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I really struggled with this one. I just couldn’t get into it and was just not my kinda vibe. I was finding myself getting really bored and wanting to do literally anything else than read this book.

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Thanks to NetGalley and Elspeth Wilson for the ARC copy just unfortunately wasn’t for me 🫶🏼

In this review, I want to express my gratitude to Simon & Schuster UK for granting me access to the ARC. When I first received it, I anticipated a dark academy theme. However, as I began to read, I found the narrative to be a bit clumsy and disorganized. The plot and characters felt rather plain for my taste, which ultimately made it challenging for me to finish the book in a timely manner. I wondered if it was the execution that I struggled to grasp, but overall, it just didn’t resonate with me as much as I had hoped.

I really enjoyed this, it was engaging, dark and twisty. Thank you to the author, publisher and NetGalley for the opportunity to read an ARC.

This is an upcoming release due out July 16th 2025, perfect for fans of Dark Academia (think the Secret History) and girlhood/witch influence, we follow Ivy navigate her exclusive college and getting to know people from less humble beginnings than her own. There are themes of toxic obsession, love, grief and just how much do your friends mean to you? I found this book enthralling, engaging and perfect for an autumnal read!😍🍁 I loved the mixing of the past and present with history of witch covens playing as themes throughout with darker magic

I was really hoping to enjoy this one as the description sounded right up my alley. I have two main disappointments that I think really affected my reading experience. One of which is the fact that nothing really happened throughout the book? There were moments where I thought it was going somewhere, but the execution fell flat for me. Secondly, and perhaps even more importantly, none of the characters were likeable enough for me to truly be motivated to read. I can forgive a so-so plot if the characters feel authentic, relatable and real, but unfortunately I didn't feel like any of the characters matched that description. Their motivations and relationships were surface level, and I couldn't connect to any of them.
This one was just not for me, unfortunately, but I really appreciate the chance to read an advance copy thanks to NetGalley.

Thank you for providing me with an early copy of this book. Unfortunately I just couldn’t get into it and really struggled to get passed the first 40ish pages.

Elite university, mysterious social society, academia all sounds like the makings of a great book. This isn't great but I think that may be the gap between my age and the main character who, at times, I found annoying. The writing is good and the book is pacy but it wasn't quite the dark thriller I was hoping for.

I reached for this book on the NetGalley UK list because one of the characters is described as being neuro divergent . to be honest, I can’t see the evidence of neuro diversity the first half of the book anyway
There are paragraphs of a witch based Story at the start of the chapters to begin with. It was hard to see how these were linked to the story. I did understand it eventually but was rather flummoxed initially
I made an assumption that this book is set in modern times because of this the behaviour of the students in the drinking club seems somewhat anachronistic. it might have been better as a novel in the 80s or 90s when these drinking clubs actually existed as some of the revelations about our politicians revealed in the media
One of the things that I thought was a pity was that the novelist sat in an unnamed British university which I took to be Oxford or Cambridge by not using a definite university the author Mrs out on the opportunity to really set something perfectly geographically. The resulting university seems rather generic and wonder if this had been done to make it more approachable to non-British readers Americanisms in the description of the universe that also seemed to place a British setting
I think it was these oddities in the setting which resulted in me giving low score then I might’ve expected. The writing is good as is the characterisations I just couldn’t get over the strangeness in the description of the university
I read an early copy of the novel on on NetGalley UK the book is published in the UK on the 15th of July 2025 by Simon & Schuster UK
This review will appear on NetGalley UK, Goodreads and my book blog bionicsarahSbooks.wordpress.com after publication. It will also appear on Amazon UK.

Found the idea of the plot and atmosphere very intriguing but struggled at times to keep engaged as the plot was a bit slow for my liking.

I really enjoyed the idea of the book but don’t know if it’s how it transferred to my kindle but I really struggled to make sense/follow the book. What I did get was good but was quite a slow burner and lacked structure. I love an academia book! Thank you publisher, author and netgalley for allowing me an ARC for this book.

What would you do for sisterhood?
This book takes freshers to university academia and envelops them in a world of secret societies and relationships of sisterhood and brotherhood.

Our main character ivy enters still slightly upset having lost her only friend before university, but before she knows it she’s wrapped in love from martha and prim, who she loves like best friends and sisters and her new boyfriend George.

The secrets behind these societies make for a rocky relationship and trust issues between many, but the general message stands that sisterhood can survive anything and your sisters should always come first.
Alongside these societies we also unravel a mystery of local witch trails and the introduction of women accessing academia and the way this may all be intertwined with the societies we’ve met is truly mindblowingly out of this world.

Despite the grief and anxiety we see our characters deal with in various ways, the message of sisterhood stands throughout and I truly fell in love with our little trio of main characters.

anted to love this but just couldn’t get into it at all. I found the main character vapid and annoying; the language was confusing and I kept having to pull myself back into the prose instead of having it pull me in and become engrossed.
I didn’t attend oxbridge and didn’t understand a lot of those references / lost on me perhaps. But as a grad of a UK university you’d have thought they’d be somewhat familiar. Hated the ‘bop’ term.
And the story just sort of didn’t go anywhere for ages. I found the interactions between characters shallow.
Just no. I’m sorry.
Thank you to netgalley and publishers for the ARC of this book. Maybe next time!

Giving gothic university vibes this book is peak dark academia.
The focusing of the plot around secret societies gives the book a thriller supernatural vibe which I loved!

Leaving behind her childhood in coastal Scotland, neurodivergent Ivy Graveson arrives at a prestigious university and throws herself into the deep end of life on campus.
Though her fellow students all seem to come from money and to have known each other their whole lives, outsider Ivy is determined to belong. She embraces the world of secret societies, and as she discovers the legacy of her college, the parallels between its past and her present become striking. Because however hard she tries to ignore it, Ivy has always felt one with water and her own personal talisman, a heron, is never far away.
In just one life-changing year in these hallowed halls, Ivy will have to decide how much sisterhood means to her and how far she’ll go to become the person she was destined to be.

Whilst I did struggle to finish the book, I did and it was OK.
Thank you to NetGalley for giving me the opportunity to read this ARC!

Dnf at about 20% probably more of a me problem as I am slumping at bit atm but this just didn’t hook me in and I found it a bit too bland to hold my attention

As an avid dark academia reader, this novel ticked many of my boxes. The first 20 pages or so took me a little while to get through, but after that I was hooked. I actually liked the vagueness of our setting, especially as a reader that did not attend Oxbridge (which I assume is the basis for much of the academic structure and experience). I enjoyed the unlikeability of most of our characters, with the possible exception of Prim, and indeed the vapid social interactions. I know that at age 18 and entering university, I was not "over" boys. The obsessive compulsions of our FMC, both in academics and interpersonal relationships, ticks another DA box. However I still feel unsure around that obsession being autism coded, though I'm not sure why.
It's possible that the writing style, paired with the immaturity of the majority of our characters might make this book more suitable for the YA category. Overall I really enjoyed this book.

These Mortal Bodies is a novel set at an elite university in which a young woman is drawn into the world of secret drinking societies and ancient power. Ivy grew up by the coast, but now she's about to start at a prestigious university. Despite feeling like a outsider, she quickly finds intoxicating new friends and becomes intrigued by the drinking societies and the witchcraft-related history of her women-only college, but she has to decide how far she will go.

This is a dark academia novel that blends detail about Oxbridge with invented history of women accused of witchcraft, and blurs the lines between traditions and rituals, power and mysticism. The narrative focuses on Ivy and her friends' first year at university, structured around each week of term, but it is more about small dramas and Ivy's trajectory that big plot points, with the ending being more about characters coming into their own as 'sisters' at the college. For me, the ending felt more like a setup for a sequel than an actual ending, with lots of unexplored areas and unanswered questions.

The settings in the book are never specified, but the words used give it basically away, so the blurb I read specified that Ivy is from Scotland, but only particular terminology like Hogmanay' made that clear, and the university is clearly Oxbridge (I assumed Cambridge as I was reading because it has a women's college still and Oxford doesn't, but given that it is fictional, it could be purposefully either). One downside of this is that I think anyone without a familiarity of the terminology used at Oxbridge may end up confused, trying to guess where it is set and unfamiliar with concepts like different colleges, drinking societies, and the short terms. As I am familiar with them, I liked the detail (and I like dark academia that manages to be realistic with the university detail of where it is set), and it did accurately explore the balance between academic work and other elements that becomes all the more apparent when terms are short and workloads are high.

The characters were intriguing but perhaps lacking in detail at times, even Ivy as the narrator (anyone else you could blame on Ivy's perspective, as a lot of the side characters seemed to have no personality traits at al). Again, the blurb I read said Ivy is neurodivergent, but the book itself leaves that unspoken as far as I remember, and there are a lot of points like this where things are hazy and unspoken, but which perhaps actually needed to be spoken. Ivy's obsession with binaries, which is foregrounded at certain points in the book, brought something interesting to what I was starting to think was a book obsessed with the difference between men and women, but again, it wasn't really followed through on, not even with the one lesbian character or the one singular mention of the concept of non-binary people in the 'dear' part of a letter/email. I think it is a perspective on Oxbridge that often isn't explored—how so much is set up as some kind of binary—so I would've liked more depth around it (particularly as a non-binary person who went to Oxbridge myself).

The toxic friendship and obsession stuff is enjoyable, reminding me of things like The Craft in which there's a blurry line between this kind of obsessive female friendship and ideas of witchcraft. Oxbridge drinking societies do work quite nicely as a way to do dark academia (they are perhaps one of the most famous 'dark' aspects of the places) and the way they are worked into the characters' dramas and relationships make them integral rather than background. I think the darkness and actual narrative drama could've gone further, as what actually happens in very tame (and I assumed things were setting up for darker plot points, but then didn't). And once again with dark academia I feel that ideas around kinds of obsession and betrayal are so focused on female friendships and boys as the distraction from them that they don't even explore the homoeroticism they contain, not even in this case where one of the friends is a lesbian (though she never really mentions this).

These Mortal Bodies is fun if you like dark academia vibes with an accurate (if trying to be non-specific) Oxbridge setting, but for me it lacked substance and the combination of darkness and charm that makes The Secret History continue to be a standout book amongst its many successors. It felt like the first half of something, without the 'fall' or fallout from events ever happening (I do find it hilarious that Ivy gets a first even when she constantly admits she doesn't take her work as seriously as she should). However, I do appreciate when dark academia books do actually understand how to combine the academic setting with the 'dark' obsession side, and it was a good book to read in autumn with the new academic year feeling.

These Mortal Bodies is about a girl called Ivy, who starts university after the death of her best friend from home, and how this death affects her views on her relationships with several of the characters. The book is very much centred around secret societies, sisterhood and relationships, with the history of witches, witch trials and magic intertwined into it.

- I loved any part to do with the secret societies, especially The Coven, and I loved the backstory about how it was created. I also enjoyed that, throughout the whole book, it was ambiguous as to whether magic actually existed or not, as this made it more intriguing.
- The found family/friendship was a nice aspect of the book, and how Ivy was able to find a community she felt comfortable and safe in.
- It took a bit of time for me to get into the book because I found the writing style a little hard to read at first, but once I got into it, I really enjoyed the book as a whole, especially once it picked up near the end.
- I think there needed to be a bit more to the plot for the first half of the book, or faster pacing because it did feel like it dragged at times, and certain conversations/thoughts seemed to happen several times in the book.

Overall, it was an enjoyable read, and I would recommend for a cosy, moody read during the autumn/winter months!

Thank you to NetGalley for giving me the opportunity to read this ARC!

Not what I was expecting. A lot of superficial melodramatic teenage drama as opposed to the dark academia I was looking for.

I gave up half way through, to be honest. It's dull. Ivy is from a small seaside town and has gone to what I assume is Oxford (it's never named, but the colleges and phraseology seems like that), where she apparently s drawn to the place's witchy past. Which doesn't in any way seem to fit with real history, and also by halfway through has no actual hook. She has a mysterious past where her best friend drowned, but nothing is coming out about that in the half of the book I read.

I rarely give up on books but I got so bored and fed up I was reading almost anything else. It sounds fascinating but utterly fails to draw you in and was a real disappointment.