“The Grimrose Girls” is the latest in a very exclusive literature series affectionately known as “I actually think I wrote this” books.

I mean, this premise, though:

The latest in a series of chilling murders at an elite academy leaves four friends wondering if they are being hunted by a dangerous, and perhaps magic, force.

Oh, and each one just might be an unknowing fairytale princess.

Yeah. This story somehow exists outside of my own head.

And if this sinister stalking is somewhat clunky and light on meaningful character development, it certainly makes up for that shortcoming with plenty of suspense and slaughter.

I also appreciated the diversity of these characters, especially the positive LGBT representation.

But I am hopeful that the discussions of gender and identity are more innate in the forthcoming sequel.

Will this YA horror novel win any substantial literary prizes? Doubtful. But it was a riot nonetheless.

This book was a DNF for me. There was something about the characters that just didn't connect with me.

With the new year upon them, a group of friends gather back at their boarding school. One of them dies and it is up to the others to find out why. The police think it was an accident but the friends do not. With the help of the new girl, these friends set out to see what is going on.
Opinion
This series show promise. There are a lot of laid out clues for you to pick up on as you read. The story flows well with short(ish) chapters to keep you interested. Each chapter focuses on a different girl than the last, rotating through the group of friends over and over again. This helps to get insight into the mystery and to pick up clues. This will be a great read for any young mystery lover.
Many thanks to Net Galley for providing me with an ARC of this book.

The Grimrose girls is the perfect blend of Pretty Little Liars and Grimms fairy tales, blending the magical with the mundane and adding a good old murder mystery into the mix.

After the sudden death of their best friend, Ella, Yuki and Rory are at a loss. Ari was the glue that held them together and without her it would be easy to fall apart, but there is one thing keeping them from completely falling apart. They don't believe Ari's death was an accident. The arrival of a new student sets into motion a chain of events that change the friends lives, and fates forever. As they delve deeper and deeper into Ari's death, they learn things about the school, previous students and about themselves, things that show them a dark and gruesome fate. They will have to fight their destinies if they are to make it out alive, and make sure no other students face Ari's fate.

Grimrose Girls is told from 4 perspectives; Ella, Yuki, Rory and Nani, all students at Grimrose academy. As you can guess from the description, all the characters are linked in some way to a Grimm fairy tale, although I won't tell you who is who. They each stand out as a POV, with their own unique voices and stories which slowly come out through the book leaving you little breadcrumbs as to what fairy tale each character fits in to. Pohl uses her characters to explore some dark and gritty topics, and managing to weave in the fairy tale elements whilst also writing incredibly real and fleshed out characters was something special. With this being set at a boarding school we also get introduced to a wide cast of diverse and entertaining side characters, all of which further the story in some way.

I quickly found myself engrossed in the story line, as well as invested in the outcome of the characters. Pohl perfectly blends the magical with the mundane, and with the addition of the mystery of what exactly happened to Ari, as well as what is currently happening at the school I found it hard to put this book down. The setting of the book also added an extra creepy factor to the story, an isolated boarding school that's in an old castle. It's definitely dark in places and a little gruesome, but this just added to the overall atmosphere for me, and made working out the mystery that much more intense an experience. There are plenty of plot twists thrown in for good measure, some you can see coming such as which fairy tale our characters fit into, but others that seemed to come out of nowhere and ensured I stayed glued to the pages.

I do feel like the pacing was slightly off. The first 25% was a little slow, and I felt like the ending was rushed, but I'm still incredibly excited to see where the story will go in book two. Pohl ends this book on a sort of cliffhanger, with a little bit of the mystery being solved, but still manages to leave us wanting more. I need to know that my faves will get their disney style happy endings and not the dark ones promised to them from the Grimm tales. Overall it was a slightly dark but fast paced read, filled with well crafted characters and a brilliant mystery style story line interwoven with magical elements.

What an awesome take on fairy tales! The characters were vibrant and bold, and I adore their individual journeys. I am really excited to see where the author goes in this next book.

Cool, cool, cool! What a great cast of absolutely diverse-in-every-way characters! I was constantly trying to figure out which characters lined up with which fairy tales, and because they were so full of personality, it was a blast!

You have most archetypes here, but they really fit into the story and played well off of each other. When these girls have secrets, they're huge. And when they fight, they fight. Friendship can be hard and this book doesn't shy away from the complexities of those relationships and how different goals can create friction.

Finally, this book is so gay and I loved it. I think there was a line where someone just looked around the room and was like, "None of us are heterosexual," which is just so much closer to my real-life experiences...

I was not a fan of this book. I didn't post it to my Goodreads account, because I didn't want my rating to bring the author overall rating down in any way. I can tell a lot of thought was put into the plot, but the characters didn't support the good plot. They were boring. The writing did not take me there to the school, and it was difficult to follow the descriptions.

I loved how this brought fairy tales and brother’s Grimm into the 21st century. I enjoyed the character development and the short chapters.

I love fairy tale retellings, and The Grimrose Girls did not disappoint. It is set in an elite boarding school, where our protagonists discover that they are all part of different fairy tales (and not the versions with happy endings) when their friend passes away and it is ruled a suicide. I enjoyed following along as they worked to find the truth and learn about their own stories along the way. I'm excited to see where the story goes next.

An uncanny school. Four best friends. A murder. The Grimrose Girls is a dark fairytale retelling and urban fantasy. I loved the concept of this book. It has a creepy, mysterious undertone and a great dark academia aesthetic/atmosphere that I loved so much.
The pacing was ok but the characters felt a little flat for me.
Overall, I enjoyed this and I’m looking forward to reading the next book in the series.
Thank you to Laura Pohl, Sourcebooks Fire and NetGalley for sending me an ARC in exchange for an honest review!

This was such a great read. I loved the fast pace of the story and the setting was so well done. What really kept me enthralled though were the characters. They were well written and even the more minor characters were really intriguing. The cast of characters was also really diverse and I appreciated that there were a few conflicts this added to the story that felt very natural. It also really added to the boarding school aspect of the book, even with all the magic and curse related plot points there were still some very normal school problems the girls faced. I am really looking forward to the next book.

Modern day novel with a fairy tale premise. I felt like a lot of basic information about the main characters was to be inferred and kind of off. And the ending was definitely abrupt - WAY too abrupt.

I really enjoyed this book. It was well paced and the characters were fully formed. I would enjoy reading other work by this author in the future.

I loved the concept of this one. Four best friends, one is murdered, dark fairy tales reimagined and an elite school has everything I love, however the ending fell a little flat for me. With that being said I am invested enough to read a sequel.
.
Thank you #Netgalley and #sourcebooks for an advanced copy.

The Grimrose Girls follows the lives of four young women enrolled at an elite boarding school. The book begins with the news that one of their friends has committed suicide. The story centers around their quest to solve the mystery of their friend’s death and the strange book she left behind.

It took a few hours of reading this book before I was truly hooked. Once the theme became apparent, I was totally reeled in. I won’t discuss the theme here, because I don’t want to spoil the surprise for other readers, but it’s a really fun concept.

I had some difficulty following the characters, as each chapter was told from a different character’s point of view. Most of the main characters had unique four-letter names, and I was often confusing them as the points of view jumped from character to character.

Overall this was a really good book, and I was shocked when it suddenly ended. I hope there will be a sequel, because I want to find out what happens to the Grimrose Girls!

Dark academia, but make it hella queer? UM YES PLZ.

It's been more than a month since I read it and there are still moments when I think of scenes that happened in The Grimrose Girls. That means a lot coming from someone who has a shite memory and forgets everything that happens in a book the moment she finishes it. Anyways, TGG has one of the most interesting concepts I have ever had the pleasure of reading. I went into it knowing absolutely nothing other than it's queer dark academia and as I was reading through the first few chapters I thought to myself ''huh, it would be so cool if [my theory] was the plot.'' And said theory actually came true and I was not disappointed.

So, I loved the premise, but I *also* think this would've been top notch as a thriller/mystery without any fantasy elements, which I originally thought the situation was ngl. Just imagine: the murderer being so obsessed with classic fairytales with their original gruesome endings that they want to recreate them on real people. Now that's a thriller I'd love to read. Anyways, it wasn't until 60%ish that mentioned fantasy elements really started to have a play in the story and I was honestly just confused and was left with so many questions and it annoys me to no end that I have to wait for another year to get the answers in the sequel.

4.5 stars

Introduction

In this fairytale retelling, teenagers are dying at the prestigious Grimrose Academy, and friends Yuki, Rory, Ella, and newcomer Nani need to get to the bottom of it before whatever is coming for their fellow classmates, comes for them next.

Characters

I liked all the characters, but it times, it felt like their personalities fell a little flat. It felt like while this is not a middle grade novel, that the characters and their personalities were pulled from a middle grade novel and dropped in a young adult storyline.

Plot

I really enjoyed the plot. Pretty much all fairytale retellings hold a special place in my bookworm heart, and this story isn't an exception. The only gripe that I really had was Nani's original plotline about her father seemed completely forgotten by the second half of the book. A lot of her drive came from wanting to know about what her father had been doing and once that disappeared, it was hard for me to care about her as an individual character rather than just as part of the core group.

Pacing

For the first half of the book, the plot and it's pace was moving very slowly. There were a lot of points where nothing was really going on and those parts were very hard to read passed. The saving grace is that it definitely picks up in the second half, and reading through the slower parts is 100% worth it.

Conclusion

As I said, dark fairytale retellings hold a special place in my heart and that statement includes this book. Overall I really liked the story and I'm looking forward to the future books in the series.

My university dissertation was based around fairytales so I absolutely jumped at the chance to be able to review this book straight from the mention of ancient fairytale curses. The Grimrose Girls is a fast-paced adventure set in a highly prestigious boarding school; it gave me all of the dark academia vibes and its links to some of the more ancient, classic fairytales gave this story a powerfully dark and gripping atmosphere.

For me, the best thing I loved about The Grimrose Girls was that Laura Pohl sort to showcase the original fairytale stories in all of their dark, twisted glory and break the glass slipper mould of 'Disney-fied Happy Endings'. From The Little Mermaid and Snow White to Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty, the ancient curses connecting this group of characters revealed the origins of these stories in their most brutal forms. It was quite a refreshing take on a genre which I love so much.

The characters themselves were each intriguing in their individual ways. I had so much fun working out which fairytale fate each character was destined to take up, some were slightly more obvious than others. Through Yuki, Ella, Rory and Nani, we are given a range of identities and representations to connect to. Be it parental expectations, grief, sexual identity or just working out who the hell you're supposed to be whilst growing up - there were plenty of cultural and lifestyle character facets here to bring about diversity amongst this group of girls. It was interesting to see the range of emotions each one went through as they dealt with the death of a friend and sought to reforge and re-establish their fractured friendships. Even though the setting isn't actually a single-sex girls' school and there a couple of male characters in the story, sometimes the catty dialogue and humorous interactions between the girls sent my mind right back to my own education at an all-girls' school!

I have to admit, I wasn't totally aware that this book was going to be a series when I first started reading so the cliffhanger ending right at the end was abrupt in the best possible way. Although one or two mysteries get solved within the final pages, there's still so much more to come from this fantastic plot. I'm already eagerly awaiting the sequel as it feels like these girls are just getting started on their epic fairytale-debunking quest!

Why Should I Read This?
For the representation of original fairytales in all their twisted, brutal glory.
For a diverse range of fierce female characters who bond together to overcome an ancient evil.
For the dark academia vibes of The Grimrose Académie setting.

[Review to be posted on blog on: 03/11/21

This started off so good and I was so excited to read this, but after awhile it got to be a chore to read because nothing was happening. I got about 60% into it before anything really started to happen plot wise but by then I just didn't care enough to continue. I enjoyed the idea of a modern day fairy tale retelling story, especially having the heroines of each fairy tale being the victim of a mysterious murder, but lack of action and movement of the plot so far into the book just made me not want to finish.

The characters themselves seemed very one dimensional as well. Rory's the angry one, Ella's the kind one, Yuki is the perfect one, and then there's the other one. The author definitely tried to give them defining characteristics but it wasn't, in my opinion, written well enough to really distinguish themselves. The chapters were so short and we switched POV's each time a new chapter began that we really never got to sink deep into a POV to experience each character's individuality Had the chapters been longer or the POV's stayed the same for a chapter or two together, I feel like it would have distinguished each person a little better. .

I do have to give the author credit because she made the characters very inclusive when it came to gender, sexuality, physical ableness, and mental health. We had someone with OCD and anxiety, someone with anger issues, Fibromyalgia rep, a pansexual, a lesbian, a transgender girl, an asexual girl, and I believe a bisexual girl. The inclusivity was chef's kiss but the lack of momentum and forward moving plot just ruined it for me.

Laura Pohl’s The Grimrose Girls was initially described as Pretty Little Liars meets Once Upon a Time, which is actually pretty accurate and more likely than not to draw in a lot of curious fans. But to be honest, though I liked both of those properties quite a bit, the comparison actually does Pohl’s book a disservice – The Grimrose Girls is a page-turning thriller that’s much more than it initially appears to be.

Yes, it’s a fairytale retelling, sort of. And yes, it’s a teen-focused murder mystery in which a group of girls must survive a deadly killer. Again, sort of. But Pohl deftly combines both into something that feels fresh and new – and nothing like you’d expect.

The Grimrose Girls follows the story of Ella, Yuki, and Rory, three friends at the prestigious Grimrose Académie for Elite Students in the Swiss Alps. The fourth member of their friend group, the vibrant, red-haired Ariane, died under mysterious circumstances just as their senior year began. While the school is convinced her death by drowning was a suicide, her friends aren’t so sure, And their discovery of a strange fairytale book among Ariane’s belongings hints at something darker – and a much older pattern may be at work.

The novel is effortlessly diverse, featuring major characters of multiple races, ethnicities, sexualities, and gender identities. There are both queer and heterosexual romances and one of the main group identifies as asexual. Other characters struggle with a variety of health and disability issues, from anxiety to chronic pain. And, perhaps most importantly, the friendship between our core group of girls feels lived-in and genuine, the sort of relationships that maybe you’re only ever able to form at this point in your life, when you’re learning – and accepting – the people you’ll become, together.