Absolutely stunning. The next great dark academia craze. The pure joy I felt at following these teenage women rebelling, loving, living, and dying. Virginia and Laura's relationship is purely fascinating and all the characters are technicolour in their pure vibrancy. I cannot get enough.

Oh, this book stabbed me repeatedly in the memories of my own adolescence, when I too was a young woman searching for transcendence and meaning, and ran headlong instead into immovable orthodoxy. My situation was different, however, from the teenagers’ at the heart of this book. Where I gradually fell away from tradition, repulsed by a dogma that in practice enforced injustice and misery, the young choristers of St Dunstan’s Academy instead hold more tightly to the beliefs that grant them exclusivity, under the wild-eyed leadership and control of the impossibly beautiful, austere Virginia Strauss.

It’s into this rarefied circle that sixteen year-old Laura Stearns steps, a transfer student to the very school where her idol, Spencer Webster, set his masterpiece before running away to fight and die in the Spanish Civil War. Webster’s sole novel, All Before Them, is one of those books that appeals to the young idealist searching, like its protagonist Robert Lawrence, for <i>the shipwreck of the soul</i> that will galvanize them into righteous action. The vast majority of sensible people will, of course, have little time for such nonsense. But silly, sensitive Laura finds kindred spirits in Virginia and the boys of the chapel choir, as well as beauty in their Evensong:

QUOTE
They sing it together: <i>My soul doth magnify the Lord</i>, Laura’s deep voice and Virginia’s light one. The strangeness comes over Laura once again: how two different melodies can become at once single and disparate, something that overflows, as if there is too much of itself for a single note to bear. They go on to <i>And my spirit hath rejoiced in God the savior</i>; then, Laura is no longer Laura, but only a vessel for whatever overflowing thing is passing through her, and the sound is both hers and not hers, and she is and is not part of it, and Virginia’s hair smells like candle wax, and Laura thinks, This, this is the sound Robert Lawrence heard; this is the thing that could shipwreck your soul, if you only let it[.]
END QUOTE

Soon, Virginia is molding Laura into the kind of serious person she herself strives to be, someone who forsakes sleep and food in pursuit of academic and spiritual perfection. Never mind that many of their fellow students, led by the charismatic Isobel Zhao, think them weird and snobby and stuck in the past with its outdated, autocratic traditions. The beauty of choral song and Webster’s legacy bind the choristers together as deeply as the vows of any secret society would, even in the face of their peers’ hostility.

But when the new choirmaster, Reverend Lloyd Tipton, begins to push back against Virginia’s iron grip, citing his pastoral responsibilities to the community as a whole, a spark is ignited that will quickly engulf the whole school. Students take sides as the conflict escalates, to the point where even Laura begins to second guess the motives of the girl she admires and loves so dearly. Her decision to stand up for herself, however, falters in the face of Virginia’s unexpected reaction to her defiance:

QUOTE
Whatever resistance she’d planned wavers. She had expected Virginia cruel, Virginia righteous, Virginia exultant and terrible, her face as hideously triumphant as it had been in those few, horrible moments outside the Wayfarer.

“This is why I need you.”

“Me?”

“God, you’re so good, Stearns.” Virginia’s voice breaks. “You’re sweet, and you’re kind, and just love people, even when they don’t deserve it, and you stop me from being–God–whatever I am.” She closes her eyes. She nods. “Yes, you’d have stopped me. I know you’d have stopped me. I’d have <i>let</i> you stop me.”

Laura tells herself this is true.
END QUOTE

But what will Laura tell herself when not even Virginia’s instinctive ability to manipulate the choristers can keep them all together? As the two girls grow ever closer in the face of opposition, what lengths will each of them go to when threatened with a broken heart or, worse, a mortified soul?

This exquisitely modern examination of the adolescent need to give oneself over to beauty and certainty, heedless of reality or consequences, is one of the best boarding school crime novels I’ve ever read! The World Cannot Give is also transcendent in its treatment of the beauty of choral singing, reminding me of my own school days in that and in the shifting loyalties and sudden heartbreaks of its painfully realistic depiction of troubled, yearning teens. I greatly enjoyed Tara Isabella Burton’s previous book Social Creature, and find the continued riff on toxic female friendships here even more relatable than I did there. Laura, unlike Social Creature’s Louisa, is motivated less by an ordinary desperation than by an existential hunger for romance and meaning. Both protagonists, however, serve as cautionary tales against reckless desire and the folly of unfettered self-absorption.

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC of this book. This book was definitely engrossing, but also VERY intense. Which makes sense, as it's written from the perspective of a teenager. I came to feel a bit annoyed by the repeating and overwrought language, but not enough to stop reading. The ending was a pretty big surprise, and definitely good for anyone who is a fan of the boarding school dramas.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the eARC in exchange for an honest review! All thoughts and opinions are my own.

There were so many things I liked about this dark academia novel. It features religious fanaticism, realistic depictions of teenage drama and obsession with celebrities (like Sebastian Webster), and so many queer characters. At times, the prose flowed beautifully, and reading this felt like a descent, perhaps from heaven to hell. I loved the comparison in ideology between Bonnie, Isobel, and Virginia, and even though there were a few references to modern pop culture, I don't think they dated the novel. Timelessness is one of my favorite aspects of so many dark academia stories, and these references didn't take that quality away at all.

I do have some criticisms of the novel. Although I did like the prose in some occasions, it was inconsistent and sometimes felt repetitive, with certain parts even seeming a bit too far-fetched (Laura's sudden success with running, parts of the ending, etc.). I also felt that some of the side characters were underdeveloped, and wish we could have learned about their backstories in order to better understand their motivations. Despite all this, I did really enjoy the read and would recommend to anyone who loves stories with dark academia, queer longing, and critiques of intense religious fanaticism. I am excited to see what Tara Isabella Burton writes next!

Laura Stearns is completely obsessed with Byronic writer Sebastian Webster, so much so that she decides to attend the religious boarding school where he is buried. There she meets a fanatical girl named Virginia who shares her same love of the writer, and she finds herself caught up in Virginia’s grand dreams of starting their own cult.

The World Cannot Give by Tara Isabella Burton is a coming-of-age dark academia about obsession, religious fervor, and repressed queer desire.

From its synopsis, I wanted to love this book so much and the beginning started off so strong. The prose is so gorgeously wrought and Laura’s religious zealously initially felt so vivid and believable to me.

However, once Laura joins Virginia's clique, the story meanders and loses focus—devolving into petty relationship drama between dull side characters.

I also took issue with Virginia's own character. She feels undeveloped and unconvincing to me. She lacks the charisma to be a cult leader. She mostly parrots a few lines of Webster’s over and over again. We don’t get her background or her motivations beyond the surface level—like how she went from being Jewish to going to a Catholic boarding school and wanting to start her own cult. This is a shame since she is the crutch of the story, and yet, she fails at it.

Lastly, the shocking ending felt more like a whimper then a bang. I had hoped for religious horror and a cathartic end, and yet, because it was so poorly set up and horrendously rushed, it lacked the emotional impact it could have had.

All around, the book had so much potential, and yet the characters and the plot ultimately feel half-baked and incohesive to me.

Oh I just adored this. An incredibly effective, wonderfully told coming-of-age story about obsession and faith. Burton gets under the skin of her characters completely and even though the plot can be on the melodramatic side, I believed totally in everything that happened. I did not want to leave the world of St. Dunstan's behind. I can't praise this novel enough and will be enthusiastically recommending it far and wide, to readers of all ages.

Based on its description, The World Cannot Give sounded exactly up my alley – dark academia? Queer main characters? Insular boarding-school choir? Yes, please! But in reality, I'm a little on the fence about this book, as my rating suggests. It's ambitious, and some parts of it were well done, but others fell a little flat for me.

Let's start with the good. The plot was well-constructed; the progression of events felt like it divided, almost, into "episodes", while maintaining a clear linear structure; the episodes coalesce clearly into the final climax of the book, and the setup was clear. Laura's characterization, and the changes she underwent through the course of events, was also well-done.

On the other hand, I felt like the characters – other than Laura and, to a lesser degree, Virginia – were relatively flat. The choir boys, Bonnie, Freddy, Isobel and Miranda, were all either one-note or almost indistinguishable from one another. Part of that may have been the limited third-person perspective – Laura's interest in people other than Virginia was minimal – but I didn't catch even much in the way of hinting at better-faceted characters, which I'd normally hope for, and which felt essential, given the plot events. Additionally, several threads within the book felt a little "throwaway", and the final climax felt largely outside of credibility to me.

I'll also note, in general, that though this is being marketed as new adult, it felt a little more YA to me; which is, of course, neither good nor bad, just helpful information.

Overall: you might like this if you like queer YA dark academia and don't mind a little suspension of disbelief, but it wasn't quite my cup of tea, in the end.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an e-ARC of this book, in exchange for my honest review!

I have a weakness for dark academia novels, though they only work for me roughly half the time. In recent years I’ve read books in this subgenre that have become lifetime favorites, and those that left me so disappointed it veered into anger. More than one of these disappointments came through books I requested via NetGalley, and yet I keep trying. Books like The World Cannot Give are why. I was almost as enamored by it as I was by Tartt’s The Secret History and Hopen’s The Orchard, both of which I absolutely adore.

I’ve read dark academia novels set around groups of classics students, but never around a choir. The addition of music as an important element of the novel evoked in me a taste of that joy Laura pursues so fervently. As did the religiosity early on in the novel. I think the last book I read with this level of spiritual depth was The Orchard by David Hopen. (Which I highly recommend, by the way.) It was fascinating watching as these students changed, for better or worse, and how those changes impacted their passions. And it was devastating to watch everything fall apart, even though I was expecting it.

Laura, our perspective character, is a girl completely infatuated with big emotions and anything that can produce them. She yearns for nothing more than a “shipwreck of the soul,” as defined by Samuel Webster, the writer of her favorite novel. When her family finally agrees to let her attend St. Durstan’s, the alma mater of her aforementioned favorite novelist who died at the tender age of nineteen, Laura is ecstatic. On campus she attends her first mandatory Evensong service and is immediately overwhelmed by the beauty of the music. After a few rocky attempts, Laura manages to introduce herself to Virginia, the lone girl in the choir and its unequivocal leader. Laura is immediately transfixed and gives Virginia every ounce of loyalty and devotion within her, which over the course of the novel seems like a nearly bottomless well. Laura finds herself becoming the second female member of the choir, an entrenched part of their select and secretive group, and loving every minute of it.

I loved the addition of Bonnie as someone who was obsessed with the dark academia aesthetic without having any understanding of depths it could hide. She serves as a brilliant counterpoint to Laura’s shy but wholehearted embracing of those depths, which itself serves as a brilliant counterpoint to Virginia’s fierce, fiery devotion and personality that either entrances or more often repels with no middle ground. Virginia has another counterpart in Isobel and her relentless tirade against God and tradition. Their personalities are similar in their surety of their own rightness and their willingness to stand for that belief no matter what it might cost them. I found Virginia endlessly fascinating, with her Crusader mentality and her firm belief in her own unerring rightness and her unusual, repellant charisma. There were even points later in the novel where she reminded me of Jay Gatsby as she grew more jaded.

These characters have such wild, larger-than-life plans but are so easily bogged down and distracted by the minutia of their everyday campus lives. Not to say that adults are any better about keeping our eyes on whatever prize we set before ourselves instead of getting lost in our routines. But Virginia and her cadre of choir boys and Laura all yearn to be World-Historical, a term coined by Samuel Webster, their hero and idol, in his one and only novel, All Before Them. Being a World-Historical person requires living with intentionality instead of floating through life, and seeking to do great things even when those things are difficult and painful and possibly fatal, if they mean changing the world in some way. These are big aspirations for teens, put before them by another teen who lived out what he preached by dying young for a cause he believed in. If that cause happen to be on the wrong side of history and morality, does that even matter when compared to his fervor? Virginia and Laura and the boys don’t think so.

Burton’s writing is excellent. I’m usually slightly weirded out by novels told in present tense, but it worked really well here. I felt like some hidden, parasitic secondary awareness within Laura’s mind, experiencing her life with her while also seeing some things she in her naivety didn’t catch. The discussions of religion and music came from a different worldview than my own, and thus gave me a lot of food for thought even as I disagreed with them, especially the religious views. What’s even more interesting to me is that Burton herself holds a doctorate in theology and, while this is only her second novel, she has been widely published in the academic and journalism worlds. I could feel some of that prior writing here, as every single facet of this book, every scene and diatribe, felt incredibly necessary to the story. No words were wasted, while at the same time never feeling terse. I was also impressed by the fact that, after reading this book, I have no idea what Burton’s personal beliefs are. It would have been so easy for her to use a story so religious in natural as a pulpit, but she never did. I did not once feel as if she were preaching or trying to draw opinions toward any specific beliefs or tenets.

The World Cannot Give is a deeply thoughtful addition to the dark academia subgenre. It does unsurprisingly go to some dark places, so be aware of that going in. But I found it insightful without proselytizing, raw without veering into emotional manipulation. The World Cannot Give is a well-balanced novel that I’ll be contemplating for a long time.

I see myself in Laura Stearns. She is hopelessly romantic and obsessed to the point of religion with her favorite author, whose book she has partially memorized and read fifteen times. She is desperate to be a part of something greater than herself — even if it means standing at the edge of the room, a bit separated from the action, watching it all play out.

Tara Isabella Burton’s second novel, The World Cannot Give, is an exploration of obsession, of wanting something so badly that you feel you will die without it. At first, Laura’s devotion rests on her favorite novel: its author, who died at age 19, wrote the book at the prep school Laura is newly attending (solely because of its connection to him). Her fixation changes to Virginia Strauss, the beautiful and commanding president of the school’s tiny choir. The thing that draws Laura to her initially is music, but she soon discovers Virginia’s mania and conviction extend to her entire life, the kind of intensity Laura craves. In the end, this is a novel about Laura’s feelings for Virginia, and watching this dynamic — watching her internal state unfold — is where the best parts lie.

If one has that same perpetual longing for something, Laura feels very familiar. She is waiting for art, larger-than-life, to “happen” to her (the term she uses, from the fictional novel she loves, is “a shipwreck of the soul”) and is constantly aware of its presence in her periphery. She wants to get closer, happy even to watch it happen to someone else, to absorb it all. Virginia, it seems, is the person that it does happen to. Spurred by Virginia’s conviction, Laura seeks what Burton rightfully calls transcendence, to go beyond the banalities of human life and witness or belong to something truly meaningful. She is willing to do anything in her search for it: among several insane things Laura does or almost does (blood pacts, bullying, cliff-diving) she even attempts to read Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit cold, which is certainly the most terrifying.

Claims of religious zealotry as a theme seem overblown. Yes, Virginia is a Christian, and takes her faith seriously and literally; as the story moves, though, it becomes apparent that religion is only one piece of the puzzle here. Virginia’s worldview seems more influenced by a misplaced sense of romanticism and her oft-noted obsession with moral realism than Christianity specifically. In one scene where Laura and Virginia go on a run at five in the morning, they reflect on how difficult it is, how they could be leading different and much more comfortable lives. This feeling — and their conclusion, that they would rather not live any other way — is the same one I found during my undergraduate degree, dragging my fatigued body out of the piano practice rooms close to midnight, ready to squeeze in five or six hours of sleep before doing the entire thing again. If Virginia is religious, her religion is devotion, discipline, more than anything else.

The writing is inconsistent. There are moments of profundity and beautiful use of language to be found here, for sure; there is also a fair amount of repetitive imagery and a few cases where the writing was awkward enough to distract me. Several supporting characters feel blurry, lacking in definition. Some major plot points fall flat and don’t seem to have the intended effect. A dramatic turn in towards the middle of the book, which seems set up to feel like a massive blow, feels hollow. The climax, on the other hand, is jarring to the point of disbelief: it happens so fast and with such madcap intensity that it feels like the ending of the book must take place in a dream rather than reality. In its extremity or delivery, it doesn’t feel completely congruous with the material that preceded it.

And yet: this book has heart. For me, the depth is found in Burton’s examination of Laura, her poor understanding of herself, her desire to reshape her life around Virginia’s whims. Passages about Laura’s yearning — she does a fair amount of yearning — tended to be my favorite ones. Laura is enraptured by her, completely intoxicated by the force of Virginia’s presence, charisma, and beauty.

It is no coincidence that the love Laura has for art and the love she has for Virginia are so closely intertwined that, to Laura herself, they are almost indistinguishable. Laura’s discovery of her own feelings are told breathlessly and compellingly. Virginia may not be terribly sympathetic, but it wasn’t difficult at all for me to understand Laura’s preoccupation with her. Laura’s easy forgiveness of Virginia for various misdeeds may frustrate some; to me, it’s just a reflection of the way we are with the people we love. Burton’s depiction of Laura’s insistent, hopeless, misguided love for Virginia — her tenderness towards this polarizing, electric person — is kind and genuine.

The World Cannot Give is easy to get lost in. Or maybe I’m just sympathetic to a portrait of a character who, like me, cries too easily at irreconcilable beauty of art and music.

Thank you to Simon & Schuster and NetGalley for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Laura is quiet and cries easily and is obsessed with a book written by a man who died young. She goes to the boarding school he went to in hopes that her life will finally start. Instead, she meets Virginia Strauss. The publisher's description calls this a "shocking meditation on the power, and danger, of wanting more from the world." And honestly, I think it works.

Maybe it works because I have always loved books where the characters do not really act like real people or talk like real people or think like real people. They focus too narrowly on ideas of transcendence and the meaning of life and do things that no one would actually do. But I love these narrow, focused narratives -- especially when they're at boarding schools. And while the characters are high schoolers, I think this reads more like the "dark academia" staples of "The Secret History" and "If We Were Villains" (the prose isn't as strong, but Tartt is hard to beat there). It's needlessly emotional and dramatic, but it's also cutting and cynical and doesn't mess around.

It's not an overly queer story or too shocking -- though the final climax is intense, it's just part of the formula you come to expect from these stories. But lots of it was familiar in the problems you have as a teenager that don't go away as an adult: what does it mean, how do we make a mark, why don't other people take the same things seriously, when will it feel like we've grown up, what happens when we follow the wrong people, what happens when we realize we're followers and not leaders?

So, it worked for me. While it was ridiculous at times (no one can run eight miles that easily, honestly) it was honest enough in others for me to be thinking about it after I finished.

4 stars.

Like Tara Isabella Burton’s wonderful debut Social Creature, The World Cannot Give is a story about obsession – how it’s an endless vista unfolding and then, eventually, a prison. It’s also a story about faith, and transcendence, and how easy it is to locate the numinous in someone or something you love, and how dangerous that can be.. The World Cannot Give is a rare breed of dark academia: one centered on the female experience and even more surprisingly, taking place in high school. However, this is definitely adult fiction, not YA. A wonderful sophomore effort!

*Special thanks to Simon & Schuster and NetGalley for the early copy of this e-arc.*

Tara Isabella Burton's The World Cannot Give is a story of teenage obsession, the most pretentious kids you'll ever meet, violence, the search for meaning in identity, religious zeal, moral battlefields, and lust. The vibes - immaculate. Jennifer's Body meets Dead Poets Society? Maybe that's not fully accurate, but it's definitely *not* The Girls meets Fight Club. I don't know who came up with that one.

We follow Laura, who transfers to St. Dunstan's Academy because she's wrapped her entire worldview around this one author who went there and the one book he wrote before he died at 19. (Him dying at 19 is such a big deal in this story, I feel like it's worth mentioning because they will beat you over the head with it.) She quickly meets Virginia, who leads this elite church choir that consists of just her and five boys who are all obsessed with her for their own reasons, I guess. Laura joins the choir, befriends Virginia, chaos ensues, et cetera, et cetera.

This was an exciting story. It was a quick read. I'd sit down and zoom through 100 pages without even realizing it. The story was dark and pretentious, but engaging and easy to read. The characters were bizarre, the setting was really strong, and I fully bought and understood all their backwards motivations and reactions to the world around them. This book is a great example of a story that could only be told by teenagers, without the story itself feeling juvenile.

I will say, I wanted more from it, particularly through the lens of the characters, or at least Laura. I felt like I was being held at arms length a lot of the time from all of them. With characters like Virginia, I could see it being intentional since we're reading from Laura's POV, but when it came to Laura and everyone else around her, I never fully felt like I *got them.* Had we had more scenes about Laura's background, more explanation of her and her life before or after certain events, this might have felt more well rounded.

This was really enjoyable, and I'll definitely read more from Burton in the future. However, it felt all too brief, a little distant, and I'm not sure how much I'll remember it going forward unfortunately.

Thank you Simon & Schuster and NetGalley for an e-arc!

a haunting tale of religion, power, desire, and longing to be someone worth remembering.

i went into this book not knowing what to expect; i was pleasantly surprised. for a book leaning heavily on christian imagery and ritual, it has a wonderfully diverse cast of characters including a lesbian anarchist punk, a jewish girl who wants to be baptized, a scorned influencer, and a girl who’s just along for the ride. where “the secret history” lost me, this book completely ensnared my attention; perhaps this is the queer “the secret history” that i’ve been looking for. i look forward to revisiting this book in audio format.

thank you to netgalley and simon & schuster for an e-arc in exchange for an honest review.

I initially requested this book due to the comparisons of the Secret History and Fight Club, both of which are novels I love. I think this book does satisfy a craving for fans of The Secret History, though the prose is nowhere near that of Donna Tartt. I don't really understand the comparison to Fight Club, unless it simply means a new cult classic for a female base.

I did like the ingredients this novel put together: queerness, obsession, academia, religion. But overall, I thought the execution well a bit flat. I enjoyed the writing style though it wasn't always perfect, and the storytelling was overall decent. I think the marketing for this novel largely just set me up for failure. Thank you to the publishers & Netgalley for the ARC! 3.5 stars.

4.25 stars / This review will be posted on goodreads.com today.


High school can be hard. Especially when you’re empathic, which it seems Laura must be. Laura feels things so deeply. So when she reads a book written by Sebastian Weber, she becomes obsessed with his life and writing. Laura convinces her parents to allow her to attend the private boarding school that Weber attended. In fact, Weber is interred under the chapel on campus.

At her first Evensong (Friday night chapel,) Laura sees Virginia singing and suddenly, Laura has a new obsession. Virginia befriends Laura, and suddenly Laura is doing things she never imagined. Laura becomes a part of the school choir - which is limited to Virginia and five boys prior to Laura’s admittance. Laura starts running with Virginia. Essentially, Laura becomes Virginia’s constant companion and supporter.

But Virginia isn’t what Laura thinks she is. Most of the school realizes this, but in her obsession, Laura can’t see past her own love for Virginia. Laura loves being a part of the inner sanctum of Virginia’s group of choir boys. Laura will do anything for Virginia. Anything. Whether she feels conflict about it or not. To what ends will Laura go to win Virginia’s love?

Some of the hardest years of our lives are in high school when we’re trying to find ourselves. Burton writes this novel with a complete understanding of being the outcast, being the one always wishing she had an inner circle. There is always someone willing to take advantage of those people, and Burton has written a character in Virginia that is more than willing to exploit a friendship for her own gain.

This novel really touches on a lot of the struggles teens face - sexuality, friendship, self-esteem, substance abuse. It also shows us what happens when someone is made to face her own imperfections.

Very well written and riveting, I would definitely recommend this book.

Thank you to Netgalley, the publisher and the author, for an ARC of this book, in exchange for an honest review.
The synopsis of this book sounded intriguing to me so I requested a copy to read.
Unfortunately, I have tried reading this book on 2 separate occasions and during this 2nd attempt, I have
decided to stop reading this book
and state that this book just wasn't for me.
I wish the author, publisher and all those promoting the book much success and connections with the right readers.

I really wanted to like this book because it has everything I would typically love—an academia setting, a choir, a religious element, LGBTQIA+ rep, it’s dark—but oh, man. I…don’t know how I feel about The World Cannot Give. I enjoyed it and also didn’t like it at all? The characters felt under-developed, as did the setting. The writing was fine, not great. A comparison to Donna Tartt is extreme flattery. Perhaps if I were 18 I would have enjoyed this more? I just—it feels half-baked. It’s a bit predictable, the tone of the writing is kind of all over the place, I didn’t really like the characters. It had so much potential but unfortunately just didn’t live up to it. I enjoyed the premise and what it could have been—and was, at isolated moments—very much. But on the whole, not for me.

My thanks to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for an advance review copy.

We meet Laura as she’s on her way across the country to St. Dunstan’s, a storied New England boarding school.

Laura was drawn to the school because of her obsession with a book by Sebastian Webster, a student who attended almost 100 years ago.

At St. Dunstan’s, Laura finds kindred spirits in the members of the school choir. Virginia and the boys become her new obsession, until one tragic night changes everything.

The story portrays the kind of passionate obsession that only seems to happen when you’re a teenager. It’s a reminder that sometimes the desire to belong can blind you to the importance of questioning your idols, of knowing yourself.

The book does an excellent job of creating complex characters, with shifting motivations. No one is perfect, but they are perfect in their imperfections. The descriptions of the Maine coast make me feel like I’m standing on one of those rocky cliffs.

Check out this book if you want to revisit the dark intensity of teenage friendships and love.

From the very first page, I was hooked. A naive outsider entering the world of a prestigious and mythologized boarding school and getting indoctrinated into a choir-cult who worships its sex and food deprived leader? I'm so in, from start to finish.
BUT-- there was a lot of confusion here for me, mostly with the marketing of this book.
First-- comparing this to Fight Club? ...I'm sorry, what? There's precisely nothing about this book that reminded me of Fight Club. Palahniuk's writing style is SO specific, and this is written in coherent language that follows conventional grammar and syntax. There's also not much in the way of physical abuse here, and there's nothing in Burton's novel that sniffs of dissociative identity disorder or schizophrenia. So I don't get that comparison AT ALL. If anything, I'd say this is more of a The Secret History rip off (and I mean that in the nicest way possible).
Second-- is this meant to be YA/NA, or nah? Because if it is YA, then it's a 4 from me. If it's meant to be literary fiction, then I'd be much more harsh on the writing, story, and characters. This is firmly in the soapy-sexy world of Cruel Intentions, Riverdale, and The Society.
Third-- when do we get to see the film adaptation, because I'm ready.

While I can't say the book quite lived up to its potential (the characters are a bit one-note and I would've found it more compelling if we'd gotten to dive into Virginia's religious beliefs more as well as the hero worship of Webster and the detrimental effects this has on Virginia and Laura), I really enjoyed it throughout.

"The World Cannot Give" is a rare breed of dark academia: one centered on the female experience and even more surprisingly taking place in high school. I've read a bunch of so-called "high school" dark academia, and they rarely stick the landing. So often characters in high school dark academia works are pretentious and positioned for maximum admiration, as they shun their social media accounts and drink old fashioneds. It's impossible to believe that they're supposed to be fifteen. Tara Isabella Burton brings equally pretentious, two-faced teens in "The World Cannot Give", but lends them a credibility and a tentative, fragile persona; these teens are trying on faces when they quote Proust and profess to love whiskey. They haven't figured themselves out yet.

And so I loved "The World Cannot Give". I predict it'll be a controversial one. True, main character Laura Stearns is as frustrating as she is relatable: she's malleable, dramatic, and easily misled; more than a few times she's tricked by the eloquent and dynamic Virginia Strauss in such obvious ways that had me screeching at her to open her eyes. Virginia, the object of Laura's fascination and affection, is a horrible yet tender creature. I hated Virginia, even as I was intrigued by her.

And, joy of all joys, this one's actually sapphic.

If you enjoy tales of friend groups going to extremes to feel alive, romantic poetry, and descriptions of the cold North East, if you wish that The Secret History used women as more than set dressing... might I recommend The World Cannot Give?