I recently went through my Netgalley library and saw that this was in my books to give feedback but I don't have the book for it had then been downloaded on a hard disk that decided to die on me! So much time has passed so it is not possible and to review it is way too late. Thank you though for sending it and I will continue to review your great title you graciously let me read

Unfortunately I didn't finish this book, as I couldn't get into it - nothing against the author or book, just not to my personal taste. Thank you for the opportunity to read it.

Kate is that girl who's the perfect best friend to the popular girl at school. She's the shoulder you cry on, the ear for your secrets, the witty companion and the one you can't live without. She's the scholarship girl in the fancy, outrageously wealthy private school and she knows how to spot an easy target for her plans. Olivia is the ridiculously rich girl that Kate has her eye on in her senior year of High School. She's popular but without any really close friends in her new school, she's on medication for something, has her shrink on speed dial and has plenty of secrets in her past as well.

Kate spots her immediately as her golden ticket then she learns what Olivia likes and dislikes, why she was hospitalised the year before, her family history and when she sees that she needs tutoring in AP English she strikes. Soon they're attached at the hip and opening up to each other even if Olivia doesn't realise Kate is giving her the storybook version of her past. Soon enough Olivia is inviting Kate into her life and home just like Kate had planned from the start. She knows what she wants and she's going to get it all.

I hated the mystery of why Kate was like that but throughout the book, we learn more about Kate's background easily enough through her inner monologue so you know she had an awful upbringing with a frightful father that influenced her to become the manipulative person that she is early on in her life. After a terrible start in life Kate's main goal is to get in with a rich and lonely girl, befriend her and use her while she works on her endgame of getting into Yale. I enjoyed the fact that we knew her whole story by the end of the book but I'm not sure if her endgame of getting into Yale was as great of an idea as she thought it was and she might have just watched Gilmore Girls too much.

Then a handsome man in his late 20's comes to the private school to work with the staff, Kate and her new group of friends to raise money for the school with advertisement and charity. He tells Kate he's a hunter just like her and he likes to play with her but Kate knows his game. She doesn't know what his plan is but she knows enough to know that he's real, serious trouble and he terrifies her. However, Olivia is obsessed with him like many of the other girls in the school and soon she's trying to catch his attention and not taking her full dose of medication which means she becomes volatile and unhinged towards Kate and that's bad for Kate when Olivia starts putting her in her place.

Kate's character was good but I felt like she was a little too self-assured. Sometimes it came off a little hard like she just knew she was sooo fantastic, so great at manipulating people and such a genius but she drops that confidence quickly when things start getting intense in this book and events threaten all her hard work. I thought she would be the worst thing the characters encountered in the book but I was pleasantly surprised to see she wasn't the only villain although it was totally unexpected from the title of the book!

Olivia was an interesting girl because she ended up being so much more than you would originally think from the blurb. You know all crazy wealthy teenagers growing up in New York and attending a private school come with the territory of knowing they can get what they want but this book also went so far into the mental illness that this harsh, wild life can cause for them because of the strive to be perfect and the anxiety of getting good grades for college. She's definitely more than meets the eye and she's a great match for Kate since they both have their terrible, juicy secrets.

This book was a quick and easy to read YA psychological thriller with an underdog main character and the mix of a Gossip Girl type setting. I don't usually read young adult thrillers because I don't think they can have the same horror and shock that adult fiction has but it was pleasantly surprising with some of the awful, crazy things that happened. It's definitely better suited towards a young adult audience because the characters are quite juvenile at times and the story is a tad repetitive but it really did pack a punch at the end that was pretty unexpected. I'd suggest this to fans of Gossip Girl, One Of Us Is Lying and to teenagers or young adults that enjoy the psychological thriller genre because while I did have issues with the writing and characters it did deliver on a huge plot twist and some awesome shocks throughout the whole book that had me glued to it over a few hours.

Beware That Girl is set in the corridors of the prestigious Waverly School in New York City. The story is told from two different viewpoints. Both Olivia Sumner and Kate O’Brien are Waverly girls. Olivia is the only daughter of a wealthy businessman, often left alone with the housekeeper in their expensive penthouse apartment while her father is away on business. After taking time off to spend time at an inpatient facility Olivia is now back to re-sit her senior year, and this is when she meets Kate.

Kate O’Brien is the scholarship kid, from the opposite end of the scale to Olivia, her mother soon realised her best shot at a better life came from her education. Her end goal being acceptance to Yale Kate has moved from elite school to elite school, always as the scholarship kid.

The book tells the story of the girls’ journey through their final year, studies, rich kid parties, and the extra curricular activities they need to make their college applications stand out. At the same time filling in information about the girls’ past.

I found the book to be a little misrepresented, I don’t want to give too much of the plot away for anyone going on to read this so forgive me if my reasoning below seems a little vague. The Goodreads blurb for the original edition of Beware That Girl describes it as a powerful psychological thriller. I will agree that Beware That Girl is a thriller, it is full of twists and turns, both Kate and Olivia are manipulative and it will keep you guessing exactly which girl you should beware of. However the book simply wasn’t as dark as I was expecting it to be. I’m not sure if the author held back because this was to be marketed primarily as a YA book. I felt some of the issues in the story were brushed over by the author, in particular I felt the character of Mark Redkin was wasted slightly. If the situations had been explored in further detail I feel that Beware That Girl would have been a better book, as it stands it feels to me as though the author took a serious issue and used it as a simple plot point without really delving into its true impact.

Would I recommend it?

For me it was a fairly quick read and I didn’t hate it but I didn’t love it either, maybe because I’m used to reading psychological thrillers marketed primarily at adults and so my expectations in regards to a YA psychological thriller were too dark. If you see it on offer and this is your sort of thing you might want to give it a go.

Beware That Girl just didn't live up to my hype. It had an interesting synopsis that caught my eye almost immediately, but I couldn't bring myself to like it. It really reminded me of Gossip Girl in parts meaning it felt filled with awful characters, loads of drama, and an unfulfilling conclusion. I really wanted to like this but it just fell short for me, sadly.

Set at Waverley school in New York, Kate has a scholarship to study and lives in a crummy flat rented from a Chinese couple whom she also works part time for. She had an abusive, murderous father and not a great time growing up.

Olivia is a rich girl, her dad isn't around a great deal as he works hard and away from home. Her mum has passed away and so she lives with her apartment cleaner, Anka whom is Polish.

Kate knows Olivia was in the year above her before disappearing for a year, but not why she did and so she looks up Olivia's record at school and discovers just what happened to her the past year despite what Olivia originally tells her.

Olivia and Kate become swift friends and super close and so eventually she invites Kate to live with her.

Meanwhile Mark is the director of Waverly school and Olivia is drawn to him and so Olivia finds herself trapped in an abusive sexual relationship. Due to the lack of love I feel Olivia has had surrounding her during her life as well as her mental health struggles. She also used to cut herself when younger and unfortunately, Mark abuses her leaving her disgusted with her body as she has cuts and bruises all over her body he made.

Fortunately, Olivia and Kate work together and upon discovering a photo album full of pictures of his victims in his flat they confront him together when he comes over to their flat to collect Olivia, resulting in a death and shock for the others.

This book is reminiscent of Gossip Girl and the Private series by Kate Brian. Thanks to the publisher for allowing me to review it.

The premise of this book is so promising but I can't help but feel like this book fell a little flat.

After reading the opening scene in the hospital it was quite predictable who was going to end up there, and it was of no surprise that Mark was going to be the bad guy in this book.

I also found this book relied far too heavily on stereotypes, especially in the case of Mrs Chen and Anka, so much so that I actually found reading about them quite offensive, especially Anka as I've worked with many Polish and their English is great and not like that depicted in this book at all.

Despite the negative points of this book it is an easy enough read and was quite enjoyable at times. I liked the different writing styles that were used for each different girl and I really enjoyed the twist at the end, it was very dark and unexpected.

Well this book was certainly a bit of a rollercoaster.

Beware That Girl follows Katie O'Brien, a poor orphaned scholarship girl, and Olivia Sumner, her seemingly complete opposite, over the course of six months, and the friendships and romances they develop.
Both girls have secrets, but Katie basically picks Olivia out as being vulnerable and is going to exploit that to ensure she gets into Yale.

Yep, this story is full of lies and deceit and manipulation from start to finish.

The ending twist? Probably a little bit predictable but still enjoyable nonetheless. I was pitying Olivia throughout the whole book, thinking that she was being taken advantage of, but the ending definitely added a little bit of depth to her character even if it was stereotypical.

This is a book that is full of stereotypes; the heavily accented housekeeper, the private schoolgirls self-medicating and being whisked away at even the hint of a scandal, the mysterious and charming male member of staff who's clearly hiding something under the dazzling smile. It's all stereotypical and you almost know how it's going to end from the start, but once the shallow writing and mostly two-dimensional characters fade a little bit (i.e. once you near the end of the book) this does

Beware That Girl was definitely marketed wrong and definitely suffered as a result. The characters feel like teenagers (as in 15ish) but with their ages and the adult material this should definitely be classed as a new adult novel. Because it straddles these two genres, it's hard to pin down exactly what it's trying to do and accomplish.

Yes, this book could have been better. But yes, this book did have enjoyable elements. The dynamic between Olivia and Kate was particularly interesting, and the sinister yet loving edge to it was probably the most interesting part of Beware That Girl.

If you're looking for strong and interesting characters then this is not the book for you. If however, you're looking for characters that you love to hate, and to waste a few hours going down the rabbit hole, well then, this is the book for you.

I wasn't aware that this book was a new cover/edition of a book I already tried back when it came out. I thought it was a new book, not the first time that someone would have the same title as someone else on their book, and then I checked Goodreads and saw it was just another cover/edition.

So yeah, I would list my reasons why I dropped the book back when I first tried it (with the blue cover), but frankly I don't even remember them any more, I just know I didn't like the book, but the exact reasons have by then replaced by many other books that I read and cared more for.

I struggled to engage with this book and gave up about a quarter of the way through. The mystery surrounding Olivia, Kate and Marcus didn't grip me enough to find out what happened, and both Kate and Olivia had such similar voices that I often confused who was narrating - the addition of a third person narrator didn't help matters. I think this is a book I just didn't click with, I can see it being appropriate for fans of Pretty Little Liars.