The Girls Are All So Nice Here

December 1, 2020
Ambrosia Turner gambles on her ability to manipulate and obfuscate when she agrees to attend her tenth reunion at Wesleyan. Her husband, Adrian, only knows the Amb she's created in the years since college: a savvy Manhattan public-relations maven, a loyal and devoted wife dedicated to the dream of starting a family. But when Amb was a freshman at Wesleyan, she and ""queen bee"" Sully formed a mean-girl duo whose manipulations took countless victims. Ten years later, someone is determined to reveal their final game, beckoning both of them to the reunion with the message, "We need to talk about what we did that night." Reunited, albeit distrustfully, Amb and Sully team up to find out who knows their deadly secret. Flashbacks gradually reveal that Amb and Sully are suspects in a murder, hunted by a clever revenge-seeker and a detective who hasn't been able to let go of the case. Finding a sympathetic character in this tangle of deceit is a mean feat, but the flashback-driven suspense and final twist hold appeal for thriller fans who respond to the "I Know What You Did" theme.

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January 1, 2021
A woman's dark past resurfaces at her 10-year college reunion in Flynn's adult debut. Thirty-one-year-old Ambrosia Wellington's job as a PR flack for a Manhattan firm isn't the acting career she had aspired to when she started her freshman year at Wesleyan University. But she's married to genuine nice guy Adrian, who adores her. When her comfortable, if not quite perfect, life is disrupted with emails from Wesleyan's alumni committee announcing the upcoming reunion, she ignores them, but then she gets an anonymous message that changes everything: "You need to come. We need to talk about what we did that night."Nearly 14 years ago, Amb couldn't wait to leave her working-class New Jersey roots behind when she arrived at Wesleyan. Her roommate, Flora, was exactly the type of "freshly scrubbed," saccharine-sweet "try-hard" that she despised, so when she met the magnetic and deviously cruel Sloane Sullivan, Amb finally felt like she belonged, but Sully's price of admission was steep. Riding a wave of booze, cocaine, and ceaseless casual, drunken hookups was damaging enough, but it's her relentless pursuit of Flora's Dartmouth boyfriend that leads to catastrophe. Now, at the reunion, Amb must face her past and put it to rest, all while preventing Adrian from finding out about that terrible year. Sully has also received threatening messages, and Amb is wary of trusting her, but the devil she knows might be her only choice. One thing is clear: A reckoning is inevitable, and it won't be pretty. Watching the deeply insecure Ambrosia morph into the toxic Sully's broken acolyte is like paying witness to a slow-motion train wreck. It's hard to sympathize with Amb, but her self-aware narration, which alternates between past and present, illustrates how a vulnerable psyche can be twisted into something exceedingly ugly. The ever rising tide of dread will keep readers hooked even when they realize that a happy ending may not be in the cards. A sharp, pitch-black thriller that takes the mean-girls trope to another level.

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January 11, 2021
Flynn’s disappointing latest (after Last Girl Lied To) stages a 10-year reunion at Wesleyan College against a sinister backdrop. Amb Wellington reluctantly attends despite receiving messages from an unknown sender, prodding her to meet there and talk about her darkest secret. In college, Amb schemed with charming sociopath Sloane “Sully” Sullivan to break up another couple. As the reunion looms closer, Flynn gradually unfurls the details—and disastrous consequences—of their plot. Amb and Sully haven’t seen one another since college, but at the reunion Sully confirms she’s also been getting ominous notes. Amb also worries the conniving Sully might try to steal her hapless husband, Adrian, who comes along and doesn’t know any of this backstory. The plot, though, fails to convince: among other implausibilities, Amb attends the reunion despite not liking most of her peers and suspecting that someone might take revenge there. Moreover, the preposterous climax is unsatisfying. Fans of psychological thrillers won’t find much to shout about. Agent: Hillary Jacobson, ICM Partners. (Mar.)This review has been updated to remove plot spoilers.

Starred review from March 12, 2021

Attend her 10-year college reunion? As if. The last place on earth that Ambrosia Wellington wants to revisit is Wesleyan; especially after what happened 14 years earlier. However, Amb receives more than just the official email invitation from the reunion committee. Someone else sends her a special invitation that says, "We need to talk about what we did that night." It looks like opting out of the reunion is no longer a choice for good old Amb, nor for her former friend Sloane "Sully" Sullivan. At the reunion, both women receive more missives from a person who's bent on revenge. VERDICT Oh, snap! The world of psychological suspense has a new player in YA novelist Flynn (Last Girl Lied To). Her adult debut is a mesmerizing literary cocktail composed of a dash of The Secret History, a jigger of Mean Girls, and a generous shot of the frank sexuality and unabashed language of Cruel Intentions. It's a thrilling novel, rich in plot twists, that also offers an incisive take on the price some women are forced to pay in order to "win" in life.--John Charles, formerly of Scottsdale P.L., AZ

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