I'm a sucker for a campus novel, and this was the best of all worlds given it was a campus thriller! THE GIRLS ARE SO NICE HERE really held my attention and I pretty much read it straight through. And while the resolution was very predictable, the getting there was worth all of the pages in between. I'm already excited for more from Flynn.

I will be reviewing this on my IG closer to pub date and will post a link then.

Spoilers ahead —

The Girls Are All So Nice Here has good twists, but the characters are so reprehensible it makes the book unlikeable. At least Amb gets her comeuppance. 2/5 stars - it did keep me reading to the end.

Special thanks to NetGalley for an advanced copy.

I can't say that I liked this book but I also can't say I didn't like it. A little slow in the first half. I envisioned more for the ending.

This book was disturbing in so many ways, yet it somehow hooked me as it hurtled to the train wreck I knew was coming. Flynn takes the concept of mean girls to a whole new level. I felt like a voyeur looking in on a college dorm, one that I wouldn’t recommend living in! While I was somehow hooked, I was also appalled and by the time I reached the ending I found no redemptive qualities to make me change my mind.

This dark thriller entertained me throughout and kept me guessing. I enjoyed the multiple timelines through which the story was told and thought the author did a great job of developing the events that unfolded. My only issue was that I just wasn’t quite prepared to hate all of the characters as much as I did! Amb grew especially tiresome by the end as I couldn’t quite figure her out – was she actually remorseful for any of her actions or just upset that the walls were caving in? It’s hard to find anyone to really root for in this novel, but I really enjoyed it nonetheless!

I read this book in two days. I loved it and saw it was optioned for TV by AMC and I think it’s going to make a great TV show. I still can’t stop thinking about the ending and I’m hoping for a sequel. This was a great page turner that I couldn’t put down. I want more!

I have mixed feelings about this book. I personally find it hard when all of the characters are pretty terrible and unlikable. I'm never sure who I should root for and I found it hard to understand post-college Amb Is she sympathetic? Is she regretful? Or just worried about being found out and deeply unhappy? And why exactly did she marry Adrian? I never quite got what he brought to the relationship.

I also recently read The Divines so maybe I just wasn't up for girls are so mean to one another in school book.

Having said all that, there is a good mystery at the heart of the book and I did enjoy they way that played out. Honestly, but the end, I wanted to read a book about Poppy. Now she was a piece of work and I was eager to learn more about her life and choices.

Unrelated to the quality of the book, I dispute the idea that Miami University (OH) is a party school. Maybe Miami University in Florida, but MU, OH is a good and serious public school. : )

Such a fantastic read. I was really impressed with this story. From the first page I was completely hooked. This felt like an adult version of Pretty Little Liars that is so much better than the show. And it being in he perspective of the villain was just perfect. Really really enjoyed it. Thank you to Netgalley for the ARC!

This was sooooo good!!! I love how it was told from the bully's perspective... how perfect. The dialog was convincing, and I felt like I was witnessing real conversations between the characters. I loved the dynamic between Sully and Amb. It felt like a grown up version of Pretty Little Liars. I sure hope this is made into a TV series! And I also hope there's a sequel...

Thank you to NetGalley and Scribner/Simon & Schuster for my e-copy in exchange for an honest review.

This book gripped me from the first page and I stayed up way too late to finish it, but it was worth it! Laurie Flynn's debut adult fiction novel has joined the ranks of some of my other "mean girl" favorites. I will say that this book deserves quite a few trigger warnings (sexual assault, self harm), but if dark, twisty thrillers are your thing, I definitely recommend The Girls Are So Nice Here.

"I don't know if it's disgusting or impressive that girls can do that for each other. That we can achieve that level of deceit in the name of sisterhood."

Flynn's characterization is top tier, and I found myself being drawn into the story mainly because I needed to find out what made the main character the way that she is. Our narrator, Ambrosia, is the classic small town girl who was never popular in high school, but will do anything to befriend the "it girl". The "it girl" at Wesleyan just so happens to be Sloane Sullivan (Sully). The duo is a lethal combination - Sully seems to have zero moral compass and Ambrosia worships her for it. Of course, as these stories tend to go, the two take it too far one night and find themselves smack dab in the middle of a murder investigation. A decade later, Ambrosia receives an invitation to Wesley's 10 year reunion along with a note that suggests that someone besides she and Sully knows the truth about what happened that night.

Flynn alternates her chapters between "Then" and "Now", effectively leaving you at the edge of your seat throughout the book's entirety. 4/5 stars, only because the big twist ending fell a bit short for me, but otherwise I was completely enthralled.

I received an advance copy of this book from netgalley. Well written suspenseful book that kept you guessing til the end. A group of friends a suspicious death. Meeting years later each receives notes from someone who is sending the notes story told in the past and present tense. I would highly recommend

The girls are all so nice here is a modern day gossip girl with a twist. Laurie Elizabeth Flynn is a mastermind for gripping you from the beginning and the pages flowing. She depicts the need and desperation that girls often feel to fit in with their peers and the depths they will take to gain approval. This book kept me on the edge of my seat and I couldn’t put it down until I put all the pieces together!

Karma can really be a spiteful bitch. In The Girls Are All So Nice Here, sinister situations leave bodies around. Sully and Ambrosia reunite ata college reunion, but it’s not recollections of their hangovers and girl talk. It’s reckoning and revenge. One night changed everything their freshman year. It’s time to face the truth. The action was good and the chapters flowed well, even switching from back then to now. I was guessing at who was ultimately responsible until it was evident who it was. The ending had a good twist, if not ironic.

Whether we like it or not, most woman (if not all) have had a bit of #meangirl in themselves at some point or another. "The Girls Are All So Nice Here" takes the phrase "mean girls" to the ultimate. This is one of those books where you love to hate a lot of the characters and it is simply satisfying. Do not assume that this is just your typical "mean girl" drama however. It is filled with sociopathic behavior and each character evolves fully throughout the book. The ending plot twist will have any reader #shook and craving more! I easily rate "The Girls Are All So Nice Here" by Laurie Elizabeth Flynn 4.5 out of 5 stars!

What a fun, entertaining and juicy read this was!

I loved the whole mean girls' atmosphere built in the story and to have the narrator be one of them was quite interesting and refreshing.

I don't want to give away anything but suffice it to say that this is a great read which sucks you into the world of mean girls, mental health and gives a realistic picture of how life can be.

I loved the plot, the pacing, the world-building. The characterisations are extremely well done.
The back and forth of the POVs in the chapters (from the past and present) is extremely captivating and keeps one turning the pages to find out exactly what happened all those years ago, in college.

Betrayal, friendships, insecurities, deception, lies, secrets, relationships - this story has it all.

The title of the book encapsulates the irony of the story.

Definitely recommend this book.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for sending a digital ARC in exchange for an honest review.

The Girls Are All So Nice Here is about two former best friends who are coming back to their college for a 10-year reunion. Ambs receives a note saying "we need to talk about what we did that night" but has no idea who sent it. The timeline alternates between Then and Now as we go down a twisted path of female friendships and jealousy.

This book was fine for me. I read it in two days and was invested in knowing the outcome. But it felt like so much of the Now chapters were our main characters withholding information from us in their own heads which was frustrating. I love reading stories about dark young female friendships. There is so much to explore in those friendships. But I don't think this book really nailed that aspect like it wanted to. The best friend character felt over-the-top evil and not exactly like a really fleshed out person until the very end of the book.

I flew through the Then chapters, though, and was equal parts frustrated and embarrassed by how the main character treated everyone in the story who wasn't her best friend. Flora was a great character. It was interesting that I felt a fondness for most of the characters in the book, just not the main character and her best friend. I would recommend for a quick thriller. It reads kind of like a YA but definitely has adult content, FYI.

Thank you so much to Netgalley and Simon & Schuster for an advanced copy of this book!

THE GIRLS ARE ALL SO NICE HERE is a relentless and dark examination of toxic friendships and the terrible things that young women can do to each other when they feel threatened or entitled, and how the consequences can be deadly. Flynn's debut has two timelines that slowly reveal a maddening and suspenseful story of two friends who feed off of each other's terribleness, and it's effective and brutal. In the modern day Ambrosia (or Amb) has left her college years in the past, but is compelled to attend her ten year reunion with her husband Adrian when she starts to get strange notes referring to something that happened when she was new to the school. In the past we see Amb's freshman year play out, as she gloms onto the cruel and charismatic bad girl Sully, and has a one sided feud with her roommate, Flora. We don't know what happened, exactly, but we do know that Amb both feels guilty and resentful about what happened, so much so that she's hidden it from Adrian. As we start to see it unfold, the question is less who is harassing Amb and Sully, and more what did they do to deserve it? I liked the twists and turns, and I liked how Flynn built up the clues and the moments of suspense, but I will say that there really weren't any characters that fleshed out enough for me to either root for them, nor love to hate them. Everyone except for Flora was either drab or awful, and I was hoping that we could have gotten a bit more insight into motivations and characterizations. Hell, even Flora wasn't very well explored outside of her genuine goodness.

Overall, THE GIRLS ARE ALL SO NICE HERE is tense and upsetting in the ways it sets out to be. I just wanted a little more humanity that wasn't quite achieved.

This story is told in alternating timelines of the past and present. We see Ambrosia in the present, hesitant to go to her 10-year reunion. Then we go back to the past she’s tried so hard to keep from her husband, and with good reason. Ambrosia was a mean girl, the worse kind.

Ambrosia is an incredibly unreliable narrator because she skews things to suit her narrative. It’s because she is so unreliable that makes the fact she’s a mean girl even worse. She’s vilified her roommate Flora into something she’s not from jealousy, to gain popularity, and to steal her boyfriend. The bulk of her actions in college are simply to impress Sully because she wants so desperately to fit in.

In the present, the fact Adrian was going nowhere with his novel isn’t something she should complain about. If it was such an issue for her, she never should have married him. The ending fell apart for me in a lot of ways, but I can’t discuss them because I don’t want to spoil things. But I feel there was a lot of reaching to get us to the last page.

So why four stars if I have issues with it? Because I love that we have such a crummy narrator. There was nothing redeeming about her. She is written so extremely well that you have to love it. Overall, this was a rollercoaster and an enjoyable read. Thank you, Simon & Schuster, for sending this along.

Laurie Elizabeth Flynn executed this book masterfully. She told the story using two timelines: THEN and NOW. Flynn's novel is dark and seductive, and her prose are gorgeous-- this line, "matchstick legs capped in sharp heels striking the ground," grabbed me from the very start. A stunning debut.

The Girls Are All So Nice Here is full of mean girls and backstabbing. I enjoyed reading about the hateful college girls. It was dark and fast-paced. It did have multiple time lines which I am always iffy about, but it worked well for this book!

If you are a fan of dark mysteries and bad girls, pick this book up and give it a read!


*Thank you NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for my ARC in exchange for my honest opinion.