All These Beautiful Strangers by Elizabeth Klehfoth

Synopsis (from Goodreads) 

Pages: 512

Publisher: Penguin

Released: 12th of July 2018 

Charlie Calloway has a life most people would kill for. A tight knit family. A loyal set of friends. A fast-track to whichever college she chooses.

But Charlie isn't interested in what most people want.

She's a Calloway. She's special. And she's been taught to want more.

So when she's invited to join an exclusive secret society, her determination to get in is matched only by her conviction that she belongs there.

But behind their mysterious facade is a history of lies which unravels everything Charlie thought she knew... including the story behind her mother's disappearance ten years ago.

What I Have to Say 

This was the perfect mix of lies, mysteries and privileged kids that you just love to hate. I don't know what the draw is of rich kids with very few morals, but I can't get enough of reading about the dark side of prep schools and the elite. Combining that backstabbing, selfish society with a tantalising mystery that changes everything in Charlie's life. 

Charlie was a great character. The way she developed over the course of the book, finding more and more about what happened to her mother. It was the perfect story of a rich, privileged, self-absorbed girl waking up to the world around her and realising that perhaps her comfortable world isn't as harmless as it seems. 

I loved how Charlie's life at school, trying to get into the As and getting together with the boy she likes seems so unconnected to the mystery she's trying get to the bottom of it, but how it all intertwines in the deeply satisfying conclusion.

 If you like elite societies filled with dark secrets, this is definitely one for the must read list. 

My thanks go to Netgalley and Penguin for providing me with this copy for review. 

Breaking by Danielle Rollins

Synopsis (from Goodreads) 

Pages: 352

Publisher: Bloomsbury Childrens 

Released: 10th of August 2017 

Charlotte doesn't fit in with her two best friends, or with anyone else at The Underhill Preparatory Institute, her cut-throat school for the rich and gifted. But when those best friends die suddenly, Charlotte doesn't know where to turn.

Were they keeping secrets? Could Charlotte be the reason they did it? Because Charlotte has a secret of her own, and now she must decide how much she will risk to discover the truth.

Trigger Warnings: Suicide, cutting

What I Have to Say 

I thought that this would be more bitchy girls in prep girls cutting each other down, but what I got was so much better than that. There was a lot of intrigue and mystery, but there was also a lot of grief from Charlotte. Grief for the way her mother can't love her, grief for the loss of her two best friends. The first part of it is pretty introspective and it makes you wonder a lot why Charlotte stays at Underhill, despite the fact that there's the mystery of the "drink me" bottle. 

But that's the heart of the story. This is the story about the way that she changes. The way that she gains the confident to assert herself, whether that's just because of the fact that she drank something from a little bottle or the fact that she's finally realising that she can be her own person instead of endlessly failing to be what her mother wants her to. 

I think it's this character that makes the book more than anything else. Charlotte is a product of her mother's desperation for her to be smart and despite her mother being absent for most of the book, she is always there in the background of Charlotte's thoughts. And as Charlotte starts to change, she starts to go against her mothers wishes more and more. 

It ended in such an interesting way too. I really can't wait for the sequel to find out what happens next. 

My thanks go to Bloomsbury and Netgalley for providing me with this copy for review.