I had never heard of Laura Pohl or her upcoming series, The Grimrose Girls, before the first book appeared on my Netgalley dashboard a few weeks ago, but as soon as I saw the description, I knew I needed to read it.

The Grimrose Girls is a Once Upon A Time-style fairytale retelling, and a slightly unhinged high school murder mystery, and a whole bunch of fanfic tropes, all rolled up into one fast-paced and highly entertaining story. It’s full of heart, and I highly enjoyed reading it.

Here’s the summary, courtesy of Netgalley:

After the mysterious death of their best friend, Ella, Yuki, and Rory are the talk of their elite school, Grimrose Académie. The police ruled Ariane’s death as a suicide, but the trio are determined to find out what really happened.

When Nani Eszes arrives as their newest roommate, it sets into motion a series of events that no one could have predicted. As the girls retrace their friend’s final days, they discover a dark secret about Grimrose—Ariane wasn’t the first dead girl.

They soon learn that all the past murders are connected to ancient fairytale curses…and that their own fates are tied to the stories, dooming the girls to brutal and gruesome endings unless they can break the cycle for good.

Thank you to Netgalley for providing me with an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review!

The Characters
The large cast of characters is simultaneously this book’s biggest strength and its biggest weakness. On the one hand, each character is a fresh and interesting take on their fairytale counterpart. All the protagonists end up being remarkably well fleshed out considering how many of them there are. Each one has a distinctive personality and an interesting storyline.

On the other hand, The Grimrose Girls has way too many characters and points of view. For about the first half of the book, I was constantly mixing up details about the main girls or confusing side characters for each other. The constant POV-changes were a bit disorienting. It also didn’t help that neither of the four narrators had a very distinctive voice, so I often had to flip back to the beginning of the chapter to remind myself who was speaking.

Again, though, the characters of The Grimrose Girls are very interesting once you get to know them. It’s a diverse cast, and the book touches on sexuality, gender, race and disability, among other issues. I don’t think there’s a single straight character in the main cast, and it rules. Diversity is discussed and present on the page, but never in a way that feels overly heavy-handed.

For the most part, I think the author did a good job of portraying characters of various marginalized identities. However, there were a few moments that felt a bit off to me. There’s nuance to each situation and I don’t necessarily want to condemn the book for things that I’m not exactly in the best position to evaluate, but I am interested to hear other people’s perspectives once the book comes out.

For instance, there’s a moment where a character with a chronic illness needs to perform a feat of physical strength that her illness prevents her from doing, and she just… does it. Out of sheer force of will. The character’s illness is generally treated with a lot of nuance in the book, but I just don’t see why that particular scene was necessary, especially since overcoming illness or disability is a very harmful trope when it comes to disabled characters. The one aromantic and asexual character also has a storyline that revolves around her being closed off and a bit emotionless. I actually loved the character and really enjoyed her storyline, which I thought was treated with a lot of care. However, given how little aromantic and asexual representation there is in media, I was suspicious of the decision to have this character adhere so closely to stereotypes. It’s exactly because this book does such a good job with representation that these gaffes are so noticeable.

The Relationships
Ships can make or break a story. I don’t think romance is necessarily a requirement in every book, but a badly written or forced romance can ruin a book. A good romance can also make the difference between passively enjoying the story and staying up until 2AM reading fanfiction. I am pleased to report that The Grimrose Girls delivers on all counts when it comes to relationships.

I was kind of surprised at how much I enjoyed each of the romance storylines. There wasn’t a lot of time to develop either one, but I thought the author did a very good job of making them believable in a short amount of time. Each couple had a different dynamic, and I was rooting for them all throughout the story.

Obviously, the romantic relationships all take a backseat to the friendship between the four main girls, with good reason. The dynamic between these four is easily the book’s biggest strength, and the main reason I can’t wait for the sequel.

The Plot
The Grimrose Girls is a murder mystery, with a fairy-tale element that’s very reminiscent of Once Upon A Time. It keeps you guessing. I was certainly entertained, especially once things started to pick up toward the end.

My one big complaint here is that it didn’t feel like there was enough time to wrap up every single storyline that was introduced. I’m sure those storylines will be more fleshed out in the sequel, but I ended the book just kind of annoyed that so many storylines were dropped.

Final Thoughts
The Grimrose Girls is an ambitious project, with a huge cast of characters and a lot of different storylines happening at once. It doesn’t always work, but it does work most of the time. It’s a turn-your-brain-off type of book that doesn’t demand a lot of its readers and will surely make you laugh with its witty dialogue. It’s also appropriate for the spooky season!

I read a lot of YA, and most of the books I review on this blog are in that category, but I’d say that this is the first book I’ve read in a while that really feels like it’s aimed at teenagers. I’d recommend it to anyone who’s looking for a fun and quick read with interesting characters.

The Grimrose Girls comes out October 26th, 2021.

3 stars

You can read all of my reviews at Nerd Girl Loves Books.

This is an ok YA Fantasy Mystery/Thriller set in an elite boarding school in Switzerland. When the new school year starts, three best friends discover that their fourth best friend drowned in a lake on school grounds. The police rule it a suicide, but the girls believe differently.

A new girl starts school and is housed in the dead girl's room with the three friends. This sets off an investigation by the girls into the death of their friend, and other student's deaths throughout the years. They find a fairytale book with no happy endings and discover that each of them fits a particular tale. They must solve the mystery of the curse or they are doomed to the fairytale's tragic endings.

This book started out promising, but about 1/3 into the story, it started to really drag. The pace slowed way down and it seemed like the author was spinning her wheels not knowing where to go next. I got really frustrated and almost stopped reading, but I stuck it out and the book got a bit better toward the end.

I didn't really like most of the characters. They all had issues and continually made poor decisions. There was almost no character growth and it got old after awhile. This was a pretty dark book with almost no levity. Even these books need a little bit of lightness once in awhile to break up the gloom, but there was none here.

The book ended on a cliffhanger. I'm 50/50 on whether or not I'll read any more books in the series. I received a complimentary copy of this book from NetGalley and Sourcebooks Fire. All opinions are my own.

Thank you to NetGalley, Laura Pohl, and Sourcebooks Fire for the e-arc of The Grimrose Girls in exchange for an honest opinion.

In The Grimrose Girls, we follow a diverse cast of characters immediately following the death of one of their friends on the first day of school at Grimrose Academie. Everyone says it was suicide, but Ella, Rory, Yuki, and Nani know that something else is going on in the elite boarding school. Something much more dark and sinister.

Our cast of characters was vivid and diverse. A large majority were a part of the LGBTQ+ group, but this wasn’t the main focus or used as a plot device. It was just a part of who each character was. The setting added a great deal of tension to the story. The remote location heightened the isolation the group of girls felt as they searched for the truth of what happened to their friend.

I really enjoyed the fairytale aspect of the book. It’s an interesting take of the traditional retelling to have the characters know that their lives are reflecting the lives of the characters in the fairytales. It was fun to try to figure out which of our main cast represented which story.

The first layer of the mystery (Ari’s death) was a little predictable. As the plot unfolded more and more layers were revealed, it became more interesting. I will definitely be checking out the next books to figure out what is happening at Grimrose Academie.

This was a really interesting read, and I’m so glad that I got a chance to read it early, even though my review is going up late! Initially I was drawn to this because of the idea of multiple fairy tale retellings in one setting combined with a murder mystery, and that’s exactly what I got plus a TON of rep! The four main characters are all LGBTQ+, “2 are lesbians (on page), 1 of them is a biromantic demisexual (doesn’t use these labels on page, only mentions having no preference of gender as long as she feels a connection), and the fourth is aromantic asexual (written on the page).” (directly from the author on Goodreads).

I liked that this was set at a boarding school and that the book the girls find sort of ‘predicts’ the deaths of people at the school. I also liked that each girl was tied to a specific fairy tale, and for the most part I caught on really quickly to what fairy tale they were each connected to.

That said, there were some things that I didn’t really like. I didn’t like how rushed the ending felt especially compared to how slow the beginning was, and I quickly became confused as to how things even got to that point in the first place. I also felt sometimes like the girls personalities were pretty shallow, and just boiled down to the one who fights, the one who is tall and perfect, the one who is kind, and I wish that we had just gotten a little bit more about them, and how they fit into the fairy tales.

I had a lot of questions that were left unanswered, and I definitely prefer when there are some plot points wrapped up within each book in a series to give you that satisfaction that things are happening and being resolved, and I didn’t really feel that here. I also struggled a bit with the characters and how they always seemed to be referencing ‘the thing under my skin’ like there was something wrong with them that we were supposed to know about but never were told. It made me feel like I was missing something important to understanding the characters fully.

The last thing that kind of threw me off a bit was the writing/editing. I realize that I read an ARC which means that it’s not the final version of the book, but the amount of spelling and grammar errors made it hard to completely focus on the story itself, and it seemed like in some places the wrong character name was used which also contributed to my confusion.

Overall, I really liked the concept of this book and the atmosphere that it had. I think that this would be great for younger teens looking to expand their reading to include more rep and some darker topics.

I received an advanced copy of The Grimrose Girls through Netgalley so I could share my review with you!

Content Warning: suicide mention, depiction of anxiety and OCD, parental physical/emotional abuse, mention of parental death, light gore.

After their best friend is found dead in their boarding school’s lake, Rory, Ella, and Yuki are determined to find out what happened to her. The police declared Ariane’s death a suicide, but the trio has their doubts. Everything changes when Nani Eszes arrives as the girls’ new roommate, replacing their fallen friend. Nani joins Yuki, Rory, and Ella in searching for the truth of Ariane’s death, but the darkness they find in their search will affect them in ways that no one could have expected.

You can get your copy of The Grimrose Girls now from Sourcebooks Fire!

To be completely honest, I was drawn to The Grimrose Girls largely because of the representation that was promised, and boy did the author deliver! The four main characters are all queer, with different identities (two lesbians, one demisexual biromantic, and one aro/ace) and I love them all so much! I am always on the hunt for books with a solid group of protagonists that I can fall in love with, and The Grimrose Girls perfectly fit the bill. This book was a delightfully creepy fall read, with some wonderful fairytale elements woven into the narrative. All in all, this book fully earned its five-star rating from me!

My Recommendation-
If you need a book with dark fall vibes and plenty of queer representation, you need to pick up a copy of The Grimrose Girls! I would especially recommend this book to fans of Pretty Little Liars, The Sawkill Girls, or The Descendants series!

An elite school hidden away in the mountains. A shocking death that leaves a group of girls broken. Reimagined fairytale heroines. The Grimrose Girls had everything going for it...until I actually began reading. I was on board with opening the book with a funeral (everything points to suicide, but was it?), then it all went downhill.

I really wanted to love this one, but I found my attention waning from the start and it got worse with each chapter. The characters were more caricatures than flesh-and-blood girls and their entire personalities seemed to comprise of a single attribute: one girl was tall, one girl only wanted to fight and Do Sports, etc.

I set that book aside about 45% through so I'm not sure if there's another trans character introduced (the cast is very diverse, the book's one saving grace), but the girl we meet completely rubbed me the wrong way. It's clear from the start who her love interest will be and one of their very first interactions has her walking the other girl back to her dorm room. Once they're at the door, she asks something gross about what her reward (or payment?) will be. Another reader pointed out that this might be the Beauty & the Beast reimagining and if that's the case...wow.

Thank you Netgalley and Sourcebooks for the chance to read The Grimrose girls by Laura Pohl. I had high hopes for this as it seemed like the perfect YA book for me. A contemporary telling of the fairy tales...NOT the Disney versions but the original dark and grim versions I have read in the past and the tag line made me want to read it... Four troubled friends, One murdered girl... and a dark fate that may leave them all doomed. The cover was gorgeous too! However, I found the story slow, and ended up putting it down several times. Unfortunately, this book was not my style, however, I am sure some teens will love it. Note: LGBT+ characters.

Dark Academia is my new favorite genre. Add in fairy tales, and that's a crossover dream come true for me.

This is the story of four girls that attend one of the most prestigious schools in the world. They are grieving the loss of their dear friend, Ari, who drowned. Her death has been ruled an accident or a suicide, but these girls know it isn't true. They find a book hidden in the bottom of Ari's wardrobe, a book of fairy tales and a list of dead girls that goes back centuries. They are quickly pulled into the mystery of these girls' deaths, and how they may be connected to the book of fairy tales that Ari was keeping a secret.

We get all four girls' perspectives here, Ella, Rory, Yuki, and Nani. All of them have pieces of the story, and I loved watching their friendship flourish, and how they overcame difficulties together. It did have some serious Pretty Little Liars vibes, which was so fun. I loved how each of the girls had their own romantic (or aromatic) interests that developed really well within this novel. I'm excited for book two!

Grimrose Académie is one of the most elite schools in the world. Not only does it have a stellar education, but it’s also an actual castle! It’s too bad that one of its students just died.

When Ella, Rory, and Yuki lose their best friend, they know it can’t be suicide, no matter what the police say. But nothing they say can convince anyone else. But as they begin investigating, along with Nani, the new girl, they find a book that links their newly-dead friend with several other students in the school, both past and present. What is this book? How are all these people connected? And why is it looking more and more like the school is cursed?

I received an advanced review copy of The Grimrose Girls in exchange for an honest review.

The Grimrose Girls is a young adult fantasy novel by Laura Pohl. It’s sort of a fairy tale retelling taking place in a spooky school in modern day. And it was a book I quickly got excited about as soon as I heard about it!

The book is told through multiple points of view, through that of each of the girls: Ella, Rory, Yuki, and Nani. It’s third-person, so not often confusing, but also each of their personalities really stood out through their chapters. Each of these characters is incredibly different from the others, from their personalities to their habits and their manner of being. It was fascinating to see how they each dealt with the loss of their best friend, and how people with such distinct personalities could all be friends.

Pohl didn’t shy away from showing the difficulties of these friendships, though. After all, these are girls dealing with a lot of trauma, and they’re all dealing with it the best way they know how. Of course there would be fights and other emotional moments. And each of these moments really pushed the characters forward and had me rooting for them all, even when they were at odds with each other.

I also want to comment how each of these girls might be different, but they’re all strong female characters. It’s not just Rory, who likes to fence in her spare time (seriously a girl after my own heart because I used to fence foil in college), but even Ella, who likes to cook and clean and sew is a strong female character here. It’s not what they do or like to do that makes them strong, but more how much they fight for what they think is right.

As for the story in general, it was very much what I expected in tone from the description of it. We have the spooky gothic elements from the castle, the injection of potential magic from the fairy tales, and the classic drama of this taking place in a high school. I have to say, while there were some things I quickly called, such as the identities of the girls and what stories they belonged in, Pohl continually managed to surprise me, pulling twists up until the very end.

I really enjoyed The Grimrose Girls. The gothic feeling, the mysterious murder, and the fairy tales made this a combination I had a blast reading! And, luckily, it turns out that The Grimrose Girls is part of a series, so we should be getting a sequel to it hopefully soon.

The Grimrose Girls was released this past Tuesday. You can buy your copy from Sourcebooks here.

I was incredibly enticed by the premise of this book being a Pretty Little Liars fanatic back in the day. I love retellings, especially ones like this with LGBT representation. I love the short chapters making for a smooth read, and the ability to see multiple perspectives was very effective. Looking forward to the sequel and more from this author!

when i got to know this book was a queer dark academia murder mystery i was instantly hooked! the grimrose girls definitely delivered on the 'dark' part, all the murders were so gruesome and caught me off guard. the magical element and fairytales mixed with them made the perfect mix.

i really loved the representation portrayed through the characters; black, asian, lesbian, bi, pan, disabled, anxiety+ ocd, aro-ace, trans. they each had their flaws and unique struggles. the povs of the four girls were intriguing to read about too, as they went through the course of the story and ended up on a conclusion.

i guess my issue was with the pacing and lack of actually feeling of being eager to uncover the mystery. i was just flowing along with the story, because as it progressed i kind of lost interest. the story has a slow start and it stays slow for a while, and so the build up is pretty slow too. it only changed to be fun in part 3, where the pieces start coming together and the potential for book two is set up.

overall, i really liked the idea behind the grimrose girls! dark fairytale retellings are always a must read for me and i'm glad this held up on that front. but then again, this can be interpreted as very basic. if you're looking for an easy read which is unapologetically queer, with multiple povs and has both murder and magical aspects, this one is for you!

“The Grimrose Girls” is the latest in a very exclusive literature series affectionately known as “I actually think I wrote this” books.

I mean, this premise, though:

The latest in a series of chilling murders at an elite academy leaves four friends wondering if they are being hunted by a dangerous, and perhaps magic, force.

Oh, and each one just might be an unknowing fairytale princess.

Yeah. This story somehow exists outside of my own head.

And if this sinister stalking is somewhat clunky and light on meaningful character development, it certainly makes up for that shortcoming with plenty of suspense and slaughter.

I also appreciated the diversity of these characters, especially the positive LGBT representation.

But I am hopeful that the discussions of gender and identity are more innate in the forthcoming sequel.

Will this YA horror novel win any substantial literary prizes? Doubtful. But it was a riot nonetheless.

This book was a DNF for me. There was something about the characters that just didn't connect with me.

With the new year upon them, a group of friends gather back at their boarding school. One of them dies and it is up to the others to find out why. The police think it was an accident but the friends do not. With the help of the new girl, these friends set out to see what is going on.
Opinion
This series show promise. There are a lot of laid out clues for you to pick up on as you read. The story flows well with short(ish) chapters to keep you interested. Each chapter focuses on a different girl than the last, rotating through the group of friends over and over again. This helps to get insight into the mystery and to pick up clues. This will be a great read for any young mystery lover.
Many thanks to Net Galley for providing me with an ARC of this book.

The Grimrose girls is the perfect blend of Pretty Little Liars and Grimms fairy tales, blending the magical with the mundane and adding a good old murder mystery into the mix.

After the sudden death of their best friend, Ella, Yuki and Rory are at a loss. Ari was the glue that held them together and without her it would be easy to fall apart, but there is one thing keeping them from completely falling apart. They don't believe Ari's death was an accident. The arrival of a new student sets into motion a chain of events that change the friends lives, and fates forever. As they delve deeper and deeper into Ari's death, they learn things about the school, previous students and about themselves, things that show them a dark and gruesome fate. They will have to fight their destinies if they are to make it out alive, and make sure no other students face Ari's fate.

Grimrose Girls is told from 4 perspectives; Ella, Yuki, Rory and Nani, all students at Grimrose academy. As you can guess from the description, all the characters are linked in some way to a Grimm fairy tale, although I won't tell you who is who. They each stand out as a POV, with their own unique voices and stories which slowly come out through the book leaving you little breadcrumbs as to what fairy tale each character fits in to. Pohl uses her characters to explore some dark and gritty topics, and managing to weave in the fairy tale elements whilst also writing incredibly real and fleshed out characters was something special. With this being set at a boarding school we also get introduced to a wide cast of diverse and entertaining side characters, all of which further the story in some way.

I quickly found myself engrossed in the story line, as well as invested in the outcome of the characters. Pohl perfectly blends the magical with the mundane, and with the addition of the mystery of what exactly happened to Ari, as well as what is currently happening at the school I found it hard to put this book down. The setting of the book also added an extra creepy factor to the story, an isolated boarding school that's in an old castle. It's definitely dark in places and a little gruesome, but this just added to the overall atmosphere for me, and made working out the mystery that much more intense an experience. There are plenty of plot twists thrown in for good measure, some you can see coming such as which fairy tale our characters fit into, but others that seemed to come out of nowhere and ensured I stayed glued to the pages.

I do feel like the pacing was slightly off. The first 25% was a little slow, and I felt like the ending was rushed, but I'm still incredibly excited to see where the story will go in book two. Pohl ends this book on a sort of cliffhanger, with a little bit of the mystery being solved, but still manages to leave us wanting more. I need to know that my faves will get their disney style happy endings and not the dark ones promised to them from the Grimm tales. Overall it was a slightly dark but fast paced read, filled with well crafted characters and a brilliant mystery style story line interwoven with magical elements.

What an awesome take on fairy tales! The characters were vibrant and bold, and I adore their individual journeys. I am really excited to see where the author goes in this next book.

Cool, cool, cool! What a great cast of absolutely diverse-in-every-way characters! I was constantly trying to figure out which characters lined up with which fairy tales, and because they were so full of personality, it was a blast!

You have most archetypes here, but they really fit into the story and played well off of each other. When these girls have secrets, they're huge. And when they fight, they fight. Friendship can be hard and this book doesn't shy away from the complexities of those relationships and how different goals can create friction.

Finally, this book is so gay and I loved it. I think there was a line where someone just looked around the room and was like, "None of us are heterosexual," which is just so much closer to my real-life experiences...

I was not a fan of this book. I didn't post it to my Goodreads account, because I didn't want my rating to bring the author overall rating down in any way. I can tell a lot of thought was put into the plot, but the characters didn't support the good plot. They were boring. The writing did not take me there to the school, and it was difficult to follow the descriptions.

I loved how this brought fairy tales and brother’s Grimm into the 21st century. I enjoyed the character development and the short chapters.

I love fairy tale retellings, and The Grimrose Girls did not disappoint. It is set in an elite boarding school, where our protagonists discover that they are all part of different fairy tales (and not the versions with happy endings) when their friend passes away and it is ruled a suicide. I enjoyed following along as they worked to find the truth and learn about their own stories along the way. I'm excited to see where the story goes next.