All These Beautiful Strangers Book Review

All These Beautiful Strangers by Elizabeth Klehfoth

From Goodreads: In the last day of summer, Grace Fairchild, the beautiful young wife of real estate mogul Allister Calloway, vanished from the family’s lake house without a trace, leaving behind her seven-year old daughter, Charlie, and a slew of unanswered questions.

Years later, seventeen-year-old Charlie still struggles with the dark legacy of her family name and the mystery surrounding her mother. Determined to finally let go of the past, she throws herself into life at Knollwood, the prestigious New Englandschool she attends. Charlie quickly becomes friends with Knollwood’s “it” crowd.

Charlie has also been tapped by the A’s—the school’s elite secret society well known for terrorizing the faculty, administration, and their enemies. To become a member of the A’s, Charlie must play The Game, a semester-long, diabolical high-stakes scavenger hunt that will jeopardize her friendships, her reputation, even her place at Knollwood.

As the dark events of past and present converge, Charlie begins to fear that she may not survive the terrible truth about her family, her school, and her own life.

 

Thanks to Netgalley and Penguin for an e-book ARC of this book in return for an honest review.

If past experience has taught me anything, it is to be wary whenever a book is pitched to me as the next The Secret History. For anyone not in the know, The Secret History by Donna Tartt is an elaborate whydunnit about aristocratic kids at an expensive arts college. It’s gorgeous in its detail, and so far it has proved [at least with me] to be a one of a kind book. Of all the books that have called themselves the next The Secret History [or have been likened to it by publishers, reviewers or friends] none of them have really come close.

All These Beautiful Strangers carries the same recommendation: ‘for fans of The Secret History.‘ However, unlike the others, it actually somewhat lives up to the hype. The whole thing takes place in an exclusive boarding school, where the mysterious A society has tapped Charlie on the shoulder.  She’s determined to be a member, surviving the difficult tasks she has to complete in order to make the cut. As awful as some of these challenges were, I thought they made the whole thing very interesting and gave the characters a lot of drive. Books which do similar things often fall short for me because the tasks seem too easy for such an exclusive and mysterious club– more like a game of truth and dare at a high school party than anything else. These ones were HUGE risks and were so bad, I can’t imagine many people being able or willing to do them.

The other thing that I really enjoyed about ATBS was how many twists and turns there were in the plot. Some of them were easy to figure out, but then there were some others that just floored me and left me dying to know more. I definitely got the one more chapter syndrome from this book. I just wanted to find out everything about the world and the characters and the society and everything else in between.

Of course, there were some flaws. The book wasn’t perfect. If anything, I think some of the characters could have been fleshed out better– especially if people are going to go make comparisons to The Secret History. That book worked because, even though we weren’t meant to like the characters, we knew enough about them as people to be mesmerised by them all the same. ATBS attempts a similar concept,  I think, to show us exactly how awful some rich and snobby people can be, and how power-hungry they are, but it just came off a little short of the mark for me. Charlie and her best friend definitely could have done with just a little more substance to them.

All in all, All These Beautiful Strangers earned a 9/10 from me. It was a very plot driven novel, with so many hairpin bends that it left me dizzy. Fans of E. Lockhart should definitely put this book on their radar, it’s a must read for those who devoured We Were Liars and Genuine Fraud. 

All These Beautiful Strangers will be released on July 10th in the UK [in time for YALC for those of you who want to snag signed copies or meet the author]. You can pre-order it on Waterstones here, or Amazon UK here.

Has anyone already read this book or wants to read it? Is anyone planning on grabbing a copy before YALC? Let me know in the comment section 😀