This was hard read as the characters were so unlikeable (being bullies what would you expect) and very dark. I am so glad that my children's experience at school/university was so much better than this.

I am glad I read it but it took me a while to read as it was a difficult read

I was given a free copy by netgalley and the publishers but the review is entirely my own

This was an interesting book, but I really feel like it had nothing particularly memorable or redeemable and felt quite basic. Perhaps this author just isn't the one for me.

This was a captivating read but I would not put it under the thriller genre! The main characters were extremely nasty, hateful and unlikeable but I guess that's the point haha. The book included themes around toxic friendships and reminded me somewhat of the film Mean Girls. It kept me guessing though with the twists and I was hooked throughout. Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an advance copy of the book.

Mean girls meets a deadly game of cat and mouse in this, rather addictive thriller set at a college reunion. It's a dark story, with lots of secrets that slowly bubble to the surface, as Ambrosia struggles to keep control of the perfect life she's built up around her. A life very different from the one she had in college.

Ambrosia is a really interesting character. She's not likeable in the easy laid back sense of the word, but she's definitely intriguing. She's a bully. Someone who takes pleasure in making their peers feel low about themselves and this is as much a story of revenge as it is about secrets coming out. Ambrosia never really feels regret for what she did in the past, but is more concerned about preserving her image. Because of this I couldn't really warm to her as a character. She has no empathy, no compassion, but I still felt compelled to know what was going to happen to her.

Aside from this, I didn't find the plot particularly original and I didn't like the constant flipping between timelinessl. However this is very much a personal issue, as I prefer a linear approach to my reading. Overall it achieved what it set out to do, with a mix of intriguing characters. I just wanted a bit more from the plot.

This was such a time sucker of a book! I sat down to read a few chapters and ended up reading the whole thing! Firstly the girls are NOT nice here!
We follow friends Sully and Amb through their first year at college and they are mean girls… The story is told in a then and now format and I was HOOKED! Not what I was expecting and definitely not for the faint hearted. I’m almost sorry to say I really enjoyed this 😬

This thriller didn't do it for me, unfortunately. I liked the 'now' and 'then' structure of the chapters, until it seemed to drag and I just wanted to know what the big event was. The writing was good, but I did find myself skipping bits to find out what I didn't yet know. The final chapter I felt was unnecessary and didn't really fit with the rest of the story. In summary, liked the writing, less keen on the plot.

The Girls Are All So Nice here focuses on a young woman’s journey after making the necessary steps for growth after a not so perfect college experience. Ambrosia Wellington is now married and trying to live her best life until she receives emails and letters mentioning a college reunion. At first, she steers clear of joining this meet-up because of the painful memories it brings up. It isn’t until she gets a sinister letter in the mail that she knows it’s time to face the past. Ambrosia was a wild child in college and was involved in some shady behaviour that she wanted to keep hidden, but her past keeps creeping up.⁣

The writing in this was great and I'd definitely pick up more from this author based on this work. As a consumer of the Thriller, Mystery genre I feel this was predictable. It's a story we've seen before the only thing making it stand out was the writing. This would definitely be a good starting point in the thriller genre if you haven't read much then I'd say you'd have a great time with this one because it's not overly heavy of the thrilling and more looks into the mind of toxic friendships and situations. Unfortunately, I just felt like this was middle of the road read for me personally. I did really enjoy the past storyline but the rest was a little boring. I will probably give this author a try again based on their writing style but it's not a priority for me.

Thank you to NetGalley and publishers for this ARC

A brilliant psychological thriller, fast paced and a gripping read

This book is a triumph! It's truly gripping - the narrative structure, with the chapters going back and forth between 'then' and 'now' works wonderfully to maintain the tension without becoming too convoluted or confusing. The way these two narratives slowly weave together is masterful - at first, I was worried the 'now' chapters would be less interesting, acting more as page-fillers until we get back to the action of 'then', but I needn't have worried. The plot is built to support this structure; since our main character, Ambrosia Wellington, is heading back to her college reunion, we know that we won't have to wait long for the drama and tension of what happened 'then' to infiltrate into the 'now'.

The characters are fully fleshed, especially our main girls, Amb and Sully. Sully's aura and mystique can be felt through the pages, enabling us to forgive Amb's behaviour as we can understand the palpable power that Sully has over her. Despite her actions, we can see ourselves in this character - who doesn't relate to that desire to be seen, that allure of sisterhood, no matter how dangerous it is? This is crucial to the book - it would be too easy to write Amb as entirely unlikeable, but then we wouldn't be so drawn into the narrative. The author manages to find the perfect balance between presenting her flaws and toxicity, whilst still presenting her humanity and relatability.

This book has its fair share of twists and turns to keep the reader engaged, some of which are more of a success than others. I almost wish the author had gone further with some of them, especially when we get to the climactic scene. Without going into spoilers, the way that the book ends is both fitting and unfair. If I'm being cynical, it feels a little rushed at the end, but on the whole the ending perfectly fits the tone of the book, the build-up. You know there will be some atonement for the acts that Amb and Sully did in the past, but you never know the direction this will go in until the very final pages. There is definitely a feeling of karma towards the end, as well as a feeling of the cycle continuing. It almost makes me hope for a sequel!

Wow what a gripping read. I loved it….raced through it at warp neck speed, I did think it would be more of a mystery but it didn’t matter and I loved it anyway!!! more please!

A school bully goes to her high school reunion in this deliciously dark and entertaining Psychological thriller.

Written in alternating chapters, the book is structurally interesting and has a great twist.

Very enjoyable.

If you enjoy books that just tell a story with no real plot line - more just slice of life - then this is great. I expected more mystery and I think the book tried to be with the whole "ooooh dorm doom" thing but I just didn't care. I didn't like our main character and she was just completely unrelatable to me.

Dark and unsettling, this is what would happen if the characters from Mean Girls went to college and got sneaky. It's an enjoyable thriller but I wasn't quite as surprised by some of the twists as I would have wanted to be, particularly towards the end. A great critique of niceness and a sharp understanding of what really goes on in someone's head, and what would happen if we took the brakes off our cruelest instincts.

Loved this! Intriguing and gripping throughout. Ideal for fans of The Secret History and The Furies.

Not a spoiler as this is pretty obvious from the start, but the girls are NOT nice here at all 😂

This was about two former best friends who reunite at their college reunion, to find they are being harassed by a mystery person about something they did ten years ago, and that person will stop at nothing to get their revenge.

There are dual timelines; the present with the girls at the reunion, and the past revealing their time at college and what they have done that was so bad. These timelines worked really well together and I loved how the background was revealed as we went along. It was a little slow to start but once it built up it packed a punch.

I quite enjoyed this, it did not have many likeable characters at all but that was the point! Full of toxic and complex friendships, and the ultimate definition of mean girls. This was from a different perspective than usual as the main character actually is one of those mean girls and we get to see her shocking behaviour through her own eyes.

This is a disturbing and powerful read that makes you realise how the actions of one person can have such a strong impact on the lives of others. The ending and the twist wrapped things up nicely and I did not see that one coming!

I enjoy books with twisted, complex characters and unpredictable behaviour and this very much sits within this category!

Set back and forth between the present day where Ambrosia is a respectable married woman, and back to her time at college, best friends with Sully and living in a dorm with Flora: whose name is no longer spoken. The past is brought back to the surface as Ambrosia is invited back to a college reunion, a time in her life which she is not keen to re-visit; she’s moved on from then, she doesn’t want to see those people or to risk things jeopardising the life she has worked so hard to create for herself now. Secrets from back then must stay that way, there’s a lot at stake.

We learn how Ambrosia and her college friends behaved and what they got up to. They went out drinking and having a good time, but, at times they didn’t know when to stop and the lines became blurred and the behaviour more out of control. They were out to protect themselves and to stop the truth from being revealed. When thrown back together we see why Ambrosia was so reluctant to attend the reunion; she is pushed to re-visit the skeletons kept hidden in the closet ever since. There are awkward encounters as you’d expect after so long but, more worrying is when Ambrosia starts to find clues that someone knows things about her she doesn’t want anyone to know, and she feels threatened and afraid. Afraid of what someone knows and what they can do with this information.

This is a brilliant thriller with twists, one in particular which I enjoyed trying to guess. I didn’t like the characters but, then I think it would have been hard to like them! It’s an intense and at times claustrophobic read and one which I enjoyed!

This was a psychological thriller with a great hook - the comeuppance of the mean girls from the perspective of a mean girl, wrapped up in a giant title that I have not once been able to say in the right order.

Ambrosia did some particularly sh*tty things in college, some of them specifically to hurt the people around her and when she attends her ten year reunion, it looks like someone’s determined to make her face the consequences of her actions.

Though she’s not likable as such, she’s written in such a way that you can understand the motivations behind what she does and how she rationalises her actions when really there’s no justification for them. Sully, her partner in crime, is even less likable and appears to be a straight up sociopath and devil on Amb’s shoulder - but can you blame a sociopath for behaving badly when they make absolutely no pretense at being anything other than a raging bastard?

The chapters alternate between the ‘then’ and ‘now’ of college and the reunion as we read how her behaviour escalated and the final results, before we discover who it is that’s been playing with her in the present day.

It’s a tough look at how awful people can be to each other for such flimsy reasons but at the same time it’s a compelling read, from a perspective that’s so hard to pull off without completely alienating the reader.

The ending didn’t quite blow my socks off because I was more invested in the ‘then’ timeline where mean girls were pushing the boundaries between morally corrupt and illegal, but it did neatly tie up all the loose ends with a creepy final chapter.

I would like to extend my gratitude to the author, publisher and NetGalley for sending me this advanced reader’s copy in return for a fair, frank, and honest review.

This book is very reminiscent of William Golding’s Lord of the flies, but that is where the comparison stops. I did not like this book and hated most of the characters. Some of the darkness within these girls was scary and it did not really treat bullying as sensitively as it should have. Maybe it was because these girls appear very entitled and shallow, I am not sure, but I did not like it at all.

Not for me.Complicated,twisted story that failed to keep my interest. Characters were predictable and uninteresting.

This gave me mixed vibes, and I found it difficult to review.
The characters were not likeable (what bullies are?) but I felt very uncomfortable reading some of the scenes described, it was pretty dark at times. Usually I love dark thrillers, but I just couldn't love this one, maybe I just don't like books where people are persecuted.
Maybe that means the writing was good? I've wrestled with this, as I can't say I enjoyed it but it definitely made me feel things!