e-Audio, 11:18:35
Narrated by: Nneka Okoye & Anniwaa Buachie
Release Date: September 5, 2023
Published by: Balzer + Bray
Read from: September 21-24, 2023
Stand-alone
Source: Netgalley (I received a copy of this book from Edelweiss and the Publisher in exchange for a just and honest review. This did nothing to influence my review.)
TW: Biphobia, Panic attacks/disorders, Racism, Toxic friendship, Toxic Family
For Readers Interested In: Sparkly Covers, Classic (Re-imaging of Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night), Multiple POV, LGBTQ+ (Bi)Mean Girls meets Dear White People in this big-hearted, sharp-witted UK boarding school story about family, friendship, and belonging—with a propulsive mystery at its heart. Within the walls of Wodebury Hall, an elite boarding school in the English countryside, reputation is everything. But aspiring photographer Iyanu is more comfortable observing things safely from behind her camera. For Iyanu’s estranged cousin, Kitan, life seems perfect. She has money, beauty, and friends like queen bee Heather. But as a Nigerian girl in a school as white and insular as Wodebury, Kitan struggles with the personal sacrifices needed to keep her place—and the protection she gets—within the exclusive popular crowd. Then photos from Iyanu’s camera are stolen and splashed across the school the week before the Valentine’s Day Ball—each with a juicy secret written on it. With everyone’s dirty laundry suddenly out in the open, the school explodes in chaos, and the whispers accusing Iyanu of being the one behind it all start to feel like déjà vu. Each girl is desperate to unravel the mystery of who stole the photos and why. But exposing the truth will change them all forever.
*MY THOUGHTS*
I’m not gonna even lie. Almost everyone in this book annoyed me. Are people really like this? Like even friends weren’t actually friends. They were all terrible and I was really upset that that’s the way they were treating each other. It was really weird as hell. And I don’t mean just friends, there was also some toxic ass families in there too. And while i know that’s something that is real, it still sucks, whether it’s in real or fictional families.
Ok so this book opens when some pictures that were stolen from the main character turn up again with messages about the students on them. Now these weren’t nice messages because literally everyone was like wtf because they all had some type of mess or drama on there. And of course everyone was mad at the photographer, thinking she was responsible. Which was convenient because no one liked her. But I think this was what made me so mad. It was evident that they didn’t like her. Why was she still hanging out with them?
Then the ending pissed me off. The whole story there was this chick who was basically doing Black face, there were these Black people who were letting it happen, and no one said anything. And then at the end we find out the whole time the people who were terrible were terrible the entire time, just using their money to be even more terrible. It literally was like a textbook ending. I called all the twists. But I didn’t get too mad about it because I wasn’t sure it was actually supposed to be a mystery because it was so easy to find out. I just didn’t understand why the character couldn’t figure it out lol
This was a weird one. I liked it, but it wasn’t a stand out. Even the narrators were just ok. I do think it would have been more fun if the characters weren’t so terrible. I’m a character driven reader and literally none of them passed the vibe check. Because of that I was focused a lot on how much I didn’t like them and less on the story. It just made the whole thing seem weird.
Overall, I give this
