The Girls Are All So Nice Here by Laurie Elizabeth Flynn

Photo Credit: Simon and Schuster

Traveling With T purchased this book for her own listening while walking time.

The Girls Are All So Nice Here

Summary: Two former best friends return to their college reunion to find that they’re being circled by someone who wants revenge for what they did ten years before—and will stop at nothing to get it—in this shocking psychological thriller about ambition, toxic friendship, and deadly desire.

The Girls Are All So Nice Here opens when Ambrosia Wellington receives an invitation to her ten-year college reunion. Only, slipped in with all the expected information about lodging and the weekend’s schedule is an anonymous letter that says: “It’s time to talk about what we did.” Instantly, Ambrosia realizes that the secrets of her past—and the people she thought she’d left there—aren’t as buried as she’d thought. Amb can’t stop fixating on what she did—and who she did it with. Larger-than-life Sloane Sullivan (“Sully”), who could make anyone do anything. The game they played to get a boy who belonged to someone else, and the girl, Amb’s angelic roommate, who paid the price.

Amb had thought that she and Sully had gotten away with what they did their first semester at Wesleyan. But as Amb receives increasingly menacing messages during the reunion, it becomes clear that she’s being circled by someone who wants more than just the truth. Amb discovers that her own memories don’t tell the whole story, and that her actions and friendship with Sully had even more disturbing consequences than she ever imagined.

Told in alternating timelines between the reunion and Ambrosia’s turbulent first months of college, The Girls Are All So Nice Here is a gripping rollercoaster ride of a novel that examines the dark complexities of female friendship and the brutal lengths girls can go to take what they think they are owed.

Traveling With T’s Thoughts:

All I have to say is thank goodness I did not go to this school with this group of girls. Good grief.

Listen, I am far enough removed from college to look back and know that while it was a pretty good time in life (mostly), it was probably not the best time of life. We were young and full of plans and wants and desires… and while not quite as mean as the some of the girls in this book- we were way too damn immature to actually you know TALK to the girl that was getting on our nerves- instead we liked to flounce around, do catty remarks and just be little witches.

But at least we weren’t casually using cocaine. Or just having sex to have sex to prove how desirable we were (or more accurately to feel desirable).

At times, this was less suspense/mystery feel and more of a study on the relationships between females.

What I Liked:

The cover. It made me think of Sully’s line- something to the effect of “we’re worse.” The friendship between Sully and Ambrosia was twisted, terrible at times and yet very real.

How the story was divided. The early college years and the reunion. The back and forth sometimes kept my head spinning as clues were dropped- but I liked it.

The ending. I thought it was fitting for the book.

Bottom line: While I enjoyed the book, it did take awhile to get where it was going. I understand that to truly get Ambrosia- there was lots of backstory that was needed, but damn, I could have dealt with a little less. The casual mention of drug use had my inner Pollyanna shrieking. And Kevin- well he was not worthy of all the angst. I would def check out future books by Laure Elizabeth Flynn. though.

*This book was purchased by Traveling With T for listening while walking time. All thoughts and opinions are mine alone.*