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!

*Thank you Netgalley for the ARC, all thoughts are my own*

DNF @30%

I was really hoping this would suck me in but I struggled to want to pick this up every time. I didn’t really care about either of the sisters or what was happening to them at this finishing school. We’re given hints that something sinister is going on to make all the girls act differently but I get the feeling more like the MC is an unreliable narrator. Which can be done effectively but I’m just bored. Also gems are mentioned in like every other paragraph, the school is coated in gems, they all wears gems, the two sisters have a inside joke about gems. Im just not sure how it’s suppose to release to what’s going on in the story. I’ve read some reviews about the ending and this book just isn’t for me.

This is a generous three.

I love the message of the book but the delivery was lacking for me. The cover is gorgeous and I like the general idea of the story but it just was too much for me.

It’s like a jewel encrusted fever dream and I couldn’t really tell if it’s supposed to be magic or if everyone’s just really weird but that doesn’t make sense either. I don’t even entirely understand what was happening at the school or what the point of this really was.

An entire star came of for the constant use of gem and gem related words. It was so annoying and it was constant. I rallied up 555 gem related words but it would probably be higher if I counted as I went. It was too much. Also, what’s with putting the gems in their mouths so much? That was bizarre.

The main reasons I finished this were because it was an ARC (thank you to the publisher and NetGalley) and it was a fast and easy read. I’m glad it’s done.

One of the best aspects of FLAWLESS GIRLS by Anna-Marie McLemore is how Isla navigates being intersex . At first, I was surprised at how traditionally gendered this book was, especially for something written by McLemore. However, it's that very gendered world that makes the perfect setting to show how difficult it can be for anyone whose body could be deemed "different" than "norma" (whatever that is). The descriptions of the jewels in the walls of the school felt a bit overdone, but the detail of the students' attire and behaviors were very effective.

I was really looking forward to this book. Honestly the cover art is what captured my attention first. Then the premise of the story sounded promising. However the story fell a bit flat to me. I was looking for something more.

When I started this book, I knew it wasn’t going to be average lol, nothing. This author writes is simple or boring. Her books are always full of magic in the world we live in and colors and beauty that maybe we didn’t see. In this case, the Soler sisters are young women trying to find their place in the world, trying to find a way to exist in the world that lets them shine like the gems that they are. In order to do this, they go to a finishing school of sorts but while one sister seems to flourish there the other runs away and only returns when her sister goes missing. What does book really is however is it look at how we need to reevaluate what we define is beauty, feminism, and ultimately how we defined being a female. Society often wants women to behave in a certain way or to book a certain way to be considered beautiful, to be flawless girls. However, nothing in the world is without its flaws, there often will make us the most beautiful in this book in all of its beauty reminds us of that. Be sure to read the authors very powerful note at the end of the book.

“Girls knew how to wound quietly, without anyone noticing.”

“Flawless Girls,” by Anna-Marie McLemore

This book was very strange, not bad, just very strange. The entire book I was just thinking that these girls are high the entire time. It is a very poetic sort of book about looking beyond the top layers on yourself and society sort of book. It was marketed as a horror romance YA book, but I would not say it romance at all, at least not enough for it to be one of its genre’s. The horror aspect is more psychological than spooky horror. 3 out of 5 stars.

Thank you for the ARC.

Much like the girls Isla first encounters at the infamous Alarie House, I found this novel to be lush and stylish but lacking substance. The story follows the two Soler sisters, Isla and Renata, who are accepted into a prestigious finishing school. However, upon arrival, Isla discovers the older girls of the house are not what they seem, and she is terrified when her older sister appears to fall under their sway. Anna-Marie McLemore is a talented wordsmith: her prose is indulgent and evocative, lingering on the whisper of dewy fabric and the refraction of light from the glittering gems embedded in the stucco walls of the house. However, this beauty observes a confusing plot that lacks organization to such a degree that I found myself rereading the same pages multiple times just to understand what had happened. Poetic prose can be effective when wielded intentionally - however, McLemore's writing is so often so abstract as to confuse rather than clarify.

My favorite part of the novel was McLemore's depiction of Isla's intersex identity and how it impacts her navigation of her social world, particularly her socialization into womanhood. There is deep, secondhand pain in Isla's ruthless companions of herself to other girls and particularly her golden sister Renata, and I loved getting to see her relationship with Pax evolve as she begins to accept her body and herself. Unfortunately, this meaningful representation didn't do enough to counteract the heavy-handed gemstone metaphors and over-abstracted prose, culminating in a novel that was beautiful but unsatisfying.

This was difficult to continue. I gave up around a third of the way through. Too much going on and trying to follow along was difficult.

Vibes: The Virgin Suicides, Killing of a Sacred Deer, and Where the Wild Things Are

I devoured this book; I was unable to put it down. It's what I consider a sophisticated horror. Very ominous, twists, and unsettling moments. It's weird and the "theme" can be interpreted a few different ways. It's unnerving and psychological.

We have sisters Renata and Isla who come from "new" money. They are raised by their self-made grandmother who always encouraged them to be independent, expressive, and strong. However, now that the sisters are 17 and 20 the grandmother decides to send them to the most elite finishing school in the area. Not because she wants them to be ladylike and conform to society standards but because she wants people to respect them, and she knows graduating from said school is an ivy league badge that demands respect.

Right from the jump Isla is like fuck this shit, these bitches are Stefford wife crazy I'm outie. Reneta refuses to leave so she gets left behind. Isla is our FMC and after her big sister returns brainwashed, she decides to return to the school to get answers and find out how to help her sister.

These sisters are NOT Anna & Elsa and they don't have a heartwarming ending. Instead, Isla finds herself drawn in by the madness.

This was a satisfying and fast paced read for me. It was trippy, the ending doesn't wrap everything up with a bow, but I liked it. It explores sexuality, society standards, femininity, suppressing desires, embracing your dark side, self-love, and acceptance.

A captivating and thrilling young adult book, This novel, written by Anna Marie McLemore, centers on the sisters Soler, Isla and Renata, who are reared by their eccentric grandmother and sent into the aristocratic Alarie House, a finishing school that turns out the social elite. I was captivated by Anna Marie McLemore's indicative and tense story as she transported me to the luxurious yet eerie Alarie House. It opens up a terrifying and exciting investigation of deceit, control, and power. I was surprised by this book since I had no idea it was that exciting and suspenseful.

Thank you netgalley and MacMillan children's publishing group for the ebook ARC