Thank you for my earc of this book. I love this author so was very excited to get into this story. It Tim me a little while to get into it fully and the pace was a little slow (for me) at times but I really enjoyed this.

This is as atmospheric a book as the cover indicates. It took me some time to parse through the various vibes the story was giving off to fix on the actual theme, by then I was led to the ending and wrap up which obviously helped make up my mind.

The first feeling is of some form of horror. I am not a regular reader of the genre so I am not confident about how it is supposed to come across and therefore was easily led to thinking there was a reason we know so little about our almost sullen narrator, someone who admits to cheating her way into a prestigious school. Once she is in, things start to go wrong almost immediately. The roommate assigned to her suddenly vanishes and no one seems to blink an eye. There are demons that Sade is harbouring, and they come out in full force frequently and hinder her progress on trying to figure what is actually wrong within the school.

The story tackles a deep rooted issue in certain societies and areas of the world. The solution does not exist within these pages, but does leave one space to think. Assault is a common refrain within the story, as is the lack of consent. Both of these topics can be triggering in the setups discussed.

I found the book intriguing but a tad too long. I found myself reading parts in a flow and then drifting away only to read the rest with the same energy as another section. I would have liked it much more if not for my own wandering mind. I think other people will better appreciate the way the story is laid out. The writing is something that I liked and would definitely like to try other books by the author.

I received an ARC thanks to Netgalley and the publishers but the review is entirely based on my own reading experience.

Where Sleeping Girls Lie is a fantastic dark and creepy story about a girl attending boarding school for the first time after the death of her family. She soon realises that everyone at her new school has secrets when her roommate disappears.

This book is kind of long and can be a bit slow at times but that definitely wasn't an issue for me, it's just something to consider. The slow moments allow you to get to know the main character and her new schoolmates and absorb all of the information you're getting. I was gripped the entire time and it kept me guessing. The boarding school setting was particularly good!

I'll pick up anything that this author writes now!

A compelling start but the payoff did not follow through. I liked the characters but I feel like this book could have been 150 pages shorter.

I absolutely adore this book!!! It is the perfect, spooky, PLL-esque mystery that I love. Also Sade is the perfect, nuanced protagonist that I love and the school gives a mixture of the school in Get Even and Hogwarts but with more black people.

I really loved Ace of Spades and so Where Sleeping Girls Lie was a much anticipated read for me. This was thrilling, twisty and full of suspense. I really enjoyed the writing style and the characters were really well constructed.

I am still not sure what to make of this book, and I think I will reread it sometime in the future, because there was something that felt off, but I couldn't tell you what.
I think this may be a case of "It's me, not the book", because when I read it I wasn't in the best head space and this is no light read, which may have caused my brain not to absorb the book as well as it could have.

Sade is a new girl at Alfred Nobel Academy, a boarding school for the rich and academic.
Within days of arriving her roommate disappears. While the school seems to accept that she has gone to stay with family, Sade is not so sure. As she gets to understand the social dynamics of the school she becomes more convinced that something awful has happened to Elizabeth and with the help of Elizabeth's friend Baz, she sets out to disc er the dark secrets of the school.
And the secrets are very dark.
Overall, I enjoyed this and thought it was a decent YA thriller.
I would say I think it would been better off setting it in America as the style of the school and it's facilities seemed really out of place. And I was disappointed with the ending.

It’s officially dark academia season!!!

Sade has faced tragedy after tragedy and as a black Muslim girl who has lost everything she decides to forge her father’s signature for a fresh start at the Alfred Nobel academy. After feeling accepted for the first time her whole world comes crashing down when one of her new friends suddenly goes missing and everything starts to unravel.

The juicy setting of a classic dark academia novel that is gripping and every time you think you’ve figured it out there’s another twist! Beautifully diverse and darkly gripping!

This was a solidly chunky book! I’ve since bought a copy for myself too. I loved this story, the dark vibes that it gave. I haven’t ever read anything like it before and the well fleshed characters and unique story had me pulled in from page one through to the end

My favourite thing about Faridah's books is that the horror element, the scary thriller element of her stories, is found in everyday life - things that actually do happen (eugenics, sexual assault, "boys will be boys") are the root of the thriller and that's so clever and fascinating how she does that. This is slow-paced, but SO gripping, I still flew through it. There are so many plot twists and turns, reveals big and small, anagrams and secrets, and it was incredibly well written. The characters, from our main character Sade to the secondary characters of Baz and Persephone, down to the minor characters of the teachers, all felt so genuinely real, like they had been plucked from real life - it felt like reading a true crime story almost. All of this story packed such a punch, and I am so excited for what's to come from this author, I will read anything she writes.

I enjoyed this book. The characters were varied, the twists were well executed and the storylines/ themes were definitely on point.
It did feel a tad long and slow in places , but I was hooked enough to want to find out the final twists.
A good read.

I am not use to slow burns but wanted to give this book a chance as i had heard good thing about this author and her writing and i must say she didn't disappoint. How I wish that the book was shorter, at some parts of the book I felt like it dragged on and wanted to skip pages to get to the more juicy parts. I would say be patient when your reading this book,

Overall the story line is about Sade, who starts a new boarding school whilst being weighted down by her own personal trauma and worries. to top it off she has a mystery to solve, her boarding school roommate has disappeared after only a few hours of meeting her. Seeking Basil help with the investigation will she get the answers she is looking for and will she fit into this school and its community.

Read the story to find out !

i loved ace of spades so was excited for this one. It is just as iconic and good. The character are lovable and some are not. its a great stand alone

I loved Ace of Spades so I was really excited for this. And I was not disappointed!
I loved Sade, I thought she was a great character from the beginning and I loved the new girl in school, yet something was off vibe. I am locked in for this series!!!

After the excessive fun I had reading ace of spades, I had such high hopes in Where Sleeping Girls Lie!! However, while I did not enjoy this as much as I did the author’s first book, I thought this was a solid book with very interesting characters and was heavy in mystery and the plot was highly intriguing!! So I did really enjoy this one too

#Netgalley #Gifted

Where Sleeping Girls Lie is a YA dark academia mystery, for fans of tv show Wednesday, and the book series The Good Girls Guide to Murder.

I haven’t read the authors previous book; Ace of Spades but I’ve seen the love for it online, so signed myself up for WSGL as soon as I spotted it on NetGalley.

We meet Sade Hussein after her arrival to fancy private school Alfred Nobel Academy. It’s also a boarding school so Sade quickly has to acclimatise to being away from home and now dropped into a world of traditions, cliques, and stuffy rules.
Luckily, she hits it off with her roommate Elizabeth, but unluckily, Elizabeth pretty much immediately vanishes without a trace. Sade makes it her mission to find out what happened to her new friend, encountering some very dark school secrets along the way.

On the plus side, there’s plenty of diverse characters in this book, and strong LGBTQIA+ representation. I really liked both Sade and her friend Basil; they bounced off each other well. I love a bit of dark academia, so I was absolutely here for that element of the storyline.
There are really cosy autumnal vibes to this one; it might be a better read in a few months time. I particularly enjoyed the fact that there’s a Halloween party in the storyline; always a plus for me with any book! And overall, the general feminist leanings in WSGL were appreciated.

What I didn’t love is the pacing of this book. It’s over 400 pages long, and I felt it could have been shorter, without taking away from the storyline.
The action ramps up from about 70% on but there’s a whole portion in the middle that felt repetitive, which is a shame, because otherwise this would be a real winner.

I do think the teenager in your life will enjoy this one, but watch out for the content warnings, which I’ll list in the comments. It goes a lot darker than you might be expecting.

Overall I liked #WhereSleepingGirlsLie and will read more from this author, I just wish it had been a bit shorter!

With many thanks to @netgalley and Usborne Publishing for my early copy, Where Sleeping Girls Lie is available to buy now.

I never read Ace of Spades so my intrigue in this book stemmed from others telling me to check out the new book. I thoroughly enjoyed this intriguing story, I felt the pacing was off near the end but I was just kept engaged enough.

I took me a little while to get into this one. I did like the characters and the setting, but I didn't love this as much as Ace of Spades. Perhaps I would have preferred it if it was a little shorter. But keen to read whatever the next book is.

Important: Significant, serious trigger warnings apply to this book. Check out the content warnings page on The Storygraph for details.

I have mixed feelings about Where Sleeping Girls Lie. I really loved Ace of Spaces, the author's previous and first book, and had high hopes going into this one. Both books even have a vaguely similar premise, both following young Black protagonists joining prestigious and old-fashioned schools filled by majority white students and staff. However, I found Where Sleeping Girls Lie somewhat messier and less cohesive than its predecessor.

Starting out with the good, I loved the two main protagonists. Sade and Baz both felt like interesting characters who I could root for from the beginning, with vibrant personalities that shone out from the page and secrets that made me want to learn more. I wanted to be friends with Baz from the moment I met him, and Persephone - one of the Unholy Trinity who becomes a key player in the story - was a refreshing change from the usual spoiled, rich mean girl who usually inhabits the "popular girls" clique. Even many of the minor characters like Jessica the house prefect and Miss Blackburn the strict school mistress felt like engaging characters with their own personalities and stories. I also appreciated the LGBTQ threads that were woven throughout the story and treated exactly the same as the straight relationships.

However, none of that stopped the story itself from feeling messy. At over 400 pages this is a chunky book for a YA contemporary, and it felt every page of it too. I personally think it could have used a harsh trim from an enthusiastic editor to make it a whole lot more cohesive. There were so many secondary characters I kept losing track of who was who, and several of the subplots just felt as if they distracted me from the main plot and served no other purpose. I also felt let down by several of the big twists and plot reveals. Part of Sade's big secret was obvious right from the start, with an almost comical number of obvious hints being dropped, and another reveal toward the end felt forced to the point of eye roll level serendipity, especially when it seemed entirely unnecessary, too.

Overall, this was a mixed bag of a book. While it has a hugely important message at its heart, I wish it had been brought together in a better way. Many thanks to NetGalley and Usborne Publishing for the ARC.

Rating: 3/5