This book is so intricately written - even if it at first feels somewhat familiar, it changes as the book progresses. and there are a number of unexpected moments throughout. I do not want to give away spoilers - but it is a fascinating view on literature, obsession, youth, desire, friendships, and so much more. It is akin to a book like The Secret History, but the differences make it all the more delightful.

4.5 stars.

Thank you to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for the chance to read this book!

It's hard to review this brilliant book without oversharing. I have been Laura -- the virginal young idealist, in love with dead writers and afraid of live relationships that would show me my own queerness. And I have been Virginia -- using high-church snobbery and orthodoxy to protect myself from a callous world, and hurting a lot of feelings in the process. Like them, when I was a Christian, my faith was in the church, its archaic dignity and orderly beauty, more than in God or Jesus. What's so perfect about the tone of "The World Cannot Give" is Burton's respect and compassion for these young people's longing for transcendence, even as she casts a mature skeptical eye on their actions.

Virginia and her clique are not wrong to perceive their peers' sexual and social relationships as largely demeaning and empty. The author makes us see, as the characters do not, that it's possible to disdain the game AND be jealous of someone who plays it better than you. But no one in this story is merely a figure of mockery, not even Laura's roommate Bonnie, who is already a paid "influencer" and has a sidekick filming her at all times for her Instagram feed. Bonnie's selfhood is almost wholly mediated by pre-existing models and imagined audiences, and at the same time, her feelings are achingly real and her kindness is genuine.

We come to realize that this duality is true for all the characters, even the dead novelist Sebastian Webster, who rushed off to die in the Spanish Civil War (on the wrong side) because he got too caught up in the myth he was weaving about heroic doomed youth. Social media didn't create this aspect of human nature, though it amplifies it in ridiculous and dangerous ways.

The spiritual heart of "The World Cannot Give" is Laura's slow realization that people can't be divided into holy and profane camps. The same person can create your most powerful experience of joy and betray you in the most vulgar way, and both experiences were real.

Laura Stearns from a suburb of Las Vegas yearns for a World-Historical life, in the manner of Sebastian Oliver Webster who authored Laura's favorite book, <em>All Before Them</em>. Webster attended St. Dunstan's, a New England boarding school, and now Laura is headed there as well, for her junior year of high school. She's an emotional person, but passive, rather than passionate. She finds St. Dunstan's church choir, especially its leader Virginia Strauss, transcendent, and eventually takes a place among them. Virginia and the choir are Laura's whole world.

If you think that sounds like a recipe for disaster, you're right. The World Cannot Give is a Literary read, with a lot of messed up white people (including a hot priest). I embraced the artistry of Burton's writing most of the way through, but found the ending a little too too. It's not bad, I just didn't quite get there. I feel like there's something I didn't connect to that more sophisticated readers would pick up.

Thanks, NetGalley for the digital ARC!

The Goodreads description for The World Cannot Give is a pretty solid summary of the story, though the comparison to books like The Girls or Fight Club is all wrong. Much more obvious, and more accurate, comparisons would be to The Secret History or a darker version of A Separate Peace. But the closest comparison I can think of is not to a novel at all, but to the 1980s cult movie classic, Heathers. Laura Sterns (Veronica) transfers to a new school dominated by a girl everyone fears/wants to be/wants to be with, Virginia Strauss (Veronica Chandler), and her clique, the school choir (the Heathers collectively). Laura falls under Virginia’s spell, due to their shared obsession with a novel and its tragic author. Laura begins to do things she would not normally do, and soon events spiral out of control, placing several characters in mortal danger.

The World Cannot Give largely works because of passionate intensity of the characters. Virginia’s obsession with doing something important with her life, with being “World-Historical” in the face of this “sclerotic modern world.” Rebellious Isobel and Miranda. Sweet, vapid Bonnie. The love-hate relationship the other students and choir members have for Virginia. And most of all, Laura, who is desperate to experience “a shipwreck of the soul,” and whose confusion about her 16-year-old feelings for Virginia is perfectly believable. They are all just so very.

But the story of The World Cannot Give will not be for everyone. While the first half feels like a familiar tale, the back half takes several progressively darker turns. I rather liked those twists, though I have to admit that I didn’t love the final few pages, even if the ending made sense. And I found Laura’s failure to fully understand what was happening harder and harder to believe as things progressed. Still, overall I enjoyed this dark tale of high school obsession. Recommended.

propulsive and haunting. i absolutely adored this book and loved the time i was able to spend in laura's head. she's not exactly a thrilling protagonist — quite fretful and passive and highly strung — but i loved getting to see all her thoughts and becoming enmeshed in her obsession with virginia and the choir. the relationship between her and virginia is the most fascinating part of this book; i loved all the obsession and repression and cultishness and the religious and spiritual undercurrents and the eventual turning of all this religiosity on its head in a way that i won't spoil but i thought was quite a punch to the gut and very well-done. really good, quite liked this one

“The World Cannot Give” by Tara Isabella Burton is a thriller and coming of age novel set at a prestigious Maine prep school. Laura Stearns transfers to St. Dunstan’s Academy and immediately falls under the spell of Virginia Strauss and her cult of choir boys. The book is an intriguing read and I enjoyed it. I felt like the ending wrapped up a bit too quickly, but all in all, I liked it.
Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the ARC.

3.5 Stars

This was a strange book. I never really knew where it was going or what the author was trying to say/do with the plot, but it was interesting nonetheless.

CW: disordered eating, manipulative behavior, toxic friendships, attempted SA

Normally I try to leave at least medium-length reviews for ARCs because I want to be thorough, but I think this is just one of those books that needs to be experienced. There’s nothing I can tell you that the published teaser won’t that could prepare you for, or help you better enjoy this book. The style of writing really puts you in the mindset of the MC, Laura, and I couldn’t help but occasionally suspend my own moral judgments in the face of Laura’s ardent belief in Virginia and Webster.

An amazing book that falls more on the spectrum of psychologically horrifying than gruesomely so. 5 stars!

The Secret History, but now with more religion and queerness!

I couldn't put this book down.

Everyone in the story made me uncomfortable and yet I needed to know what happened to them! I swear I highlighted half the book in quotes.

Picture Heathers and Single White Female but at an exclusive reclusive prep school where choir is a cult.

That's all I'm saying 😏

The World Cannot Give is rich with characters who are insufferable in a very textured, true-to-life way, especially for high schoolers. Virginia is dark, brooding, obsessed with religion and transcendence, and she's also a deeply terrible person. Protagonist Laura, like pretty much everyone else in the book, is obsessed with her to the point that it's frustrating to read -- you just want to shake them all. Against the backdrop of an almost cultlike choir in a New England boarding school, the characters' bad traits have room to expand into something much more sinister. I found this book to be really well-written and enjoyable.

”There is no such thing, not really, as a shipwreck of the soul, except the ones when you drown…”

On paper, I love all of the themes that this book tries to address (traditionalism versus progress; dry religious rituals versus true spiritual awakenings) and the underlying vibes of dark academia, Gossip Girl-esque private school scandal, and desire.

But in execution, this one was a bit of a miss for me. I guess I’m too old, at 32, to relate to a bunch of prep school teenagers and their childhood dreams, passions, and obsessions. What feels “transcendent” to the 15- and 16-year-olds of a fictional boarding school feels incredibly frivolous to me.

I couldn’t really connect with any of the characters. Their strange obsessions with each other and their fanatical behavior just felt implausible, and it made the whole tone of the book come off as emotionally turbulent and a little childish.

I think teen/YA audiences will find it more relatable and will appreciate it more than I did. There are good things here too, like the conversation-sparking themes and the deep soul-searching elements. I think I’m just a bit outside the target audience on this one!

——

A huge thank you to Tara Isabella Burton, Simon & Schuster, and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review!

Thanks Netgalley for allowing me to read this book. Laura is excited about going to a new school and meeting new friends. She meets Virginia who introduces her to her little clique. Virginia likes control and pushing the envelope at times. I liked 5his book but it dragged in a few places.

This was a one-day read about obsession. Laura is a new student at a posh college in Maine where she hopes her life will parallel that of her favorite author, an alumnus of the school, who died at age 19 fighting in the Spanish Cuvuk War. She soon finds what she has been looking for in the leader of the school chapel choir, Virginia, an unlikable, conceited girl who very few people like. But Laura worships her and does whatever she asks of her. The story spirals into madness, and the ending left me breathless. Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for this look at religious fervor and obsession.

I admit to almost passing this book by, being put off by the New Adult label attached to it, the young ages of its characters. Yes, I’m one of those adults who thinks one should read age-appropriate books and YA or NA fiction isn’t it. But then again, this book gathered way too much praise to just casually ignore. There was something about it…
Lo and behold, this is that precious unicorn of an adult-appropriate book featuring teenage characters. In fact, in retrospect, this story would have only worked with young characters – the kind of magnificent obsession that drives it simply doesn’t sustain itself after a certain age, out there in a real world. But in an isolated prep school of precociously well-educated well-to-do children, it works perfectly.
And so, the book follows its protagonist, a naïve romantic girl who comes from Nevada to coastal Maine to a school she had always dreamed about, a school her romantic ideal, a Byronesque young writer named Webster had attended a century ago before promptly shoving off to get killed in a war, fighting on Franco’s side of all things. The modern day might perceive Webster as a fascist sympathizer and a raving fool, enough for the statue-toppling contingent, certainly, but for our main character he is perfection. She soon finds like-minded individuals in the school’s choir, led by the wildly charismatic ascetic Virginia.
Now, there’s a character. A daughter of an upper middle class Jewish family, Virginia has reinvented herself as a passionate Catholic and dedicated herself to becoming World-Historical. That phrase appears throughout the book with alarming frequency. The choir kids are positively obsessed with it. It’s only logical that their generation, fed on the mothers’ milk of specialness, would make that leap. It might even be perceived as noble, this desire to become a properly significant person, to change the world, but here it manifests as toxic. A toxic character driver that makes each and every kid into their worst selves.
Our protagonist finds herself completely under Virginia’s spell, first love and obsession all rolled into one with an intensity that only friendships of youth can support. She follows Virginia to the increasingly darker places, until the situation becomes unsustainable and then she becomes the unwitting witness to Virginia’s madness’ manifestation.
There’s a magnificent hypnotic quality to this novel, it’s difficult to put down, it drags you in and holds you tight, like a strange dream, almost. The intensity of the story is sustained perfectly throughout. The characters in their increasingly unhinged states, the situation at its increasingly precarious and dangerous acts. If this was indeed a performance of a choir, you’d marvel at the way they sustain their high notes.
This is a definition perfect coming-of-age story in that it describes exactly the moment a person grows up – the moment they abandon their romantic ideals and see the world for what it really is. The devastating disappointment of it all. The courage to live with it.
And so, you see, this sort of story can only work with a young cast - it doesn’t need the characters to be mature, doesn’t even need them to be conventionally likable. Rest assured it isn’t YA. Or even NA. There’s nothing dumbed down about this story. It is about youth, it's all about youth, about that certain brazenness of of asking of the world what the world cannot give. It’s a clever, emotionally potent rollercoaster of obsession and absolutely mesmerizing in its narrative engagement. Wow, indeed. Recommended. Thanks Netgalley.

The World Cannot Give by Tara Isabella Burton starts as a slow burn, coming of age, dark academia read. However, as the story picks up, which it does quickly, you see how Laura decides to fit in and make some big decisions. Let's just say the slow burn turns into a thriller! This was a different read for me but I was pleasantly surprised!

When I was in undergrad and we were learning about gnosticism, a friend and I got wine drunk and laid on the floor and tried to get our spirits to fly above our bodies so we could exist outside of our physical forms. It didn't work. But what I'm getting at here is that when you're young and vulnerable and open to possibility, the idea of transcendence is a powerful drug. That's what this novel is about. That, and the dangers of misplaced devotion. And longing. And sex, sort of, despite how much our main characters proclaim that sex is boring. While the idea of a book about a girl desperate to join a prep school choir might sound like a yawn, Tara Isabella Burton is pure magic. Just wait. You'll be listening to choral music in no time and having dreams about crypts.

This moody, fast-paced, totally boarding-school-genre-fiction-terrific novel doesn't have the punch of Burton's SOCIAL CREATURE, but is a very fun ride. While some of the twists were predictable, others surprised. I would have loved slightly more depth (the novel touches on lots of complex conversations on "cancel culture," revenge porn, and a LOT of religious themes) it was enjoyable. Will continue to seek our Burton's books!

From the first page, I knew this was it for me. Maybe it was the serendipity of talking with a friend about her performance in evensong only to immediately open to a chapter in which Laura, our protagonist, has an astonishing experience with evensong (something I'd previously thought was quite obscure and archaic, and have never attended). My sapphic dark academia goblin brain has been desperate to compare this book to others I've loved--Catherine House, A Lesson in Vengeance, Plain Bad Heroines, somehow the TV show Midnight Mass--but it stands entirely on its own. The appeal to transcendentalism and capital-R-Romanticism and the deft handling of religion, both its power and fervor, set The World Cannot Give apart. I've got a new favorite, and I'm stoked.

THE WORLD CANNOT GIVE is a wonderful (and frightening) dive into the mind of teenagers. Laura is thrilled to be attending the boarding school that her favorite author attended in his youth. Laura is looking to be shaped and molded by the school, to have experiences so profound they will create a "shipwreck of the soul." When she falls in with a crowd that worships the author as she does, she thinks she has found her place. But there are deeper things at work at the school. Laura eventually have to decide whether to be a zealot or to think for herself. Just an excellent read.

I love the sub-genre Dark Academia and was very excited to receive this book.
The book is a bit of a slow burn at first. Laura starts as a new junior at a prestigious Maine boarding school where she quickly begins to worship the chapel choir. Her yearning from a far is realized when the enigmatic Virginia invites her into her world of the cult-like choir and obsessive worship of a past theologian. The book quickly picks up pace and the last half is a thriller of backstabbing teen events as Laura begins to question how far she will go to fit in.
The ending seems abrupt but I still enjoyed the ride! If you like coming of age, dark academia, books like the Secret History then this is the novel for you!