I read about 40% of this book in two weeks and then never touched it again. I was just bored- while the premise seems amazing, the overall story just didn’t work for me. I hate the characters and thought they had little depth, the storyline just wasn’t adding up with the character uninvolved with the death, overall not the book I wanted it to be.

This is a realistic fiction book that echoes fairytale characters. You can see some elements of this very clearly in some of the character and some characteristics are more subtle. I was drawn to this book in the beginning because of this and the boarding school element (I'm always a sucker for a good boarding school books). In the end, I did think that the characters could have been fleshed out a little more, but maybe that was part of the mystique? It was a good story, but I didn't love it as much as I thought I would. It had drama, but not enough. I did like how the story wasn't boy centric, it's nice to see a girl work together with other girls and have them try to save themselves.

Advanced Reader’s Copy provided by NetGalley and Sourcebooks Fire in exchange for an honest review.

So I REALLY wanted to love this one, but I think THE GRIMROSE GIRLS fell victim to just too many players and too many things happening on top of each other. I appreciated the representation (both of gender, sexual orientation and nationality) and also that one character has OCD and another has fibromyalgia. But overall for me the writing and the dialogue was a bit stilted and forced, it didn't fit the scene.

With a novel told from 4 points of view things can get a bit muddled, especially when the focus seems to be forced onto the least interesting of the 4 students. There are A LOT of loose ends, and while I understand this is a series, Nani's entire storyline is abandoned half way through and seems to be utterly forgotten about by the end.

While I'm all for retellings, and it was fun in the beginning to try and figure out which fairytale each student represented, I think Pohl tried to do too much so the end result is a bit jumbled. I'm not sure if I'll read the next book in the series, but I'm hoping the kinks get worked out as this series continues.

I loved this book! I love the fairytale retellings stuck inside of a dark academia murder setting. There are still a few people who I’m not sure what fairytale they are (if they even are one like the others) I can’t wait to read the next book

2.5 rounded up. An interesting book & storyline but the writing felt a little stilted to me. It didn't quite reflect the atmosphere of the book, which prevented me from really getting into the story. It is rather slow paced, despite the exciting premise (murder! magic!). The third person POVs that constantly switch was a bit jarring and disjointed.

If you love fairy tale retellings this is the book for you. Based on the original tales, this retelling begins with the none of the characters knowing that they are part of their corresponding fairy tales. As a the story unfolds, they begin to understand who they are and what they could expect their fates to be based on these tales. It's a dark retelling especially based on how most of these tales actually end but the twists and turns keep you wanting more. I can't wait for the sequel.

This book was okay, and I liked the idea behind it with the fairy tales, but it felt slow at parts and like the characters weren't very well developed. Some of the characters felt faked or forced, or simply like there wasn't enough information to support them.

I received an eARC via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

All it took for me to request this book was seeing one post about how it features a queer cast, murders at a boarding school, fibromyalgia and OCD representation, and fairytales.

Laura Pohl’s The Grimrose Girls follows a group of four friends: Ariane, Ella, Rory, and Yuki. When Ariane dies under mysterious circumstances, not all of the girls believe that it was suicide like the police claim. Ella, Yuki, and Rory are left grappling with what really happened and are determined to get the truth. Another girl named Nani arrives soon after and becomes their new roommate, which leads her to team up with the trio for answers of her own. Amidst more deaths, the girls uncover a dark truth about a curse that may doom them all unless they can break the cycle before it is too late.

I typically enjoy retellings and reimaginings, so it was not surprising for me to be immediately intrigued by this book’s premise. I do love a good fairytale that has a happy ending, but darker stories often appeal to me more. I like that this book really emphasized how dark fairytales could be.

I really loved that this book gave the four main characters their own perspectives. Stories with multiple characters and narrators are often more interesting to me. By allowing time for each character, Pohl was able to bring the characters to life. I found them all well-developed and likable. It was fun seeing how different they were but how they all came together and had an incredibly strong bond. I think this book’s setting at a boarding school helped bring the atmosphere and characters to life as well.

The author did a great job at writing and developing the mystery of what happened to Ariane and what awaited the other characters. It felt like all of the events flowed pretty well and lets readers piece the mystery together. The story did start out a little slower for me personally, but it really did pick up. Everything built up to that point and sets up nicely for the sequel. I do wish there were more answers to certain questions, but I am hoping that is resolved in the second book.

The Grimrose Girls by Laura Pohl was a very intriguing read about fairytale reimaginings and four heroines up against a curse. While it had a slow start for me, the second half of this book definitely packs a punch. I cannot wait to see how the story plays out in the sequel!

*Content warning: mentions of suicide, parental physical and emotional abuse, self-harm, parental death, depictions of anxiety, OCD, light gore*

Thank you to publisher, Sourcebooks Fire, and NetGalley for giving me a chance to read and review this book.

This one was just OK for me. I did think it was a fun concept, but I also thought it tried too hard to meet all the talking points of these days. It's one thing to be inclusive, but if you try to cram too much into one story, it just doesn't sit as well.

The plotline is a bit blurred and not quite as interesting as I was hoping for. It was a bit all over the place and in all honesty I felt like the authors tried so hard to be inclusive that the story itself suffered.

Was it an interesting concept, yes. Unfortunately the execution wasn't quite where it could have been. I appreciate how hard the author tried though.

I absolutely adored this book! It gave me Riverdale and Pretty Little Liars vibes the entire time I was reading it! The narrative was extremely engaging and I loved the mystery. Couldn’t recommend this book more ☺️

I read a lot of thrillers. I also really enjoy boarding school books, so when I heard about The Grimrose Girls, it sounded like it was right up my alley.
The story follows Ella, Yuki, & Rory after the death of their friend at their elite boarding school. Each girl has her own secrets she is keeping and we learn the school is keeping secrets as well. The girls uncover dark secrets as they investigate their connection to the school.
This book weaves fairy tales into horror/thriller in a way that was very enjoyable! Definitely pick this up if fairytale retellings with a pinch of darkness is your thing.
Thank you to Sourcefire Books & NetGalley for the opportunity to read this book!

This was a really clever spin on a fairytale retelling (or should i say retellings, plural?) that focuses on a group of boarding school girls destined to live out the gruesome endings of their respective fairy tales unless they find a way to rescue themselves.

The book has some great elements and some not-so-great, which left me with mixed feels about it as a whole. The concept was excellent, and the setting was good as well, though it lacks the dark atmosphere that should have gone along with it to ground the story in greater sense of place.

The story is better than the writing, and the characters are a mix of good, bad, and forgettable. I absolutely adored Rory and Ella, but Yuki is positively awful (and unfortunately perhaps the most centrally important character) and the others are fine if a bit unmemorable. The villain too was a bit of a letdown, mostly because the reasoning behind it didn’t have much real meaning for the story or the characters.

Thankfully, the central mystery (how to break the curse) lives on, and hopefully the way that wraps up will eventually be more satisfying whenever the series concludes than the ending of this individual book was.

I would gladly read another, and will be hoping for some improvements to writing and character development along the way.

The school year starts with Ari's death and her best friends grieve the unexpected loss. Ella, Yuki, and Rory don't believe Ari would have completed suicide and are determined to uncover what truly happened. A new girl has also started. Nani arrives at Grimrose Academie as the new girl and is on her own mission to uncover what happened to her father. As the four girls delve into the history and mysteries of the school, they delve into the world of fairy tales and the real endings of the original fables.
This book is written from the POV of the main characters, which was too broad of a scope that hinders readers from connecting with characters (not enough quality time with one narrator). I truly wanted to love this book because the premise is fantastic: re-imagined fairy tales and a super diverse cast of LGBTQ+ characters. Unfortunately, this read like poorly written fairy tale fan-fiction where there was too much going on, too many perspectives, and too many mysteries with flat resolutions. The setting was great and the premise is fantastic, but the style and characters just needed more work for readers to connect with the tale Pohl weaves.

Thank you so much @NetGalley and @sourcebooksfire for gifting me a copy of The Grimrose Girls by @onlybylaura in exchange for an honest review.

📒 Mini Review 👸🏻
I have been so excited to read The Grimrose Girls and reading it in Oct made it even better. I was a huge fan of Once Upon A Time, so when I read that Grimrose Girls is OUAT meets Pretty Little Liars, I was stoked. I’m a sucker for fairytale retellings of any kind.

We follow 4 girls, Rory, Ella, Yuki, and Nani. The first 3 are dealing with a new school year and the death of their best friend, Ari. Everyone says it was a suicide, but Ella, Rory, and Yuki know that can’t be true. Nani is the new girl and at Grimrose for her own reasons but gets involved with the search for Ari’s death.

After finding out that there were deaths at the school that doesn’t add up, they realize that there is so much more to Ari’s death than they could have ever come up with. The four girls uncover the truth of what’s really been going on in the academy, a curse that has to be broken for the deaths to stop. And it seems that one of them is next on the list.

I enjoyed reading this book and had fun trying to figure out which character went with which fairytale. It was dark at times, but not too dark, and a good creepy read for the season. I will definitely be reading the sequel and am excited to see what happens next!!

If you like fairytale retellings that have a creep factor to them, I recommend this book. I gave it ⭐️⭐️⭐️💫

I completely forgot to review this, I was just so taken in by the story that I didn't want to leave Grimrose when it ended. I had a little reading slump after it.

This book is a great new take on fairytales and giving them a much needed refreshing voice. Also who doesn't love a private boarding school with dark twisted fairytales and a possible sinister murderer? Or at least, something sinister is at work.

The characters are likable and realistic and despite my favorite fairytale character being the first to go (before the story even really starts!) I ended up loving the best friends.

I can't 'wait for book two. Thanks so much to the publisher for an earc of this in exchange for my honest opinion.

The Grimrose Girls was not what I expected it to be at all, The best way i can describe this book is as a boarding school murder mystery, fill with drama, curses and a lot of fairy-tale twists both Disney and Grimm Tales.

While this book was good, I was never fully immersed into the story and found myself going back and rereading parts just to make better sense of it, I'm not sure if this was because of the multiple POV's with small chapters and a lot of jumping back and forth or the fact that I was reading this book at the wrong time. The Grimrose Girls is a slow start with the action picking up around 40-50% in and that is where we fully start diving into the once upon a time + pretty little liars realm.

If you enjoy the boarding school/high school murder mysteries and fairy-tales I do say give this a shot, I will most likely reread this down the line when/if the sequel comes out.

Thank you to NetGalley & Sourcebooks Fire for the Earc.

Thank you so much, NetGalley and Sourcebooks Fire, for the chance to read and review this book in exchange of an honest review.

TW: murder, emotional and physical abuse, chronic pain

When their best friend Ariane dies, everyone is convinced she killed herself, but Ella, Yuki and Rory refuse to believe that and they are determined to find out what really happened, above all when they discover a mysterious book and note among Ariane's things. When Nani Eszes arrives as their new roomate, the four girls start to investigate and retrace Ariane's final days, until they discover a dark secret surrounding their boarding school: Ariane's death wasn't the first. They soon learn a connection between these deaths and ancient fairytales curses and how their fates are connected to them too. To stop others from dying, they will do anything they can.

The Grimrose girls is a brilliant and unique fairytales retelling, with a wonderful and complex queer female cast, a murder investigation, a boarding school mystery and so much more. Ella, Yuki, Rory and Nani are four reimagined fairytale heroines, the story is told by their POVs and they are intricate and well rounded, each of them with their pasts, traumas, desires, hopes and dreams.
Ella, determined to help anyone, but with an abusive situation at home, Yuki, willing to protect her friends, but struggling to be herself, Rory, fighting with chronic pain, her parents' desires and her own and Nani, trying to understand where she can fit and what happened to her father. Their own personal stories and struggles intertwine with their determined investigation to understand what exactly happened to Ariane, questioning the school's past and its deaths (ruled as accidents now and in the past), secret passageway, curses and fairytales, crushes and new and old friends. The characterization is fantastic, each character is complex and skillfully written, layered and realistic and their interactions are genuine, relatable, with their fights, banters and flirts.
The setting is fascinating, a boarding school in Switzerland, an elite school, a nearby picturesque small town, balls and intrigues.
The murder investigation, the fairytale curses intrigued me right away and I was so invested in this story, full of twists, each POV intriguing and captivating, because I really loved every single character. The characters are female, except for Frederick and there's a lovely queer rep, there are aro, ace, demi, lesbian, trans and bi characters.

I loved how the author dealt with complex themes, like emotional and physical abuse, chronic pain, grief, writing relatable and wonderful characters, impossible not to love, in this empowering and feminist retelling. I can't wait to know more about the curse and these characters!

This was a dark, twisty retelling of classic fairytales with a hyper-focus on the women who feature in those tales. There was an elegant weaving of horror, fantasy and LGBTQ+ representation. The gruesome murders and connecting of their current world with the fairytales was entertaining and I was wondering who was going to be the next murdered fairytale character. I also loved that lesser-known fairytales were woven in and mentioned so that it wasn't just the big stories.

That being said, this book fell flat and only served as a set up for the next book. I wasn't engaged enough to find out who the bad-guy was, and once we got to midway point, I was focused on the stepmother headmistress and one of the girls our main four protagonists interact with. Lo- and behold I was right, but I still didn't feel satisfied at the end of the book.

I kept forgetting that Grimrose was not just a girl's school since we rarely came in contact with any of the boys aside for two. Also, what happened to Nani's motivation and questions of where her dad went? You don't really just get over that mystery even if you find friends and a little bit of adventure. I felt like the plot point got lost - and really wasn't necessary in the long run since halfway through the book it practically disappears from the narrative.

Overall, the story was one that passed the time, and I did enjoy a lot of elements of the storytelling (the murder, horror, old academy, repeating murders, mystery spanning decades, etc.). But it fell flat in development of the magic powers that pop up, the background stories were a bit too vague in some cases, and the build to climax was just too slow. The school and the public didn't care about the deaths, and the consistency of that made me as the reader not really care.

I'll keep an eye out for the next book, but I'm not running out to pick it up the second it gets released. Loved the cover!

an INCREDIBLE fantasy, i absolutely LOVED this one! I’ve recommend this to so so many people and i can’t wait to see others reading this beauty. it is so amazing and beautiful and unique.

This is the book of my Ever After High dreams.
I loved the way fairy tales were woven into this story. I am always up for a mystery set in a boarding school and I never think it's an overdone trope, but I can see how other people might get bored of it eventually. This book takes that trope and adds in such cool and creative elements, giving a really cool refresh to my favourite trope.
Mysteries are my favourite, and this one doesn't disappoint. I like the focus on the characters, and the way that Ariane is more than just the dead girl because of how much her death impacts the others. I like the characters, but honestly the fairy tale angle and the boarding school setting were the best parts of the book.
I am definitely excited to read the second book!