I REALLY enjoyed this one! A dark, sinister college campus story with revenge as the top priority. I was honestly so invested from the beginning! I loved getting to know and figure out the characters. Overall it was a fast paced, twisty read that kept me engaged and guessing the whole time! Loved it!

I love when books go back and forth between past and present it adds to the drama of the story. This is a dark,twisty mean girls in a college dorm. Love the ironic title. As if Freshman year of college isn’t bad enough. The plot’s twists and turns don’t even prepare you for the wild ending!

3 1/2 rounded up to 4.

Amb and Sully grow close at college...maybe too close. Amb’s jealously of all the pretty girls and inferiority complex drive her further into Sully’s tangled web until they’re both caught up in something unforgivable. Now, they’re being taunted back to their 10 year reunion by someone who knows what they did. But who?

The characters in this book are largely unlikable, the girls are mostly shallow pretty girls interested only in partying and sex and gossip. Kevin is a frat boy jerk and Adrian is a a bit like a dumb puppy. Flora is really the only character to actually like, and maybe Ella.

I enjoyed the chapters going back and forth between then and now and finding out what really happened with Amb and Sully. I will say they all seemed more like teenage girls at a boarding school with how boy obsessed and snotty a lot of the girls were, but Wesleyan is an extremely small private college so I understood why the atmosphere came off that way instead of more like one would picture a “typical college experience”.

Not a very fast paced book but it was engaging solely for the fact of I wanted to know what actually happened and who was taunting them. I wouldn’t say it ended up being satisfying when I got the answers but it wasn’t really about being satisfied, it was about finally getting the actual truth and accepting it.

Free copy provided by NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.

I loved this book! It really swept me by storm. So well written, I was gripped from the very first page until the credits rolled. So many twists, turns and jaw dropping moments!
The storyline was amazing to follow. Some of the girls were very vulnerable and wanted be accepted. But wow! The mean girl actions were tough to take. I loved the depth of characters in these life changing times, both starting college and then the big reunion decades later.
Just how far will we go to be accepted? And at what cost?
Brilliant book. I loved it!
Thank you NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review this book.

This book was so good. Mean Girls meets Gossip Girl... sign me up! This book alternates past and present.... Ambrosia is in her Freshman year at college, her roommate is Flora, sweet innocent Flora. Ambrosia (Amb) crosses paths with bad girl Sullivan (Sully) and it all gets a little bit crazy from there. Flash forward 10 years... Amb is invited to her 10 year reunion..now married to a great guy she’s not sure she wants to return to the past, where something dark and terrible happened. This book was such a page turner and I couldn’t wait to see how it all turned ended! Make sure to keep your eye out for this one, you don’t want to miss it! Thank you
#NetGalley #simonbooks

4.5 a twisty mystery that explores bad girls yes, but the insecurity underneath it, the need to be wanted, one of the main characters talked about no matter what she accomplished, she had to be wanted by boys to be ok but really the main need for acceptance is from other girls. so this was told in two different time frames, then when it happened and now. the main character was relatable despite not being likeable and torn between her good girl perfect roomate and her troubled charismatic best friend. this is worth the read

The Girls Are All So Nice Here.... um no, no they are not. Laurie Elizabeth Flynn has taken mean girls to a whole new level! The story is told between alternating then and now chapters, which I am a huge fan of. And just when you start to find something out about the past you are brought back to the now and the now is just as secretive as the past. The narrator of the story, Ambrosia (Wellington) Turner has received an invite for her ten year college graduation. And for reasons she hides from her husband, she does not want to go. But someone is sending her notes. Someone who really wants her there and wants to talk about what happened all those years ago. Oh the things these mean girls did are a shocker, and as the story unfolds things are not quite over yet. I was pulled in from the very beginning and couldn’t wait to see what happened next. Thank you to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for the ARC!!!

3.25 stars

The girls are not nice. None of the girls are nice.

I really like that Flynn plays with the mean girl trope and takes that to the next level: mean girls - maybe evil girls - who somehow never grow out of what should have been a temporary stage of bad decisions.

The m.c., Ambrosia, is wildly unlikeable, which is intentional, but it makes feeling invested in her somewhat challenging. Any sort of victimization she experiences in the "then" OR "now" sections seems...fine? We know it's wrong, but she is also so wrong.

While the premise is interesting and there are some good sinister moments, I wanted this to be less predictable, less black and white, and more engaging at the end.

I'll definitely read more from this author. This one entertained me but did not leave me reeling or feeling creeped out at all (in this case, NOT a good thing).

TW: Rape and suicide

Anyone dodging a bad college reputation or class reunion might feel triggered while reading this suspense novel from Laurie Elizabeth Flynn, but they probably aren't Ambrosia Wellington. "Amb" is a fictional Wesleyan grad who may or may not have done something truly awful during her years on campus and is being lured back to her 10th reunion by a mysterious source.

I won't recap any more of the plot, but I will say that juicy themes of jealousy and suspicion, ambition, bullying, and toxic friendships kept me going through an otherwise average read. The narrator is totally unreliable (intentionally so to keep you guessing until the end), and the constant back and forth in time, although necessary for this specific story, keeps it from being a page turner.

Still, if you enjoy a jittery, mysterious read about bad girls wreaking havoc, especially in a privileged NE college setting, you'll enjoy it. I'd wait for the paperback or an eBook sale, though.

I received a copy of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

If you need your protagonists sympathetic and sunshine-y, give this book a pass. If you enjoy understanding how normal people can get involved in heinous things, this is the novel for you. A captivating ride that also sticks the landing.

Holy cow was this book good! I was sucked into the story so fast and didn't want to put the book down until I was finished. I thought it was very well written and I enjoyed the writing style. The plot was fantastic! I loved how the story had chapters from current day events and events that happened in the past. The story is told from Ambrosia's perspective as we follow her navigating college life, and 10 years later when she reunites with her former best friend. It focuses on how we treat one another; especially how girls treat one another and the games they play to get what they want. I couldn't believe the details that came to light as I got further into the book, and that ending! Ugh, so good!

This one intrigued me by the description. It is a true mean girls gone to college book. Which is a genre I love! It was was intriguing from the beginning.. The narrator is Ambrosia who did a bad bad thing ten years ago. She is now married but not living here dreams when she gets an invitation to a ten year reunion and that the inviter wants to talk over what happened the night that the bad thing happened. It definitely makes you want to keep reading to find out what she did! As the story unfolds to the finale where it all comes out and everyone gets what they deserve! Great debut!

The Girls are All So Nice Here by Laurie Elizabeth Flynn is a college rendition of “Mean Girls”. Ambrosia did something terrible while in college because she was the ultimate mean girl. Now, it’s 10 years later and their college reunion weekend. Attending the reunion with her husband, Amb thinks she has left the past behind but she is wrong. Who is still trying to find out what happened 10 years before? This book contains lies, insecurities, secrets, and relationships.

Ambrosia Wellington did something unforgivable in college, and she’s spent the last 10 years trying to move on and leave the past in the past.

But the past always catches up to us, and it’s catching up to Ambrosia in the form of personalized cards telling her that she must attend her class 10-year reunion to confront what she was a part of all of those years before.

This was a very reliable thriller, filled with twists and turns at every corner. I found myself changing my predictions throughout, a sign you have a good thriller in your hands. The ending really caught me off guard, too!

This book was gripping, well-written, and full of surprises. I felt the author really did justice to toxic female relationships and the search for identity and belonging during the college years. Amb, Sully, and Flora were such fascinating complex characters. I lost sleep reading this book because I couldn't put it down!

Even more impressive than the plot was the writing itself. Gorgeous prose. I loved each paragraph.

I will be reading this author's next book for sure! This is a unique book and I think it'll make a big splash in 2021!

Thanks to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for the ARC!

I kept reading thinking the book might have something interesting to say about envy, competition and female friendship. I would
judge it more to be a murder mystery and revenge novel. Characters and plot not credible and overall a shining example of the worst of what writing can do...
waste time. So glad to be done and will trust my do not finish instincts going forward.

Spoiler--the girls are not so nice here! A twisty thriller about college students this book was a welcome diversion from the horrible world we live in. I did find the character's names extremely silly and over the top but the characters themselves were fairly realistic. The writing was very tight and the storyline didn't veer into unbelievable territory like a lot of "mean girls" type books seem to.

Great book!! I believe this is a debut so I can only look forward to reading more from this author. It’s so deep, exploring the college roommates relationships, the bit of relationships they had with the guys in their life & the ugliness inside so many that, thankfully, most don’t act on. Unlike our protagonist, who does & suffers with the consequences the rest of her life. Could be a good cautionary tale. Wonderful read, keeps you absorbed in the story the whole way. FIVE STARS

Read this book pretty fast. Definitely held my interest. It has been a long time since I found a book that could do that! I absolutely recommend this book to those of you that enjoy a book that has a little bit of everything, drama, suspense, love, even a little thrilling!

Y’all this one was so creepy!!! Ekkk right up my alley! I was very impressed with the writing and loved the characters. Drama!!