attending this school. And I wish the Announcements sections had ended up having some sort of meaning in the story.

Overall though, no matter how many problems there were, I really really enjoyed reading this. I loved the teenage girls, especially Gemma and Linny, and I loved when they had their army ready to go. I’m basically an old woman and I’m ready to get an axe tattooed on my wrist in solidarity. I’m ready to burn things down. If this is the future for the books women (and young women) will get to read I am looking forward to it and men better take notice. Women and girls have a new type of protagonist to think about.

My 4 stars is more like 4.5 stars. I can see this as a movie, and I'd love to see the image of a pack of teenage girls with their heads shaved carrying axes on a movie poster. I would buy that poster and hang it on the wall. I wish more work had been put into cleaning the story up, but I just can’t deny that I enjoyed almost every moment and cheered at the end while hoping for the most damage possible. That doesn’t make me a bad person, that means I was totally caught up in the characters and their mission.

Final thought: Jalapenos seem like a fine real-world solution to me.

Thank you to NetGalley for the early ARC, I enjoyed it overall more than I did The Passenger (which I loved).

Alex Witt, who left her last teaching position under conditions that were too creepy for her to admit, accepts a position at Stonebridge Academy, a posh prep school in the heart of a beautiful, rural area, complete with stone buildings with literary names. She tells us (in the first of many, short, first-person chapters that alternate amongst Witt, fellow teachers, and students) that she really has no calling for teaching, especially when her assigned classes are changed against her will from literature to creative writing. However, she wants her final teaching job to end on a less bitter note, so she soldiers on.

What Alex does not know is that the bucolic setting envelops a toxic atmosphere in which stone buildings harbor often-stoned teachers and students, and that the scratchy school uniforms provide cover for a decidedly sexist, destructive undercurrent of power plays, sexual domination, and sadistic social twists.

Alternate chapters give the reader glimpses of personalities, compromises, and seething rebellions. The threads that hold teachers and students captive are controlled by "The Ten, " elite students who control the online network that functions as Big Brother, using punishments and a ratings system to demean and terrorize male and female students, and, sometimes, staff. Alex witnesses the aftermath of a photographic shaming on her first teaching day, but it takes her time to win enough trust amongst a few of the women students to try to expose the plots.

The technique of alternating first-person chapters makes it difficult for the reader (at first) to identify some characters. A sub-plot involving Alex's divorced parents does not add enough to her backstory to make a difference. Coarse language and bluntly sexual situations are so natural to the atmosphere that not all of the revelations are terribly surprising - which does not make them any less horrific. Still, I was invested in the lives and understandings of enough of the students to care how their rebellion turned out. This is not your standard prep-school-gone-bad novel.

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC to review.