I'm not certain that any review I write will do Flawless Girls justice. It's the kind of book you need to read without reading reviews. It's a fever dream and a half that probably seems like it doesn't make sense while reading it. I think that's what makes it so easy to keep turning the pages.

I started reading Anna-Marie McLemore when they released Lakelore and fell for the way they write. Every word means something. It hurts and it heals and it still blows my mind days later. Honestly, it was so atmospheric that I'm pretty sure I dreamt about it after I finished the book. I definitely have a new appreciation for stones and gems now.

I would be remiss not to mention the representation in Flawless Girls. The FMC is an Latina, intersex, girl in a world that is ripe with expectations of what femininity is and isn't. It's extremely powerful.

This book was creepy and suspenseful. I enjoyed the characters and atmosphere. Would love to read more from this author

Flawless Girls follows Isla, who is trying to find her sister. After leaving her older sister at a finishing school, Renata comes back... different. And homicidal. But mostly different. The only solution for Isla is to follow her sister's footsteps, returning to the finishing school. But can she survive with her mind in tact, or is she doomed to the same fate as her sister?

The first quarter of this book is intriguing and un-put-down-able. But once we reach the finishing school, everything goes off the walls and is really hard to follow. Not in the is-this-surreal-or-real but just confusing. It felt esoteric in a sense. It was beautifully written though, and the parts I did understand were great!

This book has great intersex representation, and Isla is a really complicated and strong character. She deserves the world, but due to how underwhelming the plot actually was, I'm only giving this 3 stars.

I think this book is great for anyone interested in reading about an intersex main character or interested in beautiful, atmospheric writing, but I don't recommend it for the plot.


Many thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for this e-arc in exchange for my honest review!:)

Intersex representation! I fear saying this is the first book this year that I have read with it and I am very grateful to AMM for this. It is opening my eyes to voices I have not been paying attention to and I appreciate the confrontation with that lack in my reading.

This was eerie, thought-provoking and so compelling. I will continue to read anything AMM writes and publishes.

The cover art is extremely beautiful. That is what really caught my attention. A major theme in this story is focused on identity. Isla is used to being in her sister Renata’s shadow, but there comes a time when she must follow her own path. The plot was easy enough to follow. I feel like some points were very repetitive. I don’t think I was the target audience, but I did understand the storyline.

HOUGHTS

The writing, the essence, the vibes are immaculate... but a book really needs more than vibes, right?


PROS
Immaculate: This book grabs you by the throat from the beginning. The writing here is masterful, eerie and evocative. I was engaged from the first page, and that's saying something. I do think the story falters a bit (see some of the cons below), but if we're talking about technical construction here, the writing itself is beautiful. I have rarely been so captivated.

Catty, Chatty Girls: So many books write teen girls as one note. They're either chatty and friendly or mean and catty. But the truth is, teen girls are all of these things, all at once. And McLemore definitely writes that well. These girls are snippy. They're gossipy. They're scathing on occasion. And they like being around each other. They support each other. They're friendly, and they look out for each other. People can be enigmas, and it is so nice to see teens written with some actual nuance--nuance that makes them feel realistic.

Refined: I really appreciate McLemore's nuanced consideration of "refinement" here as well. Because refinement is about polishing, elevating, becoming "better"... and it is also intrinsically a loss. A loss of rough edges in favor of some conception of femininity. The polishing of an image that erases parts of the person being polished. This book is all about femme rage, restrained and righteous, and I love that.


CONS
Dragging On: As much as the vibes, the tone, the writing here might be immaculate... the story does start to drag on a bit. Which is saying quite a lot, since this book isn't long by any standard.

Breaking Point: Part of the reason this book seems to drag, I think, is because the tension is building and building and building... and doesn't ultimately go anywhere. It felt like we should have reached a breaking point way earlier than we did. Things should have made sense. Pieces should have clicked. And there is a bit of that in the conclusion... but it was too little, too late for me.

Wishy Washy: Which kind of leads me to my biggest problem here. As wonderfully evocative as the vibes are... this book is just vibes. I had no idea what was happening the entire time. I had no footing in the world itself. I didn't know what kind of world it was--fantasy, historical, contemporary realist? I needed some kind of groundwork, some kind of foundation, and because the plot itself doesn't really come together either, I was just left... kind of confused and vaguely appalled. I just... am not sure what this book was. I love the vibes, but the vibes were not enough.


Rating

⭐⭐⭐⭐
4/10
Fans of Kirsten Miller's Don't Tell a Soul will like the eerie, ethereal nature of this story. Those who like Jessica Day George's Princess of the Midnight Ball will enjoy the glittering, dark underworld of this refined finishing school.

David Lynch finishing school gothic magical realism Dorian Grey gemstone horror. If that confuses you, it should! If that intrigues you, it should!

It starts off pretty normally. Two sisters are sent to a finishing school to become proper young ladies. The younger sister, Isla, drops out that night. The older sister, Renata, completes her education and comes back as a perfectly proper, personality-less young lady...a complete stranger. And then she runs away. While the sisters' grandmother searches for Renata, Isla vows to undercover whatever evil is afoot at the finishing school.

The school is weird. The teachers are weird. The usual gothic boarding school dread lasts for about half the book.

Then we get into the David Lynch part: weird dream sequences, fantastic imagery, cryptic phrases... Much like David Lynch productions, I felt like I was wandering around an art exhibit being fascinated but also a little scared, saying, "My how interesting, how marvelous" and 100% believing that while also having no idea what was happening. It also reminded me of a magical realism story I read in Spanish a while ago about children turning on all the lights in their house and then drowning to death in the light. This book is like that, but with crystals instead of light, and is about societal expectations placed on women. That last bit really comes together at the end with the Dorian Grey comparison.

Definitely a book you have to be in the right mood to enjoy.

I did adore a memory Renata shares with her sister at the beginning of the book. They are guests at a fancy wedding and are both wearing diamond necklaces. They proceed to pop the diamonds out of their settings and eat them silently, much to the horror of everyone around them. (The diamonds are candies, don't worry, but their audience doesn't realise that at first.) There's so much to unpack here in terms of wealth, upper class performance, consumption... I had a feeling I was going to like this book after that.

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC!

I'm not really the best at reviews and i also don't want to give any spoilers. But I'd give this 4 stars. It's very interesting and was easy to stay tuned--until the ending. I'd also like to apologize for taking this long to get my review out. I had trouble accessing my account.

Flawless Girls by Anna-Marie McLemore is a bit of a thriller, a bit of a fever dream, a bit of a cautionary tale, and a whole lot of gender metaphor. In Flawless Girls, Isla attends the Alarie House girls’ finishing school to find out why the school changed her sister Renata into an emotionally and spiritually desiccated version of her former self.

The story is surreal and the writing is lush and gorgeous, with incredible imagery and deep exploration of what it means to be a girl. McLemore leaned in real hard to one particular metaphor, which I initially found clever but ultimately felt they over-explained. While this didn’t detract too much from my enjoyment of the story, I wish they had spent more of the book on interpersonal relationships and less of it explaining the metaphor.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC!

While a departure from McLemore's usual style, it is full of their themes. Flawless Girls is the tale of Isla, a seventeen year old who is a little difficult. When she and her sister Renata are originally sent to the Alarie House, Isla doesn't make it a night before escaping, but Renata finishes her term and comes home, very much different from the sister Isla knows.

It's during Renata's return, while Isla is trying to recreate a prank the sisters pulled, that Renata snaps and flees their grandma's house. In an effort to understand exactly what she saw when Renata almost attacked her, Isla returns to Alarie House.

This felt way more creepy than McLemore's usual books, and as above, the prose wasn't as purple as they usually deliver (which I LOVE, McLemore is one of my favorite current writers), but the themes were the same. In fact in the author's note at the end, McLemore talks about how Isla would have access to more information today to understand her body more, but how McLemore also used their experience growing up to temper Isla's.

I really enjoyed the symbolism, and it did take me a second to catch onto the gems being everywhere and how that impacted the girls finishing at the House. When the Alarie sisters were explaining the gems, it was actually an apt and still accurate metaphor for how society wants most women to behave.

This was so beautiful and full of so many memorable characters, but I'm also so glad McLemore wrote this book with these themes!

This was so well written and the attention to detail is immaculate. However, there is something missing in the plot, and I can’t point it out. I have to agree, there are a lot of metaphors in this book, so be sure to pay attention.

"Flawless Girls" follows Isla and Renata Soler as they navigate an elite finishing school to gain acceptance in high society. When Renata undergoes a mysterious transformation at the school and later disappears, Isla sets out to uncover the secrets that changed her sister. While the premise, cover art, and descriptive elements captivated me, the narrative was slow to build and became disjointed towards the end, leading to confusion. Despite its poetic portrayal of inner conflicts, character changes felt abrupt. However, the lavish descriptions of the setting, characters, and mystical elements maintained an intriguing atmosphere, earning it a three-star rating for its unique storyline and themes of self-discovery.

Big thank you NetGalley and to the publisher for the chance to review this book pre-release. Flawless Girls has a fantastic premise, and I enjoyed reading it, but I did find it's overall approach a little lacking. I felt like I was missing some critical details the entire time, and felt like I had to fill in the gaps myself to make the story make sense. If it had been through development one last time I think the kinks could have been ironed out. That being said, I did like the atmospheric take of the book, and would read more of Ms. McLemore's works in the future! A more formal review will be available on my IG/TikTok and Goodreads.

As I sit here thinking about this book, I am still baffled by it all. The cover was intriguing; the premise of horror drew me in, but this story just made it too hard to connect to the characters and the plot. At first, the story seemed promising giving us a mild reason to be concerned about the sisters; however, I felt like I didn't really care what was happening to them as the chapters continued. I could understand the metaphor of the gems, but there was too much chatter about them and not enough progression of the story itself. Unfortunately, I know the readers I serve won't get past the first couple of chapters. Flawless Girls had too many flaws for me.

I was really intrigued with the first part of the book, Isla and Renata are sisters and sent to a finishing school that is so supposed to help refine a girl into a proper young woman. The author’s note does explain how Isla is intersex and we do get Isla’s thoughts about feeling out of place which is nice since an intersex character is rare in books.

When Isla goes back to find out what happened to her sister, that’s when things go kind of over my head because I’m just here for the mystery/horror/thrill of it all but what we get are…metaphors about jewels. I get what the author is trying to do and it is poetic but I was not in the mood for it. The message in the book is awesome though and strong because it talks about how this finishing school not only taught the girls how to act and be in the public eye, but it was also teaching them how to cause division between the girls also. I kind of loved the scene of the girls being wild at night when they could let loose. The story talks about the expectations of women and how women have to wear several faces.

I totally get the vision but I think it was too much imagery for me.

My Thoughts:

I like the intersex representation and the strong message about society’s expectations about girls and how we have to live. I don’t think there was much horror in the story except for maybe psychological horror. There is a lot of symbolism and imagery with this book and I totally get it but I definitely had to be in the right mood for this one.

Flawless Girls is a story about an elite finishing school adorned with gemstones and imbued with a touch of fantasy.

Isla and Renata Soler are sent to an elite finishing school by their wealthy grandmother in order to help make a name for them in society. This is supposed to give them a step up in society since they are from new money and therefore looked down upon by the old money members.

Isla leaves the school within hours but Renata stays. When Renata returns home, she is different and quickly disappears again. Isla decides that in order to find her, she must understand the new Renata. In order to do that, Isla must return to the school and try to unearth what happened at the school that transformed Renata from the vivacious girl to gilded lady.

I really enjoyed the premise of the book; the cover art and description really drew me in. The narrative moved slowly in the beginning and I was really hoping that it was building up to something, but was disappointed. Toward the halfway point and until the end, things just got disjointed and confusing. It felt like the story was hopping all over the place and established characters were changing in unexplainable ways. While I believe that this was the author's poetic portrayal of the inner conflicts experienced by the girls at the school as they struggled to maintain dual identities, it was off-putting for me.

I will still give it three stars because it was lavish and descriptive. The parts describing the house, the girls, the gems, and their classes were interesting. There was a general air of mystery surrounding the finishing school and its occupants (students and teachers alike). Isla gradually comes to acknowledge and embrace her unique identity, realizing that she doesn't quite fit in with the other girls. This journey of self-discovery resonates with many young women, irrespective of whether they face the same physical challenges as Isla.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

A fantasy take on Stepford Wives set in an elite finishing school.

When sisters Isla and Renata are sent to an elite finishing school, it's supposed to help them overcome the barriers of being both Hispanic and new money. But younger sister Isla gets creeped out right away, fleeing in the night. When older sister Renata returns unrecognizable, she returns to the school, determined to find out what happened to her.

The eerie, creepy vibes hooked me right away and kept me reading. There's also some very beautiful passages with gemstone analogies. I loved the relationship between the sisters, as they grow apart, then find their way back to each other again. The author had some interesting things to say about womanhood and the way society treats women, especially when it came to Isla, who has not had normal body development.

That said, I found the narrative a little hard to follow at times. I was never quite sure what was really happening or what was in our narrator's head, and the ending didn't make it any clearer. It's not one I would re-read.

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the advance review copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This book is beautiful, a little scary, but overall relatable and real in the Most Perfect Way, Isla and Renata have my absolute heart their development as sisters is everything to me and I hope that they are with each other when they’ve had their space to to grow and evolved by themselves( chapter 61 made me bawl my eyes out). I was a little scared in certain scenes of the book (iykyk) and I struggled on trying to find out who was making the girls “Order” to make them “perfect” and I was so wrong and it never occurred to me that it could’ve been them lol. I hope that there isn’t any finishing schools like this irl because it would be sick, twisted and disgusting. I understand if you go to a etiquette class but the fact that families just had trust in this school without any care should be a crime, it’s like they didn’t care as long as they came back not themselves and that sucks because they should love their children no matter what. You can teach them right and wrong without changing them as if they’re supposed to be perfect and any flaws aren’t allowed, flaws are what make you different they were never supposed to be like everyone else. I thought it was a beautiful moment when every Alarie girl got their got their jewels back as a representation of them becoming themselves again and I can’t lie I did cry😅. I love how for the Category of the book it says Romance instead of a specific label and as an Ally I’m proud and I love Paz and Isla😍. I like to call Isla, Paz and Carina final girls and I’m glad they stayed to make sure the new girls had a new perspective, then what the Alarie sisters left behind. I also relate to Isla because we were both criticized and bullied because of our appearance but for different reasons, she was bullied because she didn’t “look like a normal woman” and I was bullied because of my disability and I’m glad I’m glad we both got closer and realized that that’s also normal and Isla stayed to make sure other girls know that too🥹🥹

This was well written but I don’t understand what happened. It fell apart I think around the 65% mark. I think leaving things unexplained or whatever happened here that maybe was explained can work, but very rarely and not in YA.


Thank you to Netgalley and Macmillan for the ARC!

Flawless Girls is coming May 28, 2024!! Pre-order now from Amazon, Target, Barnes and Noble, and more!!! Linked below!
What’s it about?
The Soler sisters are infamous in polite society—brazen, rebellious, and raised by their fashionable grandmother who couldn’t care less about which fork goes where. But their grandmother also knows the standards that two Latina young ladies will be held to, so she secures them two coveted places at the Alarie House, a prominent finishing school that turns out first ladies, princesses, and socialites.
Younger sister Isla is back home within a day. She refuses to become one of the eerily sweet Alarie girls in their prim white dresses. Older sister Renata stays. When she returns months later, she’s unfailingly pleasant, unnervingly polite, and, Isla discovers, possibly murderous. And the same night she returns home, she vanishes.
As their grandmother uses every connection she has to find Renata, Isla re-enrolls, intent on finding out what happened to her sister. But the Alarie House is as exacting as it is opulent. It won’t give up its secrets easily, and neither will a mysterious, conniving girl who’s either controlling the house, or carrying out its deadly orders.
Why I Started This Book
The cover really got me on this one! It just looked so cool, unique, and gorgeous!!
My First Thoughts
This book kind of reminded me of We Set the Dark on Fire, a book I enjoyed quite a bit, at the beginning!
My Rating
⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 3 out of 5.
This book wasn’t my fav, but there some elements that I really enjoyed!!
What I loved
The characters, specifically the MC, are nicely portrayed! They are strong and also rebellious! This helped create some really great meaning for the story!
Setting was pretty cool! It felt very proper and mysterious! This made the story very intriguing at first! Also, it really fit the vibe of the story and made a nice mood!
Flawless Girls had a pretty good meaning! It felt rather empowering, and like I said earlier the characters are great! I feel like this really elevated the book and gave it some nice depth!!
What I Disliked
I wasn’t a huge fan of the plot. It kind of felt like the book was all over the place, and it didn’t really follow one story. This made it mildly confusing and somewhat strange! While I liked the idea of the plot, throughout the story I didn’t enjoy it that much.
One of the genres of this book is horror. Personally, I didn’t find the book very scary, which was kind of disappointing! I noticed several parts that seemed like they should be scary, but for me they weren’t.
Book vs. Movie
There’s no movie based off of Flawless Girls!
Should You Read It?
Maybe! This book wasn’t my favorite, but if the description sounds good you could totally give it a try!!
Conclusion
Flawless Girls is a YA mystery thriller that has good characters and great messages! I wasn’t a huge fan of the plot, and I was a little disappointed by the lack of horror! Overall, this book might’ve been really good, but I personally didn’t love it!