This is an important book. I’d even say urgent. Though, readers should be mindful of the content warnings prior to diving into ‘Where Sleeping Girls Lie’, because it casts a bleak and unwavering spotlight upon sexual assault within the sphere of the UK public school system and date rape as a cause of suicide in schoolgirls. This is Dark Academia where ‘dark’ denotes a hard and often brutally direct study of the machinery of privilege and misogyny that tolerates and enables sexual assault.

[I really wanted to include citations in my review, to illustrate some of the strongest points of this novel. So, paying due respect to Usborne Publishing Limited and the wishes of Àbíké-Íyímídé, I would like it noted that I’m quoting from an uncorrected proof copy and have been unable to compare these quotations with the finally revised text. As such, citations are provisional and subject to change.]

In the early movements of this novel, Àbíké-Íyímídé’s narrative signals the horrific instance of the young Black Lives Matter activist Oluwatoyin Salau’s assault and subsequent disappearance, prior to the discovery of her body. With the final movements of the book, the backstory revelations of two of the female characters strongly reminded me of Audrie Pott and Daisy Coleman, raped and then terrorised by their own communities, specifically sheriff Darren White and mayor Jim Fall, and the young women’s resultant suicide (documented in the film ‘Audrie and Daisy’).

In a fluent fictional expression of this, Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé articulates a date rape survivor’s cancellation at the hands of the Great White Male figure (here, her school headmaster), in a scene exactly like that in the recent Carey Mulligan movie, ‘Promising Young Woman’. In one of the most crushing scenes of Àbíké-Íyímídé’s novel, the headmaster tells the female character, who has just brought him proof of being date raped: “I just want you to know what is at stake here. I think you are brilliant and could really go far, so I want to make sure that you’re thinking clearly about your future.” When she queries, “You’re saying that I could be kicked out for coming forward about the truth?”, he replies: “I’m saying that as I haven’t seen any evidence of the events that you’ve recounted, I suggest you focus on what I think could be a very bright and promising future instead of jeopardising that for yourself, and Mr ______. I will talk to [him], and ensure he knows not to be silly again.”
Àbíké-Íyímídé describes her character, at the rape being described as the schoolboy’s ‘silliness’, as feeling ‘enraged and small and powerless all at once.’ The headmaster hammers home: “If that’s all, I wish you a wonderful rest of the week, Miss _____.”

Yet, none of this shocking content comes explicitly into play until the 65% mark, and this could definitely deliver readers a sharp shock if they’ve been lulled into thinking that this is simply a boarding school mystery/thriller.

So, really, I find that there are two facets to ‘Where Sleeping Girls Lie’ to be considered: firstly, the novel as a social artefact, a crucial contribution to current knowledge, understanding, and awareness of the ways sexual assault is borne; then secondly, the novel as a literary work, subject to analysis of such elements as structure and pacing. The former, I find authoritative and would rate highly; the latter, I find problematic, and this brings my rating down.

To my view, the structure isn’t quite robust enough when placed under scrutiny. When I reached Chapter 38, ‘Two Years Ago’, every fibre of my being felt like screaming, “You should’ve led with that!” What a great opening line of a novel that would have been: ‘They were what some people in Nigeria called “ibeje”.’ I can see the novel working better for me - and perhaps it’s just my personal taste - with chapter 38 broken up and interspliced, but with much less whim about it; the hints and the diary entries for me are just too self-aware, I’d almost say ‘all show and no substance’. If the definitive, factual character background that comprises chapter 38 was used instead of cryptic fragments of diaries and anagrams, I would have found the structure of the novel much less problematic. The payoff for the anagram, ‘I Sleep, I Drown, I Disappear’ comes so late in the novel that it was like a popped balloon for me, deflated.

I agree with other reviewers who feel that the novel is overlong, in my opinion, muddied by the (what I think is needless) inclusion of the ghost of the main character’s deceased family member, which is – as remarked above – only dealt with come Chapter 38. This devalues the storyline. I yearned for the ghostly visitations to be cranked up, or, if not, then not used at all. Inserting the hauntings at the start, then leaving the explanation for them till 80% in, just didn’t work for me. Perhaps if they’d been sustained throughout the middle two-thirds of the novel?! But abandoning them in the middle slump only contributes to the fact that it’s a slump. The novel is undermined by a collapse in its middle, distinguished by an impassivity of plot and disaffinity between characters.

Yet, the author has no problem writing tension when there’s real tension to be had. Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé demonstrates command when she lobs chapter endings that often made my stomach drop (chapter 40’s nearly gave me a heart attack)! In the last quarter of the book, the pacing is so riotous that I wanted to keep reading and reading and reading, even given the distended slump that I’d just powered through. Sadly, the mis-pacing up to the 65% mark, might end up deterring readers, and that is exactly what mustn’t happen, given the novel’s importance in raising awareness of taboos placed upon speaking out after sexual assault.

In her note on the text, Àbíké-Íyímídé attests that ‘Where Sleeping Girls Lie’ is ‘part suspense-mystery, part contemporary romance coming-of-age, part anti-hero journey.’ It’s interesting that these descriptions are all principally about characterisation. Memorable characters are essential if a novel is to be ‘the standout YA book of the year’, as this has been called. Yes, the characters in ‘Where Sleeping Girls Lie’ are diverse and rendered with meticulous care, but I found their interactions with one another to be marked - for the most part - by disinterestedness. Even though the author speaks of the ‘necessity of community and the importance and joy of platonic relationships’ to the novel, I found Sade and Baz’s friendship unconvincing stilted. For me, there was no compelling emotional connection in it. The bond between Elizabeth and ‘Jam’ is perhaps the strongest/most authentic relationship depicted in the novel, yet it occupies but a microscopic part. Likewise, the protagonist’s sidelined love-interest could almost be described as apathetic, in my view, and I do think that promotion and reviews are overdoing the ‘Sapphic’ QPOC selling-point, given that it only occupies the very last three or four pages.

Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé includes a direct address to the reader in the eARC edition of the text, affirming that ‘Where Sleeping Girls Lie’ is about ‘the many valid ways we respond to painful experiences’, and ‘[more] than anything, this book is about survival’. And so, if you are, as the author words it, a reader ‘who might see themselves in this story’, or are upset by reviews of the content of this book, please reach out and talk to someone at The Survivors Trust on 08088010818 in the UK, and in the US, the Rape Abuse and Incest National Network on 800.656.HOPE. For the rest of the world, consult the Rape Crisis Information Pathfinder at ibiblio.org for sources of help.

My thanks to the Usborne Publishing and Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé for providing me with an early review copy of ‘Where Sleeping Girls Lie’.

Thank you for the early access into this book. I read this book without checking the synopsis because I enjoyed the author's debut, and wow. Usually I'm able to predict plot twist as early as 10% into a book but this novel proved how wrong I was. The twists are twisted and I enjoyed it so much, it's well paced too. I can't wait for more readers to get into it!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for granting me access to this e-ARC!

I am a big fan of Ace of Spades, it was one of the books that initially got me back into reading after a big slump and so I was really really excited to read this new release! Overall, I found this book to be ok. It wasn't as good as Ace of Spades in my opinion, and the plot and execution just didn't feel as strong. However, I did find it tense and easy to follow and I was mostly engaged with the story. I think that lots of people will adore this book but for me it just fell a bit flat.

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

3.5 stars rounded to 4

This was a darkly atmospheric mystery which started off extremely strong with an elite academy setting, plenty of creepy and unnerving vibes and a FMC with possible skeletons in her closet. I warmed to the MC immediately and was very invested in the story but something about the pacing was a bit off for me - it felt really slow and kinda lagged at stages where I felt it should pick up a bit.

Overall the plot was intriguing and although I guessed a few twists I was still taken by surprise a couple of times too. I'd say don't go in expecting a full thriller. It's definitely more mystery vibes!

I LOVED Ace of Spades, so as soon as I finished it I dove straight into this one! And while there was lots to love, there was also a lot that didn’t really work for me.

I really enjoyed the start and end of this book. The introduction to the boarding school was great, with a nice mix of pop culture references and spooky mystery. The final 20% or so of the book was filled with twists and turns, and a conclusion that was frustrating in the best kind of way.

In between was where it was let down for me. The pace slowed right down, and tonally it felt quite scattered. It was so long but it didn’t feel like the characters or their relationships were explored as much as they could have been. As much as I enjoyed the reveals towards the end of the book, there was my least favourite kind of plot twist, which is an unprecedented reveal about the main character’s history. It’s a real pet peeve of mine, and it really bugged me when it could have had such a good build up!

Overall, this was a good book that was just one ruthless edit away from being a brilliant book.

I received a free copy for an honest review.

Really engaging read. It's like a mystery where the story is a mystery but so is the MC.
There were some great twists and turns and i liked the reality of what happened to the bad guys in the end.
It felt t very truthful, upsetting and real to the world we live in.
This book felt a bit too real for me. Somewhat to close to home but absolutely necessary.
Love this author, they are someone who writes fiction that you can tell they gave something of themselves to write it. But also grips you with the story. While being true to the absolute trauma of surviving. Will be recommending this book everywhere.

Another good story by this author. The main protagonist was an interesting character, although I finished the book wondering if I really knew her. The pacing was a little slow but the ending tied everything up well. I liked the boarding school setting, the underlying dark themes, and how they were dealt with in a sensitive way. Another good read by this author and look forward to the next one.

Thank you NetGalley for the E-arc in exchange for an honest review.

4.5⭐️

I really enjoyed this book, it’s so well- written and thought out and the mystery of the book reeled me in from the very beginning. I really love how the author blend really important issues into her books, and I thought it was done really well here.

I did feel a little let down when the mystery was revealed, even though it gave the characters a somewhat of a happy ending I did think it could have been done a different way. But that’s my only drawback from the story.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for this eARC of 'Where Sleeping Girls Lie' by Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé.

It's no secret that I adore Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé and this book is no exception. 'Where Sleeping Girls Lie' is such a beautifully well written book set in academia with intriguing mystery and thrills, and a fun character who had a love for jammie dodgers which basically made my day. I fell down a rabbit hole with Sade, unsure who to trust and the twists just made me fall deeper and deeper. If you loved Faridah's 'Ace of Spades' definitely run to your nearest bookstore and buy this immediately when it comes out.

I knew Ace of Spades was going to be hard to live up to, and this book didn't. It was still a good read, but one that had me feeling less invested.

It took me quite a long time to get into this. At around the 30% mark I felt like things were finally starting to become interesting. And the second half was definitely a lot stronger. But plot driven books don't work very well for me unless I develop a close attachment to the characters, which didn't happen in this book. I didn't find the characters particularly interesting, and I didn't feel like I got to know them very well at all.

Sade Hussein had always been homeschooled but following her father's death (and the death of anyone she's ever loved) she starts attending Alfred Noble Academy, a private school for the children of the elite. Sade could not prepare herself for life surrounded by so many peers, including the Unholy Trinity, the It girls at the school and her new house sister Elizabeth.

Soon after arriving Elizabeth goes missing so Sade and Elizabeth's best friend Basil begin to investigate and uncover even more of the school's dark secrets than they could ever have imagined.

I love Faridah's books. Her writing is brilliantly addictive and easy to read, she's a natural born storyteller. I particularly love how she is able to blend thriller with elements of social commentary where rhe discussion points blend seamlessly with the flow of the book.

Where Sleeping Girls Lie takes a lot of reference from popular high school media, especially my all tim favourite Mean Girls, giving it a very familiar and tongue in cheek feel. This book however celebrates diverse identities with a whole main cast of BIPOC and queer characters with various mental health issues in a setting where this is the norm and accepted. People are very complicated and this book doesn't shy away from how complex we are.

Compared to Ace of Spades I would say that this book is more like typical YA thriller in the vein of Holly Jackson or Karen M. McManus but still an overall great read.

Not really the book for me, unfortunately. I found the plot very boring and uneventful, nothing happens for large portions of the book and every character felt sort of two dimensional. The writing was okay but the dialogue was cringe and awkward sometimes which didn't help with my enjoyment. However if YA mystery is your genre I'm sure you could enjoy this.

A girl new to Alfred Nobel Academy boarding school discovers dark secrets and cover ups after her roommate disappears.

This book was absolutely incredible! This is one that I’m going to be thinking about for a long time because of the incredible job Faridah did with covering such incredibly important topics! They made me so angry for the characters experiencing different things because it was so relatable. I felt like I was there with the characters and I could picture everything that had happened within the book, so clearly.

I found this book so hard to put down and I am so sad that it is now over. I truly loved everything about this book, from the boarding school setting, the stunning characters and their development to the incredible writing! Faridah truly never misses with her books, I am obsessed with her and her writing and I already cannot wait for her next book to be released! I already know that this is going to be one of my favourite books of the year!

⚠️ CWs: sexual assault, rape, suicide ad suicidal ideation, grief, death of family members, cursing, panic attack, person with substance use disorder, possession and distribution of indecent pictures of minors; mentions cheating, animal death, drug use, derogatory language, lesbophobia, child abuse, mental health illness, racism ⚠️

3.5/5

Thanks to the author and Usborne for this eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Overall, I enjoyed this story! I really liked the British boarding school vibe and I found the mystery engaging (and I didn’t guess any of the twists which is always a great sign). I loved the character diversity and LGBTQ+ rep. Without spoiling anything, Where Sleeping Girls Lie offers commentary and discourse on some very important societal issues, and I thought this was all done really sensitively but also poignantly.

However, for a YA mystery/dark academia it is quite a long book and actually took me quite a while to get into. I found some of the characters to be a bit 2D and lacking in complex development – we didn’t get a lot of backstory beyond Sade and a few others, and I would also have liked to have seen more of one relationship in particular (no spoilers), that was being vaguely alluded to throughout, but I would have liked to see more complex interactions between these characters.

There’s quite a lot of build up in the story, and then a lot happens at once towards the end – that can often work, but in this instance it was all tied up a bit too quickly for me!

I was also maybe expecting the vibes of the whole story to be a bit more mysterious or creepy, but maybe I just went in with the wrong expectations (and I also know that I don’t read as much YA as others, so maybe that impacted my expectations a bit – I don’t rate books based on this because I know that that is very much a me issue).

Where Sleeping Girls Lie is a fun and engaging YA dark academia mystery, with amazing rep and a great message and I recommend fans of the genre dig in! It just isn’t a new favourite.

So. I read Ace of Spades as an ARC back in 2021 and I can’t really explain the way I was truly obsessed with this book. I read it in four days, bought a physical copy when it came out, talked about it to other people, etc. It was one of my favourite reads that year and it put Faridah very firmly on my list of authors to watch. Imagine my excitement when I was offered a chance to read her sophomore book early.

Well. Where Sleeping Girls Lie just didn’t hit the same. It’s hard not to compare to her debut because there are a lot of shared elements and themes between the two, but I couldn’t help noticing that WSGL lacked the spark, the excitement, and the punch of AOS.

One of the major faults is just how uneventful it was. The pacing felt so slow and only by around 80% in did I find myself thinking “Oh, something’s actually happening now”. Threads are picked up and then dropped for so long that by the time they came back around, I didn’t care anymore. Or things went unexplained for so long that I feel they became largely irrelevant to the plot. I wasn’t necessarily bored but I did feel like I was in a perpetual state of waiting for the story to pick up. the overall plot was not as groundbreaking or exciting as the one in AOS, but I appreciated what it wanted to say.

The characters were also a little lacklustre. Chiamaka and Devon from AOS felt well-written, they were relatable in ways, and they had personality. Sade, as the main character in WSIG, didn’t really have much personality outside of her trauma. Who was she, as a person? I don’t really know. The side characters were okay, although I will say that I really liked the sense of intrigue and duplicity written into the male characters like August and Jude. This will probably be an unpopular opinion but I didn’t care for Baz as the best friend at all; his manic pixie dream boy schtick got tired real quick.

I’m not so sure about how good the writing was in general. The whole book felt like it could have done with another thorough edit, and definitely a cut down in length by at least 100 pages. Some of the dialogue also felt stilted and clunky. the story ultimately had an interesting and relevant message but I struggled to feel much depth from the writing.

I didn’t dislike this book, I think I just had very high expectations following AOS and with the similarities between the two I wasn’t expecting quite so many differences in quality. I would absolutely still go ahead and read more books by Faridah (I’ve still got Four Eids and a Funeral on my reading list) and would love to see her branch out to stories perhaps with an older cast, set outside of high school, or not focused on elite teens.

Massive thanks to Usborne Publishing and NetGalley for providing me with an advanced digital copy in exchange for an honest review!

There was a lot going on in this book and a lot of it felt unnecessary. I feel as though there were too many things happening that we lost focus of the plot a bit. A lot of it also felt far fetched?

However the whole idea of people who are wealthy get away with a lot HITS SO TRUE!

Overall it isn't as good as Ace of Spades but I did enjoy this and would recommend!

this book is good and it went in a direction i wasn't expecting. i loved sade and baz, i wished the other girls were more developed. this could have been a perfect thriller but the pacing was horrible. you could cut almost 100 pages of this book and it would still be slow paced

This was an amazing book, and I expected nothing less from the author of Ace of spades.

I absolutely loved Sade, she had a hilarious dry sense of humour, she had a mysterious past and a glimpse of a dark side that had you wondering where this would go. I also loved the other characters in this book - Baz and Persephone and the adorable Guinea pig Muffin made a great team. At first I wasn’t sure if I liked Persephone because of how hot and cold she was, but when she finally came into the group and opened up a bit more I liked her. There were some characters that I kind of liked but kind of didn’t - like April and Miss Blackburn. I also loved how diverse the characters in this were! It’s an international school so there were plenty of POC characters, and there was also a couple of LGBTQ+ relationships.

The boarding school setting was done nicely and it was so intense it seemed like a cult sometimes. It was a little cliche at times: a headmaster who doesn’t care to listen to students concerns, a group of popular boys who everyone’s loves and hates. But it wasn’t TOO cliche. There were so many mysteries in this book all being unravelled at once, which meant it kept your interest the whole time.

Overall this was a great story with good and bad parts to the ending, but I think this kept it realistic. I’d definitely recommend this.

I have been desperately waiting for this book for years. I absolutely loved Ace of Spades back when it debuted in 2021, and I have been waiting oh so patiently to get my hands on Àbíké-Íyímídé's sophomore novel ever since.

And goddamn, were my expectations blown wide out of the water.

Àbíké-Íyímídé's writing is exceptional. She paints such beautiful, vivid pictures with her descriptions, her dialogue is engaging, the kind of realism I aim for in my own writing, and the mystery kept me on the edge of my seat from the beginning to the end. Yes, it is incredibly slow-paced, and the story is nearly 600 pages, but her ability to capture you with the setting and characters well make up for it.

God, I could gush about so many aspects of the book, but refraining is needed here. I wholeheartedly recommend anyone go into this book blind and with patience, because, I promise you, it's so worth it.

All in all, read this when it comes out! Àbíké-Íyímídé is an amazing writer, and I will be reading everything her hand has touched!

Where Sleeping Girls Lie follows Sade, a teenage girl, who is going to her first ever boarding school. Sade’s past feels shrouded in some dark secrets but we do know that she’s lost both her Mum and her Dad. Within 24hours of finding herself in this new boarding school Sade’s roommate, and the first friend she’s made, mysteriously disappears. It doesn’t take long for Sade to quickly realise that things aren’t adding up and we’re soon sucked deeper and deeper into the secrets lurking at underneath the boarding schools gothic elegance. The vibes are immaculate here - dark academia, mysterious, brooding - just perfect for a boarding school mystery.

The characters all felt nuanced, diverse, and there was a full host of interesting characters. There were a couple of cliches and tropes but they didn’t detract from this being a really enjoyable read.

WSGL is a very steadily paced. I wouldn’t say it was slow but there’s no ramping up or fast paced scenes really. Which I do think is a bit of a shame as I imagine some pace build up would have really added to the suspense. But because of the pacing I think WSGL leans more towards being a mystery than a thriller.

It did take me a few chapters to get into this, I wasn’t sure where we were going at the start and there seemed to be a few too many cliches for me taste but the more I read the hooked I became! There was a very weird Mean Girls throw back (new girl at school, befriends a bit of an outcast who has an outgoing gay male best friend. They’re sat in the cafeteria and three beautiful girls walk in -cue the gay best friend telling the new girl all about the cliques. This new outcast friend used to be BFFs with the central popular girl before they mysteriously fell out… Flash forward and the popular trio invite the new girl to have lunch with them) It was a little weird reading these scenes play out as they were so similar to the film but thankfully things quickly diverge in a more interesting direction.

There wasn’t anything particularly unexpected or any twists that I didn’t think were a little predictable - but this didn’t hinder my enjoyment at all.

Also I couldn’t review this without mentioning the slow burn - urgh it was brilliantly done! I also loved how much queer representation was effortlessly interwoven here - it felt like natural elements to the story and not like it was thrown in just to tick a box.

This is my first time reading anything by this author but I’m now on my way to look into the rest of her work as this was a really well written and enjoyable read.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an E-ARC