Rush Week by Michelle Brandon is a brilliant and captivating debut that perfectly captures the intensity and drama of college life, while exploring the complexities of identity, friendship, and the pursuit of belonging. From the first page, Brandon’s sharp, witty writing pulls you into the world of Greek life, where the pressures of fitting in, the allure of prestige, and the hidden tensions of rivalry create a whirlwind of emotions and events.

The novel centers around a group of freshmen as they navigate the high-stakes rush week at a prestigious university. Brandon does a fantastic job of portraying the inner lives of her characters, particularly the protagonist, who is trying to balance personal ambition with the need to fit into a system that can be both seductive and suffocating. The multi-dimensional characters feel authentic, and their struggles—ranging from self-discovery to dealing with peer pressure—are both relatable and compelling.

One of the standout elements of Rush Week is its exploration of the darker undercurrents of Greek life, which are often glossed over in other novels. Brandon doesn't shy away from addressing the toxic dynamics, the subtle manipulation, and the emotional toll that this world can impose on its participants. However, she balances this with moments of lightness and humor, keeping the tone engaging and never losing sight of the heart of the story.

The pacing of the novel is spot-on, with just the right mix of tension and reflection. As rush week progresses, the stakes get higher, and Brandon keeps readers on edge with unexpected twists and turns that keep the story fresh and exciting. The writing is sharp and evocative, painting vivid pictures of both the glamorous and grittier sides of college life.

At its core, Rush Week is about finding one’s place in the world and the complexities that come with it. Brandon crafts a compelling narrative that examines friendship, loyalty, and the lengths we go to fit in or stand out. It’s an insightful, thought-provoking read that will stay with you long after the final page.

For fans of character-driven stories with rich, layered themes, Rush Week is a must-read. Michelle Brandon has crafted a novel that is both entertaining and emotionally resonant, delivering a knockout punch of heart, humor, and social commentary.

Many thanks to NetGalley, Michelle Brandon and Harper Collins publishing for the advanced copy of this book.

Overall this book was good. I must say ,as a former sorority girl ,I was incredibly nervous what this book was going to be. I think it poked fun at the stereotypes upfront but truly focused on deeper topics throughout. While the characters are all known for embracing some wild, taboo and possibly illegal habits it is about them individually not the organizations mentioned. If you are into juicy, drama filled, and a messy revenge plot this is the book for you.

When life digs up your deepest darkest secrets , literally, what do you do? That is precisely the situation all of our main characters face throughout this book. Somehow you both love and hate them equally throughout. While the pacing starts a bit slow it picks up after a bit and you are waiting for the next page to reveal the next secret or clue.

Would be a perfect beach read!

Thanks to NetGalley & Avon for the ARC in exchange for my honest feedback.

I was in Greek life in college & thought this might be a fun book — the timeline jumps were disorganized and challenging for me to follow. The characters were caricatures and felt so shallow and unrealistic - I would have appreciated more depth. Truth be told - it was hard to tell them apart…. I struggled to stay interested and didn’t feel a strong connection to any of the characters.

I expected to relate since I was a sorority girl myself, but only found one scene to connect with, which was a girl stealing her big sister’s strawberries lol

I am not sure who I would recommend this book to - perhaps someone who isn’t familiar with Greek life who is looking for a chaotic scandalous story. I really wanted to love this book & I do feel disappointed.

Rush Week by Michelle Brandon is perfect for any reader who has been sucked into the world of sorority rushing via social media. A guilty pleasure read (at least for me) the story follows four graduated sorority sisters who decide to return to the University of Alabama for Rush Week after receiving anonymous notes that their burn book was stolen. All of the characters are purposefully unlikable, much like a gross reality tv show you can't look away. Rush week is enthralling enough, however I found the time jumps confusing and a bit messy.

Thank you to NetGalley and William Morrow for this eARC!

So my honest review is: I was about to do not finish this book only because I could not get into it however I finished reading it to the end and I must say I was wrong. It was good. the description had be interested from the start but reading almost 10 chapters I just couldn’t get interested enough but I read it. What I didn’t like what the ‘then and now’ chapters, I couldn’t understand it until closer to the end of the book. 4* and 7/10 rating in my opinion.

The four women who meet on the first day of rush week at Alabama go through not only the excitement and stress of joining a sorority, but also the personal secrets and drives that they only share in one place: the Spill book. Annabelle, Asana, Brooklyn and Taylor are firm friends throughout most of their college days, but in the five years since graduation, they haven't had much contact. Now they have been called back to their former sorority house for some alumni events taking place during rush week. They are all being blackmailed by a mysterious figure who knows all of their deep, dark secrets. When they were students, Taylor devised the Spill book, telling her fellow pledges that anything they wrote in there would be kept secret forever. She told everyone it was a "trust exercise" but of course Taylor herself kept the book, read the contents, and wasn't above using them as blackmail to force people to do what she wanted. At the end of their four years together, Taylor bought a time capsule which was buried in the back yard of the sorority house, not to be opened for 100 years. It seems that after just 5 years, someone has dug up the book and now wants to get revenge on the four girls.

The story moves back and forth between the times the girls were together in college and their messy lives in the present day. The biggest hurdle for me to get over was that they would all jump eagerly to write their worst deeds into a book that could have fallen into the wrong hands at any time (and eventually did). I was also expecting a bit more twists and turns, but the entire book just sort of fizzled out. I suppose the target audience of high school and college-aged people might enjoy reading the outrageous exploits of rich, beautiful, and ruthless people. If that's not your demographic, you might end up slightly disappointed in the lack of a big ending to tie it all together.

📖 Book Review 📖 Hazing was 💯 not allowed in my sorority and strictly enforced. And Facebook was just invented when I pledged a sorority and you definitely still needed a .edu email to join. Embarrassing photos posted for all to see…definitely not a thing so vicariously living a much darker and digital Greek world through the writing of Michelle Brandon’s Rush Week was a real treat. An invitation arrives for a reunion for University of Alabama’s Alpha Delta Lambda chapter with an attached note with the threat of blackmail to unleash a secret hiding from the past. This suspenseful light sorority thriller unpacks a punch that is delightfully thrilling. While my sisters definitely did not get into any shenanigans quite like this, this was a really fun throwback to college with a mysterious twist!

I wanted to love this book, but unfortunately, it just wasn’t that great. I kept expecting more mystery and dark secrets. The “secrets” weren’t really that bad, and The Machine storyline made absolutely no sense. Very disappointed all around.

As a sorority girl who loves drama, scandal, and all things Greek, this was the ultimate pageturner and SO FUN. I absolutely loved it and recommend to any with these interests!!

Thank you to NetGalley for this gifted eARC in exchange for my honest review.

Rush Week is loosely based on the famous "Bama Rush" that happens at Alabama. You have four freshman - Annabelle, Taylor, Asana and Brooklyn who meet during rush and become sisters and the famous TikTok - GWRM - BATA BAMA girls. They have all graduated and moved on with their lives until the famous Spill the Tea book is discovered early from the time capsule. The books goes back and forth between the past and present day where someone is blackmailing the girls and forcing them to come back to Bama for rush week. Its a fun book for anyone who has ever been in a sorority or enjoyed watching the TikTok of all the insanity of rush. I appreciate NetGalley and William Morrow for the opportunity to read.
#RushWeek #NetGalley.

Juicy.

Fun.

Oh so wrong.

Enjoyable ride from first page to final word - I really did enjoy this and thought that the writing was compulsive.

Thanks to NetGalley for an advance copy of this book.

Rush Week seems like a book written by someone with only stereotypical knowledge of the Fraternity and Sorority system who thinks they know how everything works thanks to TikTok. The author got so many basic facts incorrect and wrote these 26 year old women like they were in their forties. Each woman had secrets and none of them felt like they wrapped up well. I don’t think the conclusion was fleshed out well.

Well... Did I enjoy the salacious content... yes but I definitely found myself thinking it was a little bit of sloppy work. Timeline wise I don't think it was accurate & the dark pasts of these women kind of fell flat. I did enjoy the aspect of seeing things from a "first hand account"... As a lover of #Rushtok I was pretty stoked to get this ARC so I could have been reading with rose colored glasses despite the flaws just don't have super high expectations.

The characters were well developed and I found myself staying up way past my bedtime to finish it. Thank you so much for the opportunity to read this incredible book! I will definitely be sharing it with all of my fellow book lovers!

Four friends return to their sorority after finding out their spill book (think burn book from Mean Girls) has been stolen. All four women are pretty awful people and do not want their secrets getting out. There was a lot of back and forth here alternating people and timelines. I enjoyed the spill book blurb at the beginning of each chapter. This was rich people behaving badly and included so many TikToks, GRWM, Ashley Madison type of clubs, Sugar babies, and only fans references. It was like every salacious type of scandal you could imagine. 3.5 stars. Thank you NetGalley for the ARC!

Rush week was a wild ride. I enjoyed this book alot. The thrill and just overall plot to this book had me hooked

I think this book is supposed to be set in the future, and the past was set in current times 2022-now, which honestly made the book incredibly confusing at times. The book follows 4 sorority sisters, who each have secrets kept from one another, but post-college they each blackmailed from an unknown person that their secret will be exposed. This leads to the sisters returning to the University of Alabama for their old sororities recruitment week. All their secrets were written in a spill book that was buried in their sororities time capsule that wasn't supposed to be opened until at least all of them were long gone from this world. The 4 girls aren't as close as they once where, but all come to Alabama and work together to try to figure out who is coming after them.

I was excited to read this book because like most of the US, I am totally obsessed with rushtok especially at Alabama. I find it so fascinating. However, this book brought none of the fun from that. The book was incredibly sloppy, I really don't think this should have even been published (keep it as a fanfic or something) - especially because you name drop U of A and The Machine (which was also a bit unnecessary to the story). I hated how it would flip back and forth between timelines and POVs like one minute we would have one girl in the past then it would be current times with a different sister. This made the book incredibly hard to follow at times. I was not in a sorority, but have tons of friends in one, and there is no way that all of your alumni would be at recruitment for the entire week being at the house, and doing events. Then the whole ending was honestly trash - I felt like it was also sloppy writing that made the author pick who stole the book and the reasoning behind it was so lame and weak it wouldn't hold up anywhere.

I absolutely loved the story told with this book. Pledges becoming sisters and dealing with the drama that comes with sorioritys during and long after they've graduated. Definitely has some sneaky vibes that remind me of Pretty Little Liars or Gossip Girl if you are interested in shows like that. The only downfall I did not care for was the timeline hopping. I understand that was necessary to get the. whole story of the girls to tell what happened then and now, but it got confusing at some parts to where I had to go back and see "is this the past or present". Other than that, cute book. Would definitely recommend.

Could have had potential but didn’t work out, really struggled reading this, wouldn’t recommend this to friends or family.

Rush Week is the perfect combination of Pretty Little Liars meets Bama Rush. Michelle Brandon does a great job of weaving the past with the present and sprinkling secrets and lies throughout to keep the reader interested.

I really enjoyed reading about the messy lives of Brooklyn, Asana, Taylor, and Annabelle. I often felt like I was watching a TikTok stream of sorority girls in Alabama, but there were a few things that didn't quite work for me.

The ending felt anticlimactic and some of the plot points were a bit too unbelievable for me to enjoy. I think the book could have been shortened and the ending could have been sharpened into a more exciting finish.

Thank you to Michelle Brandon and Harper Collins for this ARC!