This book was complex and heart wrenching and oh so gripping. The characters were all so varied and well fleshed out, it was constantly tense, you were always waiting for the other shoe to drop. While it was difficult at times, seeing more and more bad decisions being made, you can constantly understand why they were made by a group of teens being constantly failed by the adults meant to protect them.
Only the best writing can make you want to continue reading with such dark topics while still leaving an ending thats almost hopeful. Fantastic.

A difficult story of friendships, isolation, not fitting in, and trauma.
Rose is our storyteller, one of the new scholarship students at fictional High Realms school in Devon. She builds friendships with Lloyd, Sami and Marta, and enemies with Genevieve. Even though our characters are 16/17 years old, this felt very much an adult story, exploring how far you would go for friendship. The underlying themes are dark, and it also highlights how young people can be failed by adults.
Trigger warnings for themes of self harm and suicide.
A solid, thought provoking story that will have you reflecting upon your own schooling.

‘The Four’ – Ellie Keel
Loved, loved, loved this book! Rose, Lloyd, Sami and Marta have all been awarded scholarships to High Realms. Each is vulnerable in their own way and is forced into friendship. Secrets abound at High Realms and as the four steer their way through the year they find themselves driven to behave in ways that they never dreamt of.
The Four explores a range of traumatic themes: bullying, assault and rape yet the darkness of the story is lightened by friendships and hope. This book certainly brings the boarding school stories of my youth into the 21st century. Buy it!

Too much like a combination of Enid Blyton, Paullina Simons and Donna Tart. A set unbelievable circumstances with unlikeable and exaggerated characters combined to produce a novel I just couldn’t get in to.

I’m sure lots of readers will really enjoy this book, but I’m afraid I didn’t. I couldn’t warm to any of the characters and the story didn’t interest me at all. It was well written, just not for me I’m afraid. Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers and I hope the book does well.

I've finished reading my early copy of The Four that's out on the 11th April 2024 and I rate it 3 Stars.


The four scholarship pupils. Outsiders in a world of power and privilege.

Rose,Sami Martha & Lloyd instantly became friends the day they started the boarding school together they supported each other through the good times and the bad but something's about to happen that will test their friendship and loyalty to each other..

if I'm honest I'm not sure if I like this book or not, the first half of the book was very slow and not much happened and I was about to give up with it because it was boring but I decided stick with it, the second half of the book wasn't bad the story kicked in and I started to like it the book deals with some hard topics that can be upsetting and dark, I didn't like any of the characters the character of Rose was narrating the story if I'm honest I found the story a bit dull I felt there was bits missing and there was some missed opportunities that could have worked well with the story and characters.

this also felt like a Ya book more then an adult book, also I felt that some things was rushed a bit to move on to the next thing and as the book came to and end I felt oh is that it, I was wowed by the book I didn't love it or didn't hate it its an ok read..

Sadly I wasn't a fan of this book. Given the ages of the characters, the book felt very YA which isn't my cup of tea. The writing style also wasn't for me, I can't really put my finger on why.

There were a lot of positives to the book - there was a decent plot there and even though I didn't like the writing style personally, it was very accomplished and there were no mistakes or plot holes that I noticed.

I have awarded 3 stars, as whilst this book was not for me and I was not the target audience, I believe many people will really enjoy it.

I read an eARC of this so thank you to Net Galley, the author and the publisher.

This is a dark academia story set in a British boarding school in the Devon countryside. We follow four scholarship students as they join for sixth form, narrated by Rose, the daughter of a London taxi driver who has lost her mother.

The four students are not well received and are bullied horrifically, particularly the two girls Rose and Marta. Marta has been homeschooled to this point and has some unusual mannerisms that make it hard for her to fit in. However much of the bullying comes from the four being scholarship students and less wealthy than the other students.

I would strongly advise checking trigger warnings on this one, it is very dark. Alongside horrific bullying there is self-harm, rape, mental health issues, loss of a loved one, suicide, physical and sexual assault.

I thought this was a good example of dark academia but it is quite a painful read at times. It’s gripping and an interesting story. There are plenty of revelations about the dark recesses of the characters pasts and psyches and it’s often very shocking. Part way through the story something happens that puts the four in significant peril and they struggle to keep a secret.

I enjoyed this more than several other dark academia novels I’ve read but I do think that if you read this, be prepared for the level of suffering the characters will endure. This book is showing how horrible people can be. The suffering all felt so unnecessary, particularly with the bullying. The motivation really wasn’t sufficient for the level of torture the poor characters underwent and it made for a very angry reaction. That’s not to say it’s unnecessary to the story, it’s integral to understand why certain characters made the choices they did. However it felt so pointless and unnecessarily cruel that the characters were treated this way. The rationale was often petty. Compelling and gripping story but a tough read at times.

Simply exquisite! I was totally immersed in the messed-up world of High Realms from the very first page and echoes of it will stay with me for a while, I suspect. I’ve never read a book quite like this one - it’s like a dark, whip-smart and emotionally challenging Malory Towers. It’s truly stunning in its originality, craftsmanship and beauty. Read this book - you won’t regret it.

Definitely a dark read. I probably read this a bit differently as I am a teacher who has worked in boarding schools, so I found a lot of it extremely implausible.
The relationships between the teenage pupils were interestingly portrayed and believable and it did keep me reading. I also will remember the storyline as it was intriguing.

This wasn't really the book for me. It felt a bit more for a YA market but I still really enjoyed it. It was a super quick read and like a dark st Trinians I guess. Its well written and the story played out well

I tried my hardest to finish this but could not get past 40%. It felt very… YA to me and I expected instead something more nuanced. Like a Secret History, more layered. I’m not sure if it picks up after 40% but I’m afraid I just didn’t make it as it started feeling like a chore to finish :(

It’s a combination of The Heathers meets St. Trinian’s but for a debut , it’s well written and kept me engaged for most of the story, the middle dragged a bit but the pace and tension picked up towards the end.

I liked the concept of this book, which takes 4 full scholarship teenagers into the sixth form of an exclusive boarding school in Devon in the 1990s. If you were expecting tuck shops and midnight feasts, this is definitely not the book for you. This is a much darker read, with the 4 main characters being ignored at best, tormented physically and mentally at worst. They struggle to fit in as there is so much shared history between the other students, secrets and events that they know nothing about and a hierarchy that is hard to work out. I didn’t take to the characters other than Sami, who seemed the most normal of all. Not the book for me, but worth a read.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read and review this book.

I really wanted to like this book. The concept sounded great and like it would be a really good thriller. However, I constantly felt like I was missing something, especially when reading the character dialogue. It almost felt like the second book, where the all the characters background had been established previously. Unfortunately, it just wasn't for me.

I must say I’m torn with this book - it’s an evil Mallory Towers meets Paullina Simon’s Red Leaves book but it never hit the mark for me.

I never connected to the “four” and actually liked the flawed characters of Sylvia, Gin and Max, I wanted more of them and their nuances. Rose wasn’t a likeable narrator and I found Marta draining. I almost wanted her to suddenly switch to who I hoped she was, but she didn’t. An opportunity missed I think. It was busy trying to be clever that it forgot to be.

Not for me

This book tells the story of 4 teenagers who are outsiders on a scholarship at an exclusive school. From the start they gravitate towards each other as they face bullying, sexual abuse and violence. The story is dark and not my usual read but it was so well written I devoured it in a day.
I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

Dark academia has to be one of my most favoured genres, obsessed with it since my first read of 'The Secret History', which appeared to be the natural progression of things after so many torch light, midnight reads of Mallory Towers, The Chalet School books and St Clare's series. Schools which you couldn't leave, and therefore, held their own rules, traditions and culture in check, generally unobserved by the outside world, held an allure of glamour with equal measures of sinister intentions.

Perfect breeding ground for murderous personalities or supernatural elements and endlessly satisfying.

Midnight feasts, playing lacrosse (still not sure what that was), secret societies, sacrifices, an indecent amount of spoken Latin, pet names for teachers, mysterious deaths, secret passages and priest holes-what fun!

In 'The Four', a truly astonishing debut novel, Ellie Keel presents High Realms as the peak of achievement, at east to the outside world, of privilege and achievement, The very system designed to make it so exclusive and elite, is the one which necessitates a certain number of scholarship pupils in order to be seen to be 'fair', as well as maintaining the very culture that keeps it privileged and behind closed doors. This circuitous process throws up it's latest sacrificial lambs in the shape of Marta, Rose, Sami and Lloyd, each with an accompanying baggage of parental expectation of success and background trauma.

Arriving in Sixth Form, they have bypassed the indoctrination process by which the rest of the year are already knee deep in their own little cliques, and it is immediately obvious that the Millennials, as they are known, will never be accepted for who they are, at best they will be tolerated, at worst driven out.

Any sign of rebellion is met with brutal punishment, Any digressions from the accepted norms which no one has taken the time to teach them about, is met with disapproval. Between the two, they are both ostracised and stand out as ubiquitous wolves in lambskin, they are absolutely not to be trusted whether they toe the line or not.

Meal privileges withdrawn, mocking , tripping up, imprisonment, detentions, physical and psychological bullying gets more and more violent as the principle antagonists-Genevieve , Sylvia and Shana-ramp up the despicable acts they carry out. Even the teachers seem unwilling-or unable-to help, playing off Genevieve 'Gin' as grief stricken after her younger sister's death at the school.

There is so much foreshadowing that you spend the novel like a keen detective, teasing out the dropped remarks by Rose, the first person narrator, to what will be the end point of her time in high Realms, where her relationship will go with Marta, her much, much more bullied roommate, and what the revenge will be.

As I was reading, I could feel this red mist of anger descend-especially when Sami explains what the boys in his house did to him on discovering his tuck box-at the injustice of it all. Whilst they all have their own issues-parental death, anxiety, self harm and so on-the Four are bound together by the sense that this is an opportunity to leap frog themselves into a society that would otherwise reject them-having High Realms on your CV opens way more doors than the local comp. That's if, of course, you survive the education process and if you do, what part of yourself do you give up to 'succeed'?

I found this book to be so engrossing, I literally could not stop once I had started and I can see why the early pre-release buzz is swirling around 'The Four'.

I requested this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review, I was pleasantly surprised when someone from Harper Collins got in touch to tell me i had been gifted it. It is usually an email from Netgalley, so this made it a little more special!

Honestly... I devoured it! The first few chapters are a little slow, but stick with it, its amazing! Once you learn who all the characters are, there are quiet a few main ones in this which at first was a little daunting, but its easy enough to grasp who's mean and who's nice.

I think my favourite character has to be Rose, she's the narrater of the story and i really like the way Keel has written her into it. She's independent, loyal to her friends yet at the same time cautious and unsure of herself. I loved that she built as a character throughout the book too, it felt like the reader grew with her as she discovered who she was.

Marta, well, another great character all on her own, how much crap can one person deal with in their lives was how I think the story got me feeling. I felt so sorry for her all the way through it, even when she was loosing the plot and being a b***h.

The boys were also well written, and I think by the end of it even I hated Gerald and wanted to kill him! I struggle with storylines and plots like this one as I find myself getting angrier even though its only fiction. Too much of it occurs in normal life that to read about it happening too makes me moody. But I understood the reason for it being in there and it was a powerful peace of fiction.

I don't want to write too much about the story because its well worth the read for anyone who enjoys a bit of mystery, romance, intrigue and teen fiction. The baseline flows that four friends meet at a private boarding school, the usual mean girls of the house dominate and the clever ones get abused. This book really does have a bit of everything, from suicide, physical and mental abuse to gay relationships, rape and death. There are lots of twists and turns and I found the book really good at bringing inclusion into a piece of fiction.

Would I have pushed Genevieve? Too right.. Would I have let Gerald get away with what he did? Hell no! Would I have wanted 3 amazing friends like Rose, Sami and Lloyd? Most definitely!

I was worried at first I wouldn't get into this, but I'm so glad I stuck with it! Its a very good piece of writing from Ellie Keel and I look forward to what she brings out in the future.

3.75/5 for this is a solid debut from Ellie Keel; I finished a couple of days ago and I'm still thinking about it.

I was hooked from the very start of this and I enjoyed the writing style; I was lost with some of the terminology used to describe life at High Realms but to me it just added to the feeling of exclusion in the novel and it being its own little world separate from the norm. Set in the 90's, the Four are students ostracised by their peers for their scholarship status and the bullying is pretty dark. It's unrelenting until one particular event changes everything, and the Four become bound by various secrets from there on out.

I liked this book however I have marked it as 3.75 as I feel there was just so much going on that it wasn't possible to give depth to everything which let the narrative down overall . There are some plot developments which seem to come out of nowhere rather than feeling like a twist and with so many themes it felt superficial at some points and while some of these gel together, others just seem shoved in. Similarly with the romances in the book. While this is not the main focus of the novel, there are connections which happen all of sudden that its almost jarring as one in particular comes out of nowhere.

There are some truly sad backstories in this but if they had been developed a bit more it would have elevated this for me. I particularly struggled with Sami who seemed to have a complete personality change off page as well as Max who was so integral to a lot of the book but literally disappears from the narrative more than once.

That all being said, I did enjoy this. Its very atmospheric and when something worked well, it really worked well. Marta is a well written character and is such a force in this book and some of the twists and turns did genuinely surprise me. I'll definitely be interested to see what Ellie Keel does next.

My interpretation of the star system;
3 stars - I enjoyed it; would read the author again
4 stars - I really liked it; I am invested and definitely want more from this author/series
5 stars - I loved it; this book is pretty much perfect and I have added all the authors works to my TBR!