Disappointing Read & Replacement Recommendations

I love a good high school drama with a little murder, like One of Us is Lying, Beware That Girl, The Obsession and Pretty Little Liars, and that goes double for a school with a secret society.  Naturally I really wanted to read They Wish They Were Us.  

The book’s premise was intriguing, with the murder of a beautiful, charmed girl in elite circle of the Players, but as I read on, I found the story flat and predictable, with most of the tension coming from the creepy dares older Players force on younger initiates. But even here, I wasn’t particularly moved, because our protag decides to tell all her deepest darkest fears to the older Player who’ll be making up her dares, so even in the horrible hazing, I felt more like she’d brought it on herself than like it was a terrifying initiation into the charmed life of the Players. 

The Players are the popular kids who also have access to all the test answers and a network of useful connections for top colleges, and if someone knows you’re a Player (and they do, the whole town knows about the unsecret initiations), they have to give you whatever you want. There’s no real explanation of how this situation happened, either.  

I found the villain obvious and predictable in the bad way, not oooh, I must be smart for getting the author’s subtle hints! but more that everyone in town is dumb for not seeing it. I kept hoping it was all a really elaborate red herring, especially since I’d heard that the book was twisty and shocking. There are only a couple developed characters in this book, so there’s not a long list of potential suspects, anyway.

Anyway, I was really disappointed in this one.

What To Read Instead

You probably already know Pretty Little Liars, right? 

One of Us Is Lying, by Karen M. McManus, is like a darker Breakfast Club. Classmates with nothing in common meet in detention, but instead of a cute 80s locker montage, they’re witnesses to a murder. The sequel, One Of Us Is Next, revisits the school for more secrets and dares. 

For a school thriller where you’ll actually be kept guessing and really wonder what’s going on behind the scenes, I recommend Madam, by Phoebe Wynne. Our protag is a teacher, not a student, but in this one, the elite connections form a creepy background, instead of a weird get-out-of-jail-free card. 

Girls With Bright Futures, by Tracy Dobmeier and Wendy Katzman, isn’t really a thriller but still has a lot of tension and twists around high school seniors. Three senior have their hearts set on attending Stanford, or at least their mothers have their hearts set, and there’s only going to be one early-admission student from their upscale high school. They’ll also do pretty much anything to get in, or at least their mothers will, creating a dramatic story of privilege and pressure.  

In The Cheerleaders,  by Kara Thomas, the lovely town of Sunnybrook has no high school cheerleaders. Five years ago, they were all killed in different ways but in a very short time period. Now, the high school wants to memorialize the lost girls, but that’s bringing up a lot of deeply-held secrets. This is a twisty drama with high-school girls’ friendships at the forefront. 

And finally, I can’t recommend Donna Tartt’s The Secret History strongly enough.  This is dark academia drama about a small group of classics students,  full of developed characters and suspense.