Leaving behind her childhood in coastal Scotland, neurodivergent Ivy Graveson arrives at a prestigious university and throws herself into the deep end of life on campus.
Though her fellow students all seem to come from money and to have known each other their whole lives, outsider Ivy is determined to belong. She embraces the world of secret societies, and as she discovers the legacy of her college, the parallels between its past and her present become striking. Because however hard she tries to ignore it, Ivy has always felt one with water and her own personal talisman, a heron, is never far away.
In just one life-changing year in these hallowed halls, Ivy will have to decide how much sisterhood means to her and how far she’ll go to become the person she was destined to be.

Whilst I did struggle to finish the book, I did and it was OK.
Thank you to NetGalley for giving me the opportunity to read this ARC!

Dnf at about 20% probably more of a me problem as I am slumping at bit atm but this just didn’t hook me in and I found it a bit too bland to hold my attention

As an avid dark academia reader, this novel ticked many of my boxes. The first 20 pages or so took me a little while to get through, but after that I was hooked. I actually liked the vagueness of our setting, especially as a reader that did not attend Oxbridge (which I assume is the basis for much of the academic structure and experience). I enjoyed the unlikeability of most of our characters, with the possible exception of Prim, and indeed the vapid social interactions. I know that at age 18 and entering university, I was not "over" boys. The obsessive compulsions of our FMC, both in academics and interpersonal relationships, ticks another DA box. However I still feel unsure around that obsession being autism coded, though I'm not sure why.
It's possible that the writing style, paired with the immaturity of the majority of our characters might make this book more suitable for the YA category. Overall I really enjoyed this book.

These Mortal Bodies is a novel set at an elite university in which a young woman is drawn into the world of secret drinking societies and ancient power. Ivy grew up by the coast, but now she's about to start at a prestigious university. Despite feeling like a outsider, she quickly finds intoxicating new friends and becomes intrigued by the drinking societies and the witchcraft-related history of her women-only college, but she has to decide how far she will go.

This is a dark academia novel that blends detail about Oxbridge with invented history of women accused of witchcraft, and blurs the lines between traditions and rituals, power and mysticism. The narrative focuses on Ivy and her friends' first year at university, structured around each week of term, but it is more about small dramas and Ivy's trajectory that big plot points, with the ending being more about characters coming into their own as 'sisters' at the college. For me, the ending felt more like a setup for a sequel than an actual ending, with lots of unexplored areas and unanswered questions.

The settings in the book are never specified, but the words used give it basically away, so the blurb I read specified that Ivy is from Scotland, but only particular terminology like Hogmanay' made that clear, and the university is clearly Oxbridge (I assumed Cambridge as I was reading because it has a women's college still and Oxford doesn't, but given that it is fictional, it could be purposefully either). One downside of this is that I think anyone without a familiarity of the terminology used at Oxbridge may end up confused, trying to guess where it is set and unfamiliar with concepts like different colleges, drinking societies, and the short terms. As I am familiar with them, I liked the detail (and I like dark academia that manages to be realistic with the university detail of where it is set), and it did accurately explore the balance between academic work and other elements that becomes all the more apparent when terms are short and workloads are high.

The characters were intriguing but perhaps lacking in detail at times, even Ivy as the narrator (anyone else you could blame on Ivy's perspective, as a lot of the side characters seemed to have no personality traits at al). Again, the blurb I read said Ivy is neurodivergent, but the book itself leaves that unspoken as far as I remember, and there are a lot of points like this where things are hazy and unspoken, but which perhaps actually needed to be spoken. Ivy's obsession with binaries, which is foregrounded at certain points in the book, brought something interesting to what I was starting to think was a book obsessed with the difference between men and women, but again, it wasn't really followed through on, not even with the one lesbian character or the one singular mention of the concept of non-binary people in the 'dear' part of a letter/email. I think it is a perspective on Oxbridge that often isn't explored—how so much is set up as some kind of binary—so I would've liked more depth around it (particularly as a non-binary person who went to Oxbridge myself).

The toxic friendship and obsession stuff is enjoyable, reminding me of things like The Craft in which there's a blurry line between this kind of obsessive female friendship and ideas of witchcraft. Oxbridge drinking societies do work quite nicely as a way to do dark academia (they are perhaps one of the most famous 'dark' aspects of the places) and the way they are worked into the characters' dramas and relationships make them integral rather than background. I think the darkness and actual narrative drama could've gone further, as what actually happens in very tame (and I assumed things were setting up for darker plot points, but then didn't). And once again with dark academia I feel that ideas around kinds of obsession and betrayal are so focused on female friendships and boys as the distraction from them that they don't even explore the homoeroticism they contain, not even in this case where one of the friends is a lesbian (though she never really mentions this).

These Mortal Bodies is fun if you like dark academia vibes with an accurate (if trying to be non-specific) Oxbridge setting, but for me it lacked substance and the combination of darkness and charm that makes The Secret History continue to be a standout book amongst its many successors. It felt like the first half of something, without the 'fall' or fallout from events ever happening (I do find it hilarious that Ivy gets a first even when she constantly admits she doesn't take her work as seriously as she should). However, I do appreciate when dark academia books do actually understand how to combine the academic setting with the 'dark' obsession side, and it was a good book to read in autumn with the new academic year feeling.

These Mortal Bodies is about a girl called Ivy, who starts university after the death of her best friend from home, and how this death affects her views on her relationships with several of the characters. The book is very much centred around secret societies, sisterhood and relationships, with the history of witches, witch trials and magic intertwined into it.

- I loved any part to do with the secret societies, especially The Coven, and I loved the backstory about how it was created. I also enjoyed that, throughout the whole book, it was ambiguous as to whether magic actually existed or not, as this made it more intriguing.
- The found family/friendship was a nice aspect of the book, and how Ivy was able to find a community she felt comfortable and safe in.
- It took a bit of time for me to get into the book because I found the writing style a little hard to read at first, but once I got into it, I really enjoyed the book as a whole, especially once it picked up near the end.
- I think there needed to be a bit more to the plot for the first half of the book, or faster pacing because it did feel like it dragged at times, and certain conversations/thoughts seemed to happen several times in the book.

Overall, it was an enjoyable read, and I would recommend for a cosy, moody read during the autumn/winter months!

Thank you to NetGalley for giving me the opportunity to read this ARC!

Not what I was expecting. A lot of superficial melodramatic teenage drama as opposed to the dark academia I was looking for.

I gave up half way through, to be honest. It's dull. Ivy is from a small seaside town and has gone to what I assume is Oxford (it's never named, but the colleges and phraseology seems like that), where she apparently s drawn to the place's witchy past. Which doesn't in any way seem to fit with real history, and also by halfway through has no actual hook. She has a mysterious past where her best friend drowned, but nothing is coming out about that in the half of the book I read.

I rarely give up on books but I got so bored and fed up I was reading almost anything else. It sounds fascinating but utterly fails to draw you in and was a real disappointment.

I was really excited for this book, I was promised dark academia, magic and self realisation. The blurb promised fast pacing and excitement, however I sadly found that the characters lacked substance, and their interactions felt juvenile. Sadly I don’t think this writing style works for me, as I found that I was left wanting more constantly, each interaction felt hollow, as though being acted out by characters who had no depth. I may try to return to this story at a later date, as I don’t feel comfortable leaving such a low review.

As an anthropology graduate // documentary filmmaker who studied an university with its own dark history, I was pulled in very close to the main character, Ivy, from the very start.

These Mortal Bodies is about contemporary witches who are part of a secret society, the Coven, and echoes with the story of the Saint Clair sisters, killed during witch trials. It explores the murky waters of « sisterhood » and questions whether the character’s relationships are virtuous, treacherous, toxic or a mix.

The book is a page turner, as the reader longs for the unravelling of kept secrets, although Cara’s plot line left me longing for more depth.

Ivy is an autistic coded character which was refreshing and enjoyable to follow; I wish she became more skeptical of the power of her friendships, as she does not seem to learn from the damages it has caused.

1.5
I really struggled with this. ☹️ I was looking forward to some atmospheric dark academia, but instead I got vapid teenage melodrama, little compelling plot, and an amateur writing style that didn’t work for me at all.

Characters and Relationships
• Characterization was weak: none of the characters felt unique, human, or compelling. They all came across as REALLY young (mid-teens maybe) and were entirely interchangeable and cardboard. Their self-obsession, fixation on “boys” and lack of life experience made for some pretty frustrating reading.
• Ivy was deeply unsympathetic: cold, abrasive, controlling, manipulative with an unpleasant desperate vibe. She was impossible to root for as a MC. Woe betide anyone who dares “slight” the horrid Ivy (example: George, Agatha).
• Most of the toxic friend group's reactions to the perceived slights were massive overreactions which not only made them come across as teenagers, but also made them impossible to root for because, well, every character sucked.

Setting
• Not naming the academic institution or the city it’s in (which is referred to as both a “city” and a “town”) is a confusing choice. This was then compounded by an underdeveloped sense of place throughout. We had no idea where Ivy lived, where the school was, nothing! We can infer Ivy might’ve been Scottish (references to Hogmanay) and the school might’ve been in Birmingham (city furthest away from water) but there was zero sense of place anywhere.

Writing
• Overwritten descriptions that read like a high school writing assignment. Some of the language choices were bizarre or words were used incorrectly.
• Should the references to “college” in the first chapter be “university”? I thought “college” was, like, high school in the UK? I understand the characters referring to their institution as *the* college [at a university], but the MC/her family constantly refer to the institution as “college” and I don’t think British people use college and university interchangeably like that. On page 142, the MC corrects a shopkeeper who asks if she “moved away for college” by clarifying “for uni” so there’s definitely inconsistencies here.
• There were clunky time transitions within chapters (also, wouldn’t term be well underway by October 3? But it says that’s “week one".)
• Terms like “bop”, “formal hall”, “swap”, “vac schemes”, “long essays” made zero sense to me. Is a “drinking society” a sorority? I may have not gone to British university but I did work in one and I’ve never heard ANY of these terms.
• I don’t want read Ivy’s pedestrian and naïve essay for “Introduction to Political Thought”.

Plot
• Way too much airtime spent on young women (who call themselves “girls”) pining after “boys” and getting ready for parties. Holy crap, I do not care!
• There was no hook to keep me reading. I plowed ahead because of a misplaced sense of duty in not abandoning an ARC but I was so bored and had nothing motivating me to pick this book (apart from guilt). The book took me a long time to slog through as a result.
• The references to Cara were a non-starter because that thread never went anywhere! Sure, it illustrates Ivy’s track record with intense and unhealthy female friendships but it’s blown into a huge thing that just kinda peters out.
• Poor pacing: Nothing interesting happens til 100 pages in and even that flops relatively quickly. I don’t know if British sororities are vastly different from North American ones but the Coven rushing was so boring! It was completely linear and over in about five minutes.
• One of the major plot points is about cheating "boys" which may appeal to eighth graders but I don’t care!
• Also I am sick to death of this “killing men is feminism” rhetoric.

Sure, I didn’t like this; but, even with books I don’t enjoy, I can usually understand why others might. Not this one. I genuinely think marketing this as an adult novel is a big mistake. It might fare better as YA? The writing style, age and lack of experience of the characters, and plot are well suited to a teenage readership more than an adult one. I think this book could be improved with further editing, deep reflection on the intended audience, and fleshing out the characters, plot, and structure.

I was privileged to have my request to read this book accepted through NetGalley. Thank you for letting me try this, Simon and Schuster UK.