This makes for an interesting, but rather hard to categorize debut novel. It's set in a small, all-girls, Connecticut boarding school - set over the 2015-2016 school year (but feels a bit more timeless in some ways with no real mention of anything other than email dates firmly placing this during that time). The book opens with signs posted on the way to campus proclaiming that a rapist lives there. And this sexual violence and education relationship remains a constant theme throughout the whole book... but the book itself doesn't really build anywhere. There are no main characters, instead vignettes broken up by different students lending their perspective to the various milestone events across the year. It covers all four grades and while each student comes across pretty fully from a character development stance, the disjointed perspective leaves the book feeling a bit ungrounded.

I think that this will definitely work well as a discussion starter, but it never really builds the plot and the character arcs are often left dangling, never to be picked back up. It just made this one easy to set aside and I never found myself rushing to pick it back up. Maybe those who attended boarding schools, or even all-girl institutions would connect more with this, but unfortunately, it just didn't resonate with me.

Fascinating and compelling. I couldn't put it down. Timely storyline in the perfect setting. Looking forward to more from this author.

A coming of age novel born of #MeToo movement.

When their prestigious all girls boarding school attempts to cover up a rape allegations, the girls of Atwater are left to processes how this will impact their lives as women. Told in the POV of nine of the young women attending the school, the novel tells nine different stories of girls at the school over the course of the school year.

More literary fiction than a true mystery or thriller, All Girls is poignant reflection on the reality of growing up as a young women.

All Girls by Emily Layden was a surprise to me. The novel is very well written and Layden did an amazing job giving readers a glimpse into the lives of nine young women at Atwater as they navigate through a less- than-typical school year mired in scandal. Each student, from freshman to senior year, has their own unique part to play at Atwater but all are constantly searching for answers - how do they fit in? who can they trust? what is true? who is hiding something?
It is clear that the administration at Atwater has failed over the years and will continue to falter at times. Too much was swept under the rug or outright ignored through the years. And for all of the love of tradition at a school like Atwater, clear definitions of what should and should not happen between a teacher and students left far too much of a gray area for interpretation.
Telling the stories of 9 different characters was a big undertaking - at times I wished there was a focus on fewer characters - to pick up more on certain characters again at different points in the school year and to delve into each character's perspective more. But this was an excellent debut novel and I look forward to reading more from this author.
Thank you to St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for the chance to read this book.

All Girls is a very true to life look at a year at an all girls prep school. It is set in the present time. There are allegations of sexual misconduct between a former student and teacher that happened in the 1990s and the students are trying to get to the bottom of the story. I thought the book was very good at describing the lives of the young women. However the book presented 9 POV characters and I had a hard time keeping them straight.

Who doesn't love a book set in an all girls elite northeastern boarding school? At the start of a new school year as parents are dropping off their daughters, strange signs are littered across the billboards and streets of the small town bordering the boarding school. At the beginning we find a former student has alleged that a current teacher raped her while at the school. This story is told through the perspectives of different young women at the school. I thought this was a well written story that really delves into the personal lives of teen girls and the way that teen girls voices are not believed and girls are thought of as silly and less than a young man's. Very timely, I look forward to more from this author.

Though there were some good chapters, overall I was disappointed in the book. There was not enough cohesion among the stories of the girls, and the overall storyline was anticlimactic.

I thought the book was well-written and the premise was very interesting, but having so many different narrators became quite confusing at times. A few of the girls really stood out to me, but I feel like the story would have been better had they focused on fewer girls and fleshed out their stories a little bit more. I did however really like how the book followed the entire school year at Atwater, and included various articles and emails to parents and students about the ongoing case, which made the story feel a little more real. This book felt so relevant in the way that it addressed how conversations about consent and women’s rights have changed over the years, and how institutions like schools often choose not to believe the victim or would rather not address the issue because it would hurt their reputation; many of the students we read about are exploring their own sexuality, experimenting with sex for the first time, and there’s even a fairly graphic scene of one student’s own assault. Overall a good story that tackled important issues but not as impactful as it could have been.

I think all females- from 15- 105- could appreciate this book. I expected it to focus more on what was going in at the school but instead it was more focused on the girls at the school and their lives and how they fit together into a bigger story. I would recommend it again and again.

All Girls is a book that should’ve worked for me but just didn’t. It follows a variety of girls during one year of HS at an all girls boarding school. It started out really strong as one incoming freshman drives to campus with her parents and they see signs claiming a rapist works at the school. So a great. intriguing and powerful premise that just wasn’t executed well for me.

There were just way too many viewpoints here, every chapter is from a new POV and just when I would be warming up to a new character, the chapter would end and another new person was introduced. The strong messages got lost in this style for me unfortunately and truly the only thing that kept me going was the excellent audio narration. This had a full cast of narrators and they were all great, so if you’re interested in this book I highly recommend the audio. ⭐️⭐️ stars for the book but ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ for the narration leaves me at a 2.5-3 overall 🤷🏻‍♀️

I've always been intrigued by boarding schools for some reason and All Girls by Emily Layden was a great book to feed my curiosity. I absolutely loved that it covered a wide variety of sexual harassment incidents. I think it's so helpful and powerful to show the spectrum that sexual harassment entails, some not as obvious and overt as you would think.

I did also like that this wasn't just focused on one person. The switch of narratives and voices can be a bit hard to deal with, but for me, in this story, it worked. It helped to show the different viewpoints, narratives, and feelings.

All girls is a story that had so much potential but completely fell flat for me. I did relate to the stories or the characters. A great premise but just missed the mark for me.

“All Girls” by Emily Layden covers the lives of the girls at Atwater, a private high school, in the aftermath of a revealed old sex scandal. As the girls try to navigate the confusion of relationships, classes, and future college plans, someone on campus is sending a message to the administration and the board “we know what you covered up.”

This book covers a lot of sexual harassment topics over a wide range of characters. It was interesting as the book proceeded to see the variety of misconduct that each girl had experienced, from little things like notes from a teacher to larger things like a relationship gone too far. The result makes the school feel almost not protective of its students, which likely wasn’t the intent. I can see the connections the author was making, but the ending didn’t really seal the book for me.

I liked that the book covered a wide range of ages and experiences, but the new voice for each chapter was a little jarring. To go from one naive character to another dark character to a different character was a lot to process and each switch felt like the beginning of a new novel. In theory, I liked it, but it might have been a little much to never land on the same character twice.

In the end, I wanted a little more from this book. It was good, but overall it just lacked something for me. The scandal is dealt with kind of, but the way the school failed its students over and over again left something to be desired. Maybe it’s just me craving a happy ending rather than a real life ending. I gave it 3 stars.

Thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for the ARC in exchange for my honest review!

This book had a promising start. All Girls by Emily Layden starts with a student arriving to an all girls boarding school, Atwater. On the drive in they are met with many signs on the road, referring to a girl who was raped by one of the teachers, and how this was swept under the rug and nothing was ever investigated. This was the main plot of the story and it intrigued me. But then each chapter is told by a different student of the school. Some of their story references the elephant in the room ( the rape) but mostly their stories are about their life at the school. What this book turns in to is a day in the life of a year in boarding school.

I have to admit that at times I loved this book and other times I had to struggle to get thru a chapter. And what one student would talk about in the beginning of the book, you wouldn't hear again until a later chapter. The many POV made it hard to understand or follow at times and therefore the book didn't flow.

This book appealed to me because essentially this was my high school. There was a married teacher at my school that had an affair with a student. She turned 18 and he was allowed to resign and it was swept under the rug. Nothing was on his record. Fast forward 20+ years and this teacher is at another school...he is married to the student he had an affair with... And it happens again. He has a sexual relationship with a student who is 15. He gets caught and is now in jail, but this would have never happened if the first school had not swept it under the rug!!!
So you can see how this book appealed to me. I give it 3 stars for tackling such a hard topic, but I wish it flowed better.

Thank you to Netgalley and St. Martin's Press for the eARC of this book in exchange for my honest review.

It’s the start of the school year at the prestigious Connecticut boarding school, Atwater Prep, sexual assault accusations surface and create waves throughout the school. A former student accused a male teacher of raping her twenty years ago and has recently come forward to sue the school. Over the course of a year, the students try to make sense of the accusations and continue their long-honored traditions, while the administration desperately tries to maintain the reputation of the school.

All Girls is broken up into sections of about 30 pages, each focusing on a different student as the year progresses. It follows students from all four grade levels, socioeconomic statuses, and reputations. Overall the book felt more like a series of short stories centered around the same topic rather than a cohesive novel. The one thing that pulls the story together is the underlying arc, the sexual assault scandal at Atwater, and the cryptic accusations that surface throughout the year. I enjoyed the story, but I wish the story focused on a few of the girls. There were a few characters I wish I was able to revisit, but the dozen or so different perspectives offer a more broad view of the student body and the school's vibe as a whole.

Some of the boarding school elements and traditions reminded me of the Private book series by Kate Brian, although All Girls follows multiple characters where the Private series only followed one, and the plot is much less dramatic. The style reminded me of J. Courtney Sullivan’s works, so if you’re a fan of hers, you will likely enjoy this book.

Thank you to St Martin’s Press and Netgalley for the advanced copy. All opinions are my own.

While this book wasn't exactly "for me" fans of campus novels will definitely like this book, this genre just isn't really for me.

I love a boarding school book. It drug in some spots and I had little interest in some of the players (too many to track sometimes), but overall I enjoyed the way this story was told. Examination of sex and consent and what women are told vs what actually happens in society.

Free copy from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review

Normally I would be all about a book set in a boarding school, especially one backed with the #metoo movement. All Girls, however, didn't do it for me. Told from the perspective of nine different girls, there was just too much going on. It was hard to follow who was speaking, and just as I would get attached to their story, it would change to a different perspective. I never actually really got the POINT of the whole novel, and it took me a while to finish because I just couldn't get into it. I'm sure this is someone's cup of tea, it just wasn't mine.

I received a free advance digital review copy from St. Martin's Press via NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.

I enjoyed the unique structure of All Girls by Emily Layden, in which each chapter is told from the perspective of a different girl at their Connecticut boarding school. The girls re-emerge as secondary characters in other chapters, allowing the reader to see each of them and their stories from different perspectives. The girls' experiences as high school teenagers rang very true to me, though there is one particular scene (involving rape) that was very difficult to read. Given the large cast of characters, it would have been helpful to have a diagram to refer back to, that showed each girl's grade level/relationship to the others. All Girls is a page-turning campus novel that reveals that many unknown secrets exist among these students, not just the one that is currently grabbing the headlines.

Emily Layden's debut highlights pivotal moments over the span of a year at an all girls boarding school. With a new perspective every chapter—starting with freshman and ending with seniors—and their connection with the rape scandal that has hit campus at the start of the school year. The school is struggling with how to tackle the aftermath of a sexual assault allegation that happened decades ago, now in a MeToo era political climate. What was done in the past, is definitely not how things are addressed in the present.

This debut was really strong. It's definitely not for everyone, but is perfect for people who are fans of Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld—I was constantly reminded of it while reading this book. It felt almost like a series of short stories that all connect, with different characters mentioned or making appearances in the chapter. Despite not having much time with each character, the reader gets a great look into who a girl was as a person during their chapter. It could have been really confusing because there were so many characters but each chapter felt very contained and organized. Of course, some chapters and characters were more entertaining than others, so at times the book could be a little boring. However, the writing was really strong and I'm excited to see what the author does next.

ARC was provided by the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.