I loved this book! Thank you for the ARC. Unfortunately, I didn’t realize that I wasn’t leaving reviews on netgalley and was solely sharing on Instagram. My apologies. Huge fan of this author! I actually received the tangible copy. Trying to clean up my netgally account.

The characters in this book were a mess. The main character you follow throughout the book is so unlikable. This is normally a turn off for me. I like characters that pull me in and make me love them and root for them (even if they are still questionable ethically). These girls were despicable from the start. But the whole complicated calculated mess that follows was hard to turn away from. I had to know what happened. I really enjoyed this.
What a crazy ride.

I absolutely loved this book! I found it hard to put down. I highly recommend reading it! You won’t be disappointed.

I hate to say this but the whole “i know what you did last summer” trope has been done too many times. When inspiration from predecessors become a distraction, the book is just not enjoyable anymore. It felt too predictable.

✔️ Quick read
✔️ Enjoyed it overall
✔️ Would recommend it to anyone who enjoys thrillers with twists, turns and mysteries.

Thank you so much Netgalley and Simon and Schuster Canada for an arc copy in exchange for my honest review.

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Available Now!

This book is the definition of Mean Girls. A dark and twisted tale of revenge and how far someone will go to save their own skin.

An excellent thriller that will keep you guessing, the characters are deep and intriguing. Highly recommend if you enjoy suspense.

The Girls are All So Nice Here is a thriller that had me on the edge of my seat the whole time. I love how Flynn drew upon how brutal girls can be – we don’t use our fists, we use our words and snide glances to undercut others.

There’s a dual timeline in this novel, one in the past and one in the present. The dual timeline added to the suspense and trying to figure out what happened to Amb and Sully in their first year at college. Normally I am not a fan of the dual timelines, but I think this time it was done tastefully and added more depth and suspense to the plot, and even showed some character development in Amb as well. There was much more added to the story than anything being taken away from this perspective.

I think that this is a testament to Flynn’s writing that I wanted to shake Amb throughout this novel. I totally get her motivations for wanting to shed the image and who she was in high school to become more popular in college – I think that a lot of teenagers feel this pressure to fit in, to get a new friend group when they start their post-secondary education. This also shows her character development, and how Flynn captures what it’s like to be a teenager/young adult navigating that first year of post-secondary education.

I still can NOT get over that ending, I was not expecting it, and that’s what makes a good thriller to me. The “what did I just read” and the “holy crap” moment where you just need a few moments to process… Yeah, that happened in this book to me.

This was absolutely a book that will keep you guessing as to what happens next. You will definitely need to keep reading to learn more about the characters.

I heard a lot of good things about The Girls Are All So Nice Here but for me it just didn't hit the mark, the characters were awful I couldn't get invested in any of them and the story itself just didn't work for me

Ahhhhh this book was crazy good! I love anything dark academia and this definitely delivered. I did guess who did it but it did not affect how much I enjoyed this one. Dark, twisted, chilling, and shocking at times! I definitely recommend this one.
Thank you NetGalley for providing a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!

Such an interesting book and I've seen a lot of good feedback as it circulates in my library system.
Wasn't the most unique thriller that I have read but overall was pretty good!

My rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️½⭐️ (4.5 stars)

“Amb” – Ambrosia Wellington – thinks the past ought to stay where it belongs, in the past. So when she receives an invite to her ten-year college reunion, the last thing she wants to do is attend. But when her husband finds the invitation and gets excited to go, she can’t exactly back out – not unless she admits why she isn’t keen on going.

And what she and her best friend at the time, Sully, did that first fateful semester at college. But that’s a secret Amb plans to take to her grave. The only problem? She’s been getting threatening notes from a mysterious someone who obviously knows more than Amb would like. And the consequences for her past actions? Well, they may finally be catching up with her.

I binge-read this book so fast! It was addictively dark, and so twisted!

The Girls Are All So Nice Here tells the story of Ambrosia Wellington, alternating between timelines of “then” – her first semester away at college, leading up to the deep dark secret that’s been haunting her ever since – and “now” as she is forced to face the people who were there for the first time after years of trying to bury everything that had to do with that fateful night and everything that came after.

This book is a psychological thriller with dark academia vibes and classic “mean girls” – where the main character herself is one of the worst ones. Then, after meeting and hitting it off with the enigmatic and enticing Sloane “Sully” Sullivan, Amb finds herself is Sully’s web of cruel intentions, where her most devious desires have the space to bloom. Now, after trying to ignore her past behaviour for the better part of a decade, Amb is forced to once more come face to face with Sully – and everything they did together.

Amb is such a great – and unique! – main character because she’s so utterly unlikeable. I really enjoyed how Flynn didn’t shy away from making her lead so irredeemable. Packed to the brim with suspense, it’s almost uncomfortable for you as the reader to have to watch Amb make her way further and further down this path of savagery – but also practically impossible to look away?

I loved that this story alternated between the “then” timeline and the “now” timeline, so all the events from Amb’s freshman year (where everything went down) were revealed to the reader right before or after you saw her have to deal with the repercussions. It also helped to tantalizingly drag out the anticipation, with the action readily ramping up across both timelines simultaneously, making it almost incapable of putting down before reaching the end and seeing where all the pieces fell once and for all.

Thank you to the publisher, Simon & Schuster Canada, and NetGalley for providing me with an e-ARC of this book. All thoughts are my own.

The beginning was a little slow so i didn't get into it as fast as i would’ve liked. but as time went on, i was eager to learn more about what happened that night and what secrets they’re hiding. Switching between then and now between chapters really got me hooked and i thought the pacing was perfect most of the time.
Although i was inwardly cringing and barely keeping it together because i wanted to scream at Amb SO much because her decisions were… let's just say, VERY questionable. She must have been low on braincells…

A dark, twisty, fast-paced thriller that keeps you intrigued throughout the whole book.
A mysterious past with hidden secrets, haunted with memories, nobody is safe.
Toxic friendships and betrayal.

Read to find out the truth about what they've done…

WARNING: If you only like happy endings, stay away from this one… (it really pissed me off😤)

Elevator pitch: Romy and Michelle meets Promising Young Woman, via The Secret History. I was delighted to include this psychological suspense tale the March edition of Novel Encounters, my column highlighting the month's top fiction for Zed Books, Zoomer magazine’s writers and reading vertical (full review at at link).

Thank you to Net Galley and Simon & Schuster for this ARC.

I'm a sucker for pretty much any campus novel, especially when there is a thriller narrative, so I knew that I needed to check out this one.

It's been ten years since Ambrosia Wellington graduated from college and she hasn't wanted to look back. She's crafted a different life for herself. She has a great job, and a hot and doting younger husband. She's turned out to be such a nice person!

The past is staying in the past.

She doesn't even think back to what happened in her first semester, until she receives an invitation to her college reunion.

She doesn't want to go, but these letters keep showing up. Insinuating knowledge into who she used to be. But who are they from, and what do they know about that fateful night?

If everything is revealed she'll lose everything.

This is a story about the viciousness of girls and the vitriol and violence that mean girls can perpetrate on either other. Words have consequences and Amb is about to find out just how big those consequences can be.

3.5 Stars rounded up.

This was such an interesting book! I had a hard time getting into it at the beginning because I found Amb to be so unlikeable, but as I got further into the story I was immersed in her journey at Wesleyan and her friendship with Sloane. This is like a darker & twistier version of Mean Girls. I definitely did not see the ending coming... I will keep an eye out for Flynn's books in the future! Thank you NetGalley and Simon and Schuster for providing me with an advanced digital copy in exchange for my review.

The Girls are All So Nice Here by Laurie Elizabeth Flynn is a psychological thriller.

First, let me thank NetGalley, the publisher Simon & Schuster, and of course the author, for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.


My Synopsis:   (No major reveals, but if concerned, skip to My Opinions)
Ambrosia (Amb for short), left her New Jersey home to attend Wellington College, where she tried desperately to fit in.  She wanted to create a new life for herself.  It didn't work out as planned.

After college, she again tried to create a new life for herself.  She has been married to Adrian for three years, and children may be in their future.

However, when she gets an invitation to her 10th Year College Reunion, against her better judgement, she agrees to go.  There are so many reasons she shouldn't go.  Adrian knows nothing about her years at college, and that's how she wants it.  But someone knows what happened back then, and wants to talk about it.

This reunion is about so much more than just getting in touch with old friends.  Someone wants revenge, and will stop at nothing to get it.


My Opinions:
This was a very predictable teenage "mean girls did something bad and didn't get caught" story.  It is about bullying, teenage angst, nice girls vs bad girls, out of control parties, drinking, sex, jealousy, and toxic friendships.  It is about revenge.

Unfortunately, I didn't like any of the characters, not even Flora.  If you can't relate to any of the characters, it makes it difficult to like the book.

The book alternated between college days and the reunion, all from Amb's point of view.  That worked out well for this book.  It's well written, it's just that this story has been done over and over.  There was really nothing that surprised me.  Yes, there were twists, but all were very predictable.

So, I may be in the minority on this one, but I just didn't enjoy it.  Perhaps if it is aimed at the YA crowd, it may do very well.  I kept see-sawing between giving the book 2 1/2 stars or 3, but realized that although it was nothing new and exciting, and had contemptible characters, it was still well-written, so 3 it is. (Now I'm wondering if I am really giving it 3 because the author is Canadian....no idea why I am struggling with this rating!)

This was a fun and quick read involving some “friends” from school who are now all adults !
A reunion is in the works and it seems that some are worried about a past secret coming back to haunt them !
Although for me - I found it quite predictable it was still a fun read and provided lots of twists and secrets !!! Definitely worth a read if you enjoy past and present storylines with lots of drama and twists ;)

"The girls are all so nice here," Wesleyan University students write in their letters home to their families. And it's certainly true for some of the girls, who do form lifelong friendships and look out for each other. But it's certainly not the case for the novel's narrator Ambrosia "Amb" Wellington, whose desperation to escape her small town roots leads her to team up with Sloane "Sully" Sullivan, a cruel girl who plays with her classmates' desires and weak points for her own amusement.

Their friendship's schemes come to a head when Amb has a meet-cute with Kevin, the long-time boyfriend of Amb's too-nice, too-trusting roommate Flora. Amb decides she and Kevin are better suited for each other, and Sully helps her plan how to win him for herself. Later in the novel, Amb reflects,

 Because it was never just about the boy. It was about the girl standing in the way of the boy. Maybe it had been about her the entire time. [66%]

Indeed, Amb's fighting for Kevin has less to do with her actual attraction for the boy than with her desire to tear Flora down for being too perfect. The scheme goes horribly, tragically wrong. Fast forward to Amb and Sully's ten-year college reunion, and an invitation to the reunion comes with the mysterious card in the mail that says "You need to come. We need to talk about what we did that night." The novel is told in alternating chapters, from Amb's time in college and her time at the ten-year reunion with her husband Adrian, both storylines coming to a head with a reckoning for what Amb and Sully did all those years before.

The Girls Are All So Nice Here is dark, and not in a gleeful, Gone Girl kind of way, where the horrible heroine is so charismatic that you can't help but be drawn into her orbit. Rather, the novel just feels bleak, Amb's downward spiral in college, from spite to cruelty to whatever lies beyond that, is hard to stomach. Her friendship with Sully is just plain toxic, and even though we're in Amb's head for pretty much the entire novel, it's hard to truly feel sympathy for her. 


That being said, it's hard to wish for her to be punished either. The author sows just enough doubt throughout the novel that we don't actually find out what happened until later in the book, and even then, it's tough to know just how complicit Amb actually is in what happened. Her present-day struggles with her husband Adrian straddles an equally delicate line where she's so miserable in her life that it's hard to hate her, but Adrian's also so nice and she's treating him so shoddily that it's hard to sympathize with her either. 

I read the book pretty quickly. It's a taut, exciting page turner, and the mysteries, with all the twists, turns, and revelations, kept me hooked from beginning to end. Flynn is a good writer, and there's no doubt she crafted a really good thriller.

But the book is bleak. We do get a big reveal at the end, and a kind of justice, but by that point, all the major players are just so toxic and consumed by hatred that it's hard to cheer them on, or feel any sort of release. 

Amb's roommate Flora is depicted as a too-sweet, too-nice person who wholeheartedly trusts people and considers Amb her best friend, despite all the crap Amb says and does behind her back. In a way, she is the nicest of the girls, and there are parts where the book seems to show us that Amb is wrong in her assessment of Flora. Despite her niceness, Flora is a regular girl, not some perfect paragon, and her kindness means something important to their other classmates. It's what many of the other characters seem to believe, and certainly what I want to hold on to. 

But ultimately, and to me, sadly, the book seems to embrace Amb and Sully's more cynical outlook of the world. "She'll have me to help her grow the armor she'll need," a character thinks about a baby girl at one point in the novel. "I'll make damn sure she wears it." It's a heart-breaking sentiment to have to think about a three-month-old child, but that's the point the book seems to hammer into us throughout, and the thought it leaves behind when we turn the final page. 

It's a good book. Just: take some time to care for yourself after reading it.

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Thank you to Simon and Schuster Canada for an egalley of this book in exchange for an honest review.

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This review will go live on my blog on Mon, March 22, at 8 am ET.