The plot really intrigued me and I loved the fact that it was by an Indo-Chinese author and the main character was also and it was rich in the culture - the food references really reminded me to try it.

Looking back on it - I am not the target audience for this book. I really did not like the main character and the narration just didn't do it for me - it was too over the top.

I can see that this would be great for certain people but not for me.

I was given an advance copy by netgalley and the publishers but the review is entirely my own.

Wow what a ride. Although the author was heavy handed on the hints to the ending, and I figured it out pretty quickly, it still was a thrilling and exciting story to read. I had anxiety the entire time! Content warning for bullying, drug and alcohol abuse, overdosing, apparent suicide, family trauma, classism, racism, some gore.

I read the audiobook of The New Girl by Jesse Q. Sutanto courtesy of NetGalley. Voice actor Eunice Wong did an EXCELLENT job reading this book! For an adult narrating a lot of angst-teenage inner monologue, I was very impressed with how she delivered with a seemingly perfect level of inflection and variation: enough to make it feel like a teen, not too much for it to feel cheesy or fake.

Overall, The New Girl is a mediocre YA thriller. It feels like 20 books of plot fit into a single novel, which means character development greatly suffers and none of the plot points are fully realized. I think a lot of teens will enjoy the non-stop, soap-opera level of drama, but I don't think it will be any reader's favorite thriller.

Lia, the new girl at Drayton just can’t catch a break. Everytime it looks she may take a win, she’s knocked down again. Over and over with all the twists and turns, the reader doesn’t know who Liq can trust.

The students and teachers at Drayton are ruthless. The socioecomonic hierarchy and the Asian racism amongst the Asian community is the driving factor of the story, and Sutanto does not disappoint to portray it realistically throughout.

The narrator does a wonderful job inciting a visceral reaction from the listener with Sutanto’s words and characters.

Thoroughly enjoyed.

This story takes place at an elite boarding school which is one of my favorite settings. It’s a suspenseful mystery that sucks you in and keeps you guessing.
The narrator is excellent and I will be looking for other books by the same narrator. My library has already purchased the book but I will recommend we also purchase the audiobook.

I thought this was a great YA book, (I am a little too old for this sort of thing, but allow me to indulge!) It gave me strong Riverdale/ Pretty Little Liars vibes, so if you like those I'm sure you will like this.

The book kept me entertained throughout and I empathised with the main character Lia and her turmoils, there are also some great twists and turns. I really enjoyed the insight into indo-chinese dynamics too.

In the context of YA and the style the book is going for I would give it 4/5

Our protagonist Lia Setiawan won a track scholarship to Draycott Academy a prestigious private boarding school in California.
Although Lia is excited, she knows that ‘the new girl’ just may not be welcomed with her affluent classmates.
On her first day at Draycott as she is touring the campus, she witnesses a female student being dragged away by campus security. She see classmates rushing only they aren’t there to help but to video and laugh at the situation.
She soon finds that the other athletics on the track team seem to be threatened by not speed and not really pleased with their new team member. She discovers that there are many secrets at Draycott including an on-line gossip app called ‘Draycott Dirt, DD’. Lia soon finds she is a target and is being bullied.
She does have one friend at Draycott ~ Danny a cute guy who is also Indonesian.

I know I am not target audience for this story. However, as a high school Guidance Counselor, I always enjoy a good YA that I can share with my students. Since my school is a public high school with a large Asian population, I was sure it would be interesting and fun to read a story about a boarding school. However, I was disappointed as this seemed to follow a typical YA formula ~ Drugs/Drinking, a lot of profanity, negative teacher, and bullying/cyber stalking. There was not a lot of sex which is usually included in the typical YA formula.
There is a mystery part to this story that has a twist

Want to thank NetGalley and Tantor Audio ~ for this audio eGalley. This file has been made available to me before publication in an early form for an honest professional review.
Publishing Release Date scheduled for February 1, 2022.

There was so much more to this story than I thought there was going to be. I was hesitant to even pick it up because I wasn't a fan of Dial A for Aunties, thinking it was overdone and almost slapsticky in its presentation. This was very different from that book. While the Asian backgrounds are still there, this story had more meat to it. I enjoyed the glimpse into high school athletics and the inner workings of a fancy private school. I didn't necessarily connect with any of the super rich characters but I do understand the setting. The story was fast paced and kept me interested the whole way. The narration felt a little overdone, at times, but it fit well in context to the drama on the page.

The story of the new girl was a YA thriller-esque novel focused on Lia, a track superstar who was granted a full ride to a prestigious school in California. Her arrival at the school definitely shook things up, as it meant that the school's "Queen Bee" was moved out of the varsity rotation...until Lia started failing a class, and wasn't allowed to compete..

Turns out she was failing because she didn't have the $ to pay off a corrupt teacher for her grades. It all goes downhill from there.

I thought this book had great potential. I listened to it as an ARC audiobook, narrated by Eunice Wong. I think the narration style may have impacted my thoughts of the novel - as i mentioned, it is a YA novvel, however it was hard to picture the narrator as a 16 year old. I also found that it was an extremely dramatic read throughout the entire novel, regardless of the level of incidents that were occurring.

The New Girl was a bit of what I would call "crazy town". There was so much happening here!

Lia is off to boarding school for the first time on a track scholarship, and starting at her arrival things get shady. Before the story ends, we have two murders, drug rings, overdoses, bribing scandals, hacking, bullying, sabotage, and more! This was definitely no slow-burn suspense, but the end was a little bit predictable. Lia kept flying into Hulk-style rages that she was unable to navigate. I think this book would definitely appeal to teens and even middle-grade, although the drug use may leave some book selectors determining this to be inappropriate for middle-grade. It was a fast-paced page-turner with interesting characters,

I liked the audio narration, but the narrator sounded a little bit mature for kids of the age in the story. But she did a great job animating the characters.

**please note due to low rating I will not be leaving a public review for this book as I have not paid for it.**

I'm not sure if it was the writing that was over the top, or if it was the narrator that took it to the next level. Either way this didn't work for me. Thanks for allowing me to give it a good.

The New Girl is a funny, sometimes tense, YA thriller. Lia gets a track scholarship to the famous Draycott academy it isn't till she arrives that she finds out just how out of place she may be. While I enjoyed the setting and diversity all the characters were very self absorbed and caddy. So many red flags for Lia right from the beginning.

Thank you netgalley and the publisher for the chance to read this digital arc. All opinions are my own.

Thank you to the publishers, author and NetGalley for the free copy of this audiobook.

I like this one, but not as much as I wanted to. Good amount of intrigue, mostly interesting characters, but it fell a little flat for me. Narrator did a good job, this just didn't hold me attention that much.

The New Girl is definitely a fun and campy ride for fans of Gossip Girl and Pretty Little Liars. Similar vibes of over privileged kids with too much money and not enough boundaries. Lia is the new kid on campus who is from a poorer background on scholarship and soon becomes the target of a vicious gossip while catching the eye of the resident dreamboat. The twists were fun even though some were easily guessed. Eunice Wong narrators the audiobook and while she did a great job setting the mood and pace of the story, her voice sounded older than a teenager’s, which Lia is. When she did the voices of the other teens they sounded more age appropriate but for Lia she sounded much older than her age. This threw me off and kept taking me out of the story. Other than that the audiobook was an satisfying and enjoyable experience. Looking forward to reading the physical copy when it comes out!

The New Girl was very well written. I can't wait to read more from Jesse Q. Sutanto. This books keeps you holding on wanting to read more to find out what happens next. It takes you along twists and turn and things you won't see coming. It navigates the world that most people don't think about but keeping it entertaining.

Perfect mystery thriller. The MC is defined and judged by her race and economic standing which is always so sad to read about. She is known as a track star and because of her grades are falling she tries to seek help but is caught in a really nasty and deadly problem.

This book threw me into a lot of different emotions and had me feeling so bad for the MC and hating a lot of different people but for the right reason.

I really enjoyed Jesse Q Sutanto's adult novel so I was excited to see what she would bring to a YA novel.

The story is about Lia who wins a prestigious scholarship to a private school. Craziness starts as soon as she steps on the grounds of the school and it never stops. It's insane how much happens in this novel the crazy plot points are relentless. Corrupt teachers, cheating scandals, drug dealers, private jets/yachts - I've never been to a private school for rich kids, but I can definitely believe that this is the type of stuff that happens at one.

The story starts at 100 and doesn't let up the entire time. It was a lot and I was really hoping for more character development so that there was a reason to cheer for the students. In the end the story is fast paced, but left me wanting a bit more. I could definitely see this be developed as a TV series on Netflix/Peacock and doing well because people always want to see how the 1% live.

I enjoyed this book more than its sequel ‘the obsession’. We get to see some of the characters that play more of a role in the next book. The narrator for this audiobook did an excellent job, I kept coming back to hear more. The narrator truly made this book much better of a reading experience.
I see quite a lot of similarities between our main character Lea in this book and Delilah in the next. They’re both unafraid to fight for what they want. I loved the side characters more though.
Plot wise I won’t say much, I think I would have gotten bored if I was reading it instead of listening to it. I sort of already knew how the book would end, the plot twists for me personally weren’t gasp worthy.
Overall, this audiobook made me convert myself to an audiobook listener now.
Thank you to NetGalley an publishers for providing me with this free audio arc in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an audio copy to listen to and review.

Do you enjoy books that seem like they were written in hopes of being a movie or TV series? If so this is the book for you. It wasn't the book for me. Take Riverdale, make them mostly rich, and have even less adult supervision and more drugs. There was a lot going on but I do wish more time was spent writing some scenes - actual description rather than just comparisons to other things (the school lobby looks like something from Harry Potter).

"I received a complimentary copy of this book through NetGalley. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own."
The narrator was competent, but wasn't my taste. The actual book was ok, It felt overly dramatic and at times it felt like that was the point, like how much drama can we pile in. It was a k-pop, high school soap opera. Some of the dynamics and racism issues brought forth were thought provoking, but it could have been explored deeper instead of all the side plots.