"All Girls" by Emily Layden dives into the drama at a posh all-girls boarding school. A sexual assault accusation rocks the year, and the story unfolds from the perspectives of different students. It was interesting to see how each girl dealt with the fallout, friendships, and just being a teenager.

While I liked the unique storytelling, I felt like I never really got to know any of the characters that well. Also, the whole mystery of who did it kind of faded into the background. If you're looking for a juicy whodunit, this might not be it. But if you want a coming-of-age story with a #MeToo vibe, then "All Girls" might be worth checking out.

The story is set in an all girls boarding school in New England where, as the students arrive for the new school year, boards have been erected all around the area of the school, stating that a rapist works there.

What follows is a well-written story, with multiple perspectives and many characters, as they approach adulthood with their own issues, personality traits and problems and - it’s a bit muddled.

When the ending comes it’s a bit tepid. By that point, I was working so hard trying to remember who everybody was that I just wanted all the pranks to have been carried out by a teacher, government official or a member of the alumni. Some sort of massive twist as a payoff would have felt a bit more. It just seemed like so much of the book was about the girls that the story kind of slipped out of focus. The writing is highbrow and very detailed, and the characters are elitist but they have their own sense of community. It just lacked substance for me

I was disappointed with this book
This are just too many characters and that makes the plot confusing
The writing isn’t the best

All Girls by Emily Laden

Having two teenage girls at home and remembering quite vividly what it was like to be their age, I thought I might have some ideas about adolescence and the way girls interact with each other. All Girls is structured as a series of windows into a cohort of girls at an East Coast US boarding school. This is a private school (what we weirdly call Public schools) and it has a prestigious reputation. This is the sort of school that sets girls up for life, whether it’s academic achievement and a high flying career they’re after or having the right education to secure the right sort of husband. However, the school is trying to downplay a controversy that has lasted for twenty years and sadly resurfaces just as the new cohort moves in. The matter is addressed straight away by reassuring the parents it’s merely a whiff of scandal with no substance. The school wants to control the message that parents get by getting them to move on; there’s nothing to see here.

Despite the school’s intention to smoke screen the problem, the girls are intelligent and determined to find out the truth. They seem undeterred by the message coming from the faculty, admin and school board. They’re convinced that there’s more to this than meets the eye. The school newspaper is the perfect vehicle to get the real story out there, but the school have to usurp the newspaper editor’s First Amendment rights. We know, that within our many narrators and viewpoints, there is a vigilante who will stop at nothing. These many different perspectives are a rather unique way to tell the story. On one hand it gives us a breadth of opinion and experience, but on the other hand it can feel choppy and disjointed. It has the benefit of showing us how each person’s experience and context changes the narrative. We can see a difference between a girl who’s a freshman, excited to be starting a more independent life away from her parents, compared to an older girl who is a legacy pupil, brought up by her mother to attend the same school and left without a choice. It allows the author to explore very different characters like the senior who is popular with the whole student body and hides a same sex relationships with another pupil. I can see how this could be off putting to some readers, it’s a lot to keep track of, but I just read them and concentrated on those characters whose voices stayed with me.

I loved each character’s inner world, the thing that makes them respond to the world in their own unique way. The girls are linked, but are so different. It did affect my enjoyment when I was really enjoying a character and felt in the flow, only for it to change. I enjoyed getting an all female take on certain subjects like growing up, sexuality, aspiration, boundaries, self-awareness and learning to use their voice. There’s no judgement or moralising in this type of narrative structure. No omnipresent adult voice overriding the girl’s views. The author gives them complete freedom to explore their experience and this gives us nuance and subjectivity. Nothing is obvious and that makes for an exciting read.

Due to a sudden, unexpected passing in the family a few years ago and another more recently and my subsequent (mental) health issues stemming from that, I was unable to download this book in time to review it before it was archived as I did not visit this site for several years after the bereavements. This meant I didn't read or venture onto netgalley for years as not only did it remind me of that person as they shared my passion for reading, but I also struggled to maintain interest in anything due to overwhelming depression. I was therefore unable to download this title in time and so I couldn't give a review as it wasn't successfully acquired before it was archived. The second issue that has happened with some of my other books is that I had them downloaded to one particular device and said device is now defunct, so I have no access to those books anymore, sadly.

This means I can't leave an accurate reflection of my feelings towards the book as I am unable to read it now and so I am leaving a message of explanation instead. I am now back to reading and reviewing full time as once considerable time had passed I have found that books have been helping me significantly in terms of my mindset and mental health - this was after having no interest in anything for quite a number of years after the passings. Anything requested and approved will be read and a review written and posted to Amazon (where I am a Hall of Famer & Top Reviewer), Goodreads (where I have several thousand friends and the same amount who follow my reviews) and Waterstones (or Barnes & Noble if the publisher is American based). Thank you for the opportunity and apologies for the inconvenience.

Found this book overly pedantic and a little too cinematographic - like in trying to give us the entire picture of every moment of every scene in all its most intricate detail, the plot got completely lost, and I also ended getting lost in all the people being mentioned on each page. This would've worked really well in a visual scene where we could take all the details in one go, but in writing, it dragged and did not make for an engaging let alone pleasant reading experience

On paper this is 100% the sort of book i love, as i have always had an obsession with the classic American coming of age story.
I did not dislike this book but I really didn't enjoy it as much as i wanted to.. the main reason being that there were just too many characters . Each chapter is written from the point of view of someone different and could easily be stand alone mini stories and by halfway I was struggling to remember who was who and what their story was. . For me it would have been a lot better with less characters so that you could fully immerse yourself . The prose is also very descriptive and unnecessary in places and distracts from the plot of the story . Not a bad read but just not the best campus novel I have read

A coming of age novel that I was really looking forward to reading. Nine girls navigate their hopes and dreams against a backdrop of a scandal at the boarding school. The girls discover their voices and their power. The story shifted perspectives several times and the intriguing start had me hooked. But I started to get lost halfway, forgot the characters names and wanted to give up. I persevered til the end but forgettable.

I was intrigued by the themes explored in this book, and thought that the angle of a girls’ boarding school would make it even more interesting.
Whilst it could have been a brilliant setting for a story of this type, the sheer number of characters made it very difficult to keep up. None of them seemed to stand out from the others, and there didn’t seem to be one main ‘voice’ that was tying everything together.

I wanted to like it, but this just made it feel unwieldy, and I struggled to stay engaged with the story,

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for my ARC in exchange for an honest review.

At the start I thought this would be a really interesting storyline. A new year at a boarding school where a Scandal has occurred 20 years before and only just been exposed. Sounds great. Unfortunately it was not executed in the way I'd hoped.
There were far too many characters, I had no idea who was who by about half way through. Each chapter told the tale of someone else, from freshmen, sophomore, juniors or seniors so there was far too much going on. Things would happen to the characters and never explored after their chapter which left me feeling well what was the point in that.
The book follows an entire year at the boarding school and sometimes I felt it was dragging along.
A lot of things mentioned also that if you are not American or familiar with boarding school I think you would struggle to understand, or I certainly did.
I thought it would be more than what it ultimately was.

I really wanted to love this one but sadly I found it lacklustre.

I found it hard to be invested in anyone's story
& The whole thin just fell flat for me.

I reviewed this book as part of my monthly wrap up on my YouTube channel https://youtu.be/l5jxQeLPClU

I really liked this book. It was a really interesting concept; focusing in on an all girls boarding school in the context of a #metoo conversation and cultural shift. I thought starting with a character who is making a decision about choosing a boarding school and seeing her insight was really interesting. I also thought that in general the book did a good job of showing an unbiased and fleshed out perspective of what boarding school life would be like. It was good to see some positives as well as the obvious negatives.
The book delves into a number of characters and is very much a series of character studies. There were points where I did get a little confused about who everyone was in relation to each other, but to be honest I didn’t mind that. It didn’t seem essential for my enjoyment or understanding of the book. I found each character very interesting – they all had an individual back story that had led them to where they were.
I thought the title was interesting. I suppose it meant that everyone was touched by issues around sex and consent – a nod to the prolificacy of inappropriate moments that many (?all) girls and women are just dealing with. It also felt like it was saying all girls are interesting and complex and layered and have multitudes inside them, which I think is such a good and positive message. I wondered about whether having a section from the perspective of Mrs Brodie would have been interesting. After all, all girls turn into adults. But I don’t think that it necessarily missed anything by not having Mrs Brodie’s voice.
I felt like the last line could have been a little punchier, but I really liked that the book came full circle and we had the mystery set out at the beginning of who had leaked the school paper solved. I also liked the last few chapters that seemed to be saying that their can be good and bad in everything, especially in the people that we rely on or learn from in our formative years, which can be very confusing!

I found this book was like diving into my life. I was really keen to read this book as I’m always drawn to the boarding school all girls trope, I find it fascinating and how girls are portrayed when all together can be challenging and so interesting. I liked the issues that were dealt with in this book, I thought it was quite well written and covered a wide variety of topics rather than focusing On the general bullying and bitchiness. It had quite a big range of characters which did delay my progress slightly with it so if you can’t keep track of multiple perspectives it isn’t for you. But overall, a good and interesting read!

I was a bit wary going into this due to the current GR rating, but I ended up really enjoying this! While I understand how some aspects of this book could put some others off, I really enjoyed those aspects in the end.

This story is almost written as an anthology, switching between smaller stories of individual characters as the larger story slowly unravels. I feel like this style worked perfectly for what this book was trying to accomplish, and I found myself quickly invested in each new girl's story every time. While it was sometimes sad to slip back out of the girl's inner world right when things started getting interesting, it was something I got used to quickly. I liked how each story ended up building upon the other, and getting to see the different perspectives on both the boarding school experience and on the rape case that the school is going through gave a much more rounded picture of it all. We were given so many angles from many different backgrounds, and it was interesting how the same thing could be perceived so differently depending on the girl.

Overall, I felt this was a really strong debut, and it surprised me in so many ways. Anthology style books like this don't always work for me, and I haven't necessarily loved a lot of boarding school books, but the way this was done worked really well in my opinion.

Unfortunately, I really did not enjoy this book, after being very excited to read it. I found the characters unlikable and the plot slow and meandering. It had so much potential, but it just fell very very flat for me.

I have been trying to read this book for months now but I never got past the 34% mark and I finally decided to dnf this book and abandon it completely.
The premise of the book is great, but from what I've read, I didn't like the execution. I didn't like that apparently every chapter is written from a new girls perspective and to me it seemed as if we would not have returned to their perspectives again later on in the novel. This, unfortunately, had the effect that I couldnt connect to the characters at all and I also had trouble emphathising with them. I wish the novel had focused on myabe two or three perspectives and with shorter chapters. That would've made the book a lot more engaging. This way it wa just dreadful to read and the story dragged which lead me to being extremely bored.

I haven't managed to read this book, which is why my review is so late. I keep trying as I love the premise but there's something about the writing style which makes it hard to read and so I just don't get stuck into the book. Every time I try to read it I get through a few pages then choose to pick up something else.

I will keep trying though and will edit my review once finished!

What an utterly confusing book this is, hard to follow all the characters and their back stories, hard to follow the allegations and historical implications, hard to relate to the book in general.

Maybe I'm just too old to comprehend the ins and outs of modern school life, but this book is one I would not have chosen off the shelf so at least I gave it a try!

One of my favourite tropes is books set in schools and book with multiple narrative voices and so this book did not disappoint. It is a timely novel with deals with sensitive and complex topics well, and raises lots of important discussions around the power of privilege and sexual assault. Highly recommend.