Heartbreaking, in the best kind of way. Facing hard topics head on, while remaining respectful and letting good women get their vengeance. Gorgeous dark academia setting, with so much good dialogue and story. Absolutely a new favorite.

“Sade Hussein was used to being lied to.”
Here are reasons to read the YA Mystery book:

Boarding School - Sade was on her way to a boarding school, complete with buildings named after famous scientists
Orphan - after being recently Orphaned, she is not sure she will fit in here especially since she is a month late into the year
Mean Girls - and the beginning of this books starts out like Mean Girls, complete with a duo of friends who explains all the different social groups to Sade in the cafeteria at lunch
Roommate - but this story takes a turn when Sade’s roommate Elizabeth goes missing right after her arrival

After reading Ace of Spades by this author, I was very excited to see what new twisty goodness this book would have. First, check the triggers as the subject matter of this book is very sensitive, but I won’t discuss that because it could give the plot away. My issue with this book, as much as I devoured it, was that the main character is not observant and not a detective. She is put in this role but most of the time doesn’t ask the questions you would have in these situations. And since the book is over 400 pages, I really wanted it to move faster than it did, and for Sade to make smarter choices. Still, I did enjoy it.

I loved Ace of Spades and was excited to get to read Àbíke-Íyímídé’s latest. I think I expected more suspense, and that may have had to do with the pacing of the book, which moves quite slowly. This allows the reader time to get to know the Sade and her classmates much more thoroughly and really get invested in figuring out the answers to all the secrets that are being kept and who’s behind it all.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read and review this advance copy!

I loved Ace of Spades so I was of course very excited for this and it did not disappoint.

What starts as a delicious dark academia twist on Mean Girls (complete with an expertly crafted lunch room scene), spirals even darker as the first weeks at a new boarding school unravel for our main character Sade. She's only just arrived when her new roommate goes missing, the 'Unholy Trinity' takes her under their wing, and mysterious packages keep arriving in her dorm room.

As Faridah says on the first page, "this book is about survival.' Sade is my new favorite less-than-reliable narrator and the slow reveal of what's going on behind the scenes was beautifully done in a way that made my skin crawl with disgust and rage.

There is a simple yet lovely sapphic romantic subplot that is a very slow burn but felt throughout the book.

This was a very tough read emotionally! I was prepared but it was still hard. Take care of yourselves and read the content warnings (online or on the copyright page).

Thanks to Macmillan and Feiwel & Friends for the e-arc.

This was such a powerful coming of age story mixed with a mystery. Faridah wrote a great "letter" at the beginning of the book talking about how she wanted to blend contemporary fiction, coming of age and mystery/suspense in one story, and Where Sleeping Girls Lie totally hits all of those points.

Sade begins attending Alfred Nobel Academy, and shortly after arriving there, her roommate goes missing. This confirms her belief that everyone around her gets hurt, and as she tries to figure out what happened to her roommate, she is pulled toward other students at the school, including the Unholy Trinity, and almost Mean Girls style girl group with peak popularity at ANA. As her relationships deepen, the secrets behind her roommate's disappearance emerge, and Sade questions the beliefs about herself that she's created.

It's important to not expect thriller pacing with this book, but if you enjoy settling in with carefully curated characters, the coming of age journey that comes with being in high school, an insidious mystery and sapphic characters, you will absolutely adore Where Sleeping Girls Lie.

I absolutely loved this thriller! It gives me Harry Potter meets Legacies and a little bit of the new Wednesday show. I love the writing style of Faridah and it was so easy to read I didn't want to put it down. I want a friend like Baz! I would def recommend this to anyone who loves a good boarding school thriller, with some LGBTQ themes, and twists and turns. What caught my eye initially was the cover, it pulls you in and makes you want to know who this girl is! I want to read Ace of Spades now that I have read this one.

There so much more to this book than meets the eye and I’m so happy I read it. What started off as a mystery of a missing girl turns into a really complex and nuanced look at classism, sexism and racism. I thought Sade was a really intriguing character and I enjoyed being inside her head. I loved her friendship with Baz so much. I loved the boarding school setting and the atmospheric feel it had. My only complaint was that the pacing was a little strange. The disappearance happens pretty fast and then for the majority of the middle, it’s a lot of slower paced set up and Sade getting to know the other students. Which, I do think is important to the story, but I think it could have been condensed a bit to make the story progress a bit quicker in the middle. However, around 60 some percent, the story gets going and GET READY. This story will infuriate you at times and it’s supposed to. This definitely won’t be my last book by Àbíké-Ìyìmìdè.

TW: animal death, rape, sexual assault, violence, suicide, sexism, classism

Thank you to NetGalley and Feiwel and Friends for an advanced digital reader’s copy in exchange for an honest review.

It might be that I'm looking for something more unique in the dark academia/mystery/thriller scene for YA right now and the plot taking place at a boarding school with a dead body and mean girls seems a bit ho-hum right now. And that was how I ended up reading most of the book having picked it up and put it down on too many occasions for me to fly through it because I devoured the story and characters.

This, likely coupled with the fact that I didn't love Ace of Spades might also mean there's a bit of Abike-Iyimide's writing or approach that doesn't suit me (similar to my continued attempts at AS King and MT Anderson which are more fails than wins).

Alas, I will keep trying, but this one wasn't it. But I will certainly push it in my library because I know their value and worth! Popularity over my specific love for it.

Where Sleeping Girls Lie is a powerful novel about the frustration of injustice surrounding sexual assault.

Surrounded by loss, Sade enrolls in a boarding school after years of homeschool. Her first day there, her roommate Elizabeth disappears, and Sade finds herself entrenched in a mystery while trying to navigate the social hierarchy where dangerous secrets lurk.

I love YA thrillers, and this is a really good addition to the category. Sade's frustration with the school administration is palpable and for good reason. Though the Sapphic relationship was hinted at early on, it still felt like it came out of left field when it finally happened. I liked that all the loose ends were tied up nicely, and the ending was realistic. There are graphic depictions of grief, sexual assault, and suicide, so take care reading.

Thanks so much to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read and review!

Ace of Spades was such a riveting debut that the author was basically competing against herself. Where Sleeping Girls Lie is a great follow-up to her first novel. Set in a boarding school, there are twists and turns around every corner as the protagonist deals with her own issues and the drama she may have brought to the school. The majority of the book is spent on a whodunit scenario, and the payoff was well worth it.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an e-ARC of this book!

I was so excited to read this book after loving Ace of Spades, but unfortunately, this one missed the mark for me. When reading and reviewing YA books, I try to read them through the lens of the teen readers in my classroom and my first thought with this book was that 99% of them would put it down due to the slow pacing. Despite the fact that a character disappears early on, not a lot happens until almost 70% into the book. I was invested enough in the mystery to keep going, but the ending/message didn't offer anything that has not been done in other books.

Sade is starting at a boarding school part of the way through her third year. After her first day, her roommate, Elizabeth, goes missing. Some clues lead her to believe that she didn't leave of her own accord.

Sadly, this book did not work for me at all. First of all, it did not earn over 400 pages. Easily, this book could have been 100 pages shorter. I also felt like there was too much going on? Like by the time I got to the point where the plot was picking up (67% of the way through), I just didn't care. I don't think that some of the personal motivations for bringing justice needed to be included.

Overall, this book was too slow and by the time I got to the 67% mark, I just didn't care.

I was a huge fan of ACE OF SPADES so I was deeply excited to hear about this book when it was announced, and it completely lived up to my expectations while still surprising me along the way. Even as I tried to guess where the book would go, there were still twists and turns that caught me by surprise, and that were fun even as some heavier content was dealt with in the last third of the book (which I sped through because I couldn’t stop trying to figure out what was happening). The characters were so interesting and for the most part ended up being complex, some even leaving me with slightly unanswered questions at the end of the book. I almost wish we’d gotten more time to explore everything at the end of the book, but I was satisfied (mostly) to see how everything ended up, and I would recommend this book wholeheartedly.

The core of this book is the mystery and the characters that are involved. When it first begins, it’s a little bit hard to figure out where this book is going to go, and maybe it would have benefitted from a few more hints about Sade’s life before the bigger reveals, but I was still hooked from the very beginning. What’s always so satisfying about Àbíké-Íyímídé’s books is the way that the mystery is wrapped up in layers and layers of plot that we only get to unravel at the end, and finally seeing what was inside the whole time. This is a story of corruption and power and toxicity but it’s also its own story completely separate from ACE OF SPADES, while still being just as good (and with an easter egg or two). No character was exactly what I expected from the beginning (except maybe Bas), and it was so fun to see what threads ended up connecting.

Character relationships ended up being incredibly interesting in this book (as I honestly expected, even if I couldn’t predict how), and it makes something relatively real still be able to feel like a unique story is being told rooted in reality. It’s a little hard to talk about the best parts of this book without spoiling anything, but I can say I loved to see the characters finally get what they deserved (positive and negative), and the way that gray areas are completely exploited. And I do in fact love some good sapphic tension which is absolutely at play without superseding the mystery. Once again, I loved reading this and basically sped through the last third of it like my life depended on it because I couldn’t put it down, and it was all absolutely worth the read!

This is a tough one. I love this author and really loved their first novel. I tried to go into this with no expectations but I think I still may have. This book fell a bit flat for me.

I'll start with what worked in the book. The author perfectly captured the creepy, menacing, Big Brother factor that was needed for this novel and gave a thrilling air to it, especially the second half. There were a few parts that made me gasp but not as many as I was expecting. Side characters Baz and Muffin were lovely as well. I also really enjoyed the Mean Girls social group breakdowns and references.

Unfortunately, the bad far outweighs the good on this one. The main character Sade was pretty captivating, I just wish her backstory would have been slowly revealed rather than all at once (as Elizabeth's and Alice's were). There were too many moving parts and plot lines, as well as red herrings of who was suspicious and who wasn't. This resulted in a somewhat lackluster resolution to the novel, with some parts even coming off rushed. The book also started out wayyy too slow and somewhat boring and didn't get interesting until someone disappeared.

Probably one of the biggest issues with this book I had were that it could have done with significant editing and did not need to be over 400 pages long. While long, many times scenes were focused on such unimportant daily life things that could've been better spent. Throughout the book, there was also numerous occasions where very obvious conclusions or links to clues could have been connected way sooner than they were, leaving me to think either the main character was not that smart or the author was dumbing down their plots for the audience- which was pretty frustrating and made the story drag on even more.

The main message of the book - that men, no matter how nice, can and likely will contribute or outright enable rape culture = felt like a very "no shit" message and didn't have the intended effect the author was going for.

I think Faridah tried to recreate that systematic, insidious understanding that her first novel Ace of Spades captured. Unfortunately for me, this novel didn't

I, love Faridah writing and this story is beautifully written. There is a lot of mystery at this academy and I enjoyed the way that Sade navigated all the twist and turns. Faridah always does a great job of the taking the reader down a path of depth and self discovery. Although the setup and back story is great, I do feel the story at time dragged and the real heart of the story was toward the end. Overall I am a Faridah fan and I would recommend.

3.5 stars

Sade Hussein is the new girl at Alton Nobel Academy, a prestigious boarding school in London, and she’s packed secrets along with her designer clothes. Sade is haunted by her family’s dark past, but quickly bonds with her roommate, Elizabeth, and her best friend, Basil. Until Elizabeth disappears.

When the administration’s response is lackluster, Sade and Baz are determined to find Elizabeth. In between sleuthing sessions, Sade finds herself befriending the popular crowd and catching the attention of the queen bee’s ex boyfriend. This all makes sense if Mean Girls has taught us anything, since she’s only ever been homeschooled until now. But of course, the cool kids are hiding things too, and Sade starts to wonder if they know what happened to Elizabeth. Then someone turns up dead, and all hell breaks loose.

This book was a slow start that focused a lot on the day to day activities of boarding school before the last 25% shifted to just rapid fire reveals. I was left with a lot of unanswered questions, though. There were a bunch of mysterious loose threads set up at the start that just didn’t all come together for me, despite the info dump of the reveals. The subject matter of some of the twists was a little depressing, also, so if you have any triggers definitely check warnings, because it went a way I wasn’t anticipating.

I love this book’s concept and think this could be 4-5 stars for some people. But I’ve read a lot of similar stories, and this version just didn’t stand out for me. Baz is by far the best part of this world, and I’d read a whole book about him stealing Guinea pigs and causing general mayhem. All the stars for Baz. Thanks to NetGalley, the author, and the publisher for an advance copy in exchange for my honest review.

Loved this one! It was full of twists and very suspenseful. I found myself hooked from the first chapter.

I am devastated to report that this book was a huge miss from me. The plot doesn’t pick up until about 60% in, despite an intriguing start, and honestly the focus is so different than what we’re led to expect from the beginning (in a way that isn’t a cleverly hidden twist but instead more like a sudden U-turn through the median on the freeway). The beginning and random snippets throughout tease us with this dead girl, but honestly she’s not relevant to much of anything except to try to make our main girl Sade doubt herself. Until we finally figure out who she is in a huge infodump at about 80%. And then we get another infodump at 88% to explain the red herring plot that we were fed in the beginning and occasionally reminded of throughout.

Also, these kids don’t speak like kids. There’s no slang; they talk super formally - and occasionally that’s mentioned as kind of a joke (like “oh you sound like Jane Austen”) but it’s constant across all the characters that you can’t even make a joke like that land. And so often characters are referred to by their one defining characteristic (ie “the blonde-haired girl” or “he of the ice blue eyes” - I kid you not) when we know everyone’s names pretty much right away.

Once we did finally hit that 67% mark, though, the plot was off like a shot, to the point where it felt like a totally different book. Revelations were coming at us right and left, with perilous consequences; but they flew by so fast they didn’t have time to land. Could have used more of the real estate taken up by nothing much in the first half to lend weight to the later events. And I will say I liked the resolution.

But the whole thing lacked the impact, the tension that Ace of Spades nailed so well.

"In Where Sleeping Girls Lie - a YA contemporary mystery by Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé, the New York Times-bestselling author of Ace of Spades - a girl new to boarding school discovers dark secrets and coverups after her roommate disappears.

It's like I keep stumbling into a dark room, searching for the switch to make things bright again...

Sade Hussein is starting her third year of high school, this time at the prestigious Alfred Nobel Academy boarding school after being home-schooled all her life. Misfortune has been a constant companion all her life, but even Sade doesn't expect her new roommate, Elizabeth, to disappear after Sade's first night. Or for people to think she had something to do with it.

With rumors swirling around her, Sade catches the attention of the girls collectively known as the 'Unholy Trinity' and they bring her into their fold. Between learning more about them - especially Persephone, who Sade is inexplicably drawn to - and playing catchup in class, Sade already has so much on her plate. But when it seems people don't care enough about what happened to Elizabeth to really investigate, it's up to she and Elizabeth's best friend to solve it.

And then a student is found dead.

As they keep trying to figure out what's going on, Sade realizes there's more to Alfred Nobel Academy and its students than she thought. Secrets lurk around every corner and beneath every surface...secrets that rival even her own."

Technically not dark academia, but technically yes...

This was everything I wanted in a YA dark academia mystery. I could not put this book down. The characters were so dynamic and it felt like I was there at that creepy school. This was such a wonderful sophomore book.