Marisha Pessl

Once upon a time, back at Darrow-Harker School, Beatrice Hartley and her five best friends were the cool kids, the beautiful ones. Then the shocking death of Jim their creative genius and Beatrice s boyfriend changed everything. One year after graduation, Beatrice is returning to Wincroft the seaside estate where they spent so many nights sharing secrets, crushes, plans to change the world hoping she ll get to the bottom of the dark questions gnawing at her about Jim s death.

Neverworld wake

Christine

The story itself was pretty cool but the characters made no sense to me? They just. The characterization was really odd to me?? it's probably just me tho

Alexa M

4.5 
Wow so good!!! And so unlike anything I’ve ever read. Loved

Aurien Smith

Elisa Bieg

I changed my mind about this book so many times, while reading it.

The premise sounds great — who doesn’t love a good Groundhog-Day-type premise? Especially when you make it a bit dark, coasting the line between fantasy and science fiction? Sounds awesome.

Also, I am a sucker for stories that feature boarding schools. No idea why.

The first several chapters are a little humdrum, to be honest. But it’s the setup, so I convinced myself to be patient. But because patience isn’t my most prominent quality, I decided to listen to several chapters on audiobook, before the book got going and I started alternating audio and physical copy.

The middle of the book is intriguing, mysterious, and even though it can feel slightly repetitive (I mean, it’s the same day over and over, after all), it still makes you want to keep going to find out when and how things change.

At the beginning of the first big turn, there is what I would consider a bit of a mess-up, as the author bases a theory on a fact that was disproven (and discussed) earlier in the book. I’m not sure how this was missed in editing, and it took me a while to get back into it after that, but I pushed through.

Most of the characters are a little one-dimensional and not well-formed enough to distinguish themselves clearly within the group; and the dialogue is ok, but not remarkable (one does get spoiled when reading dialogue from Leigh Bardugo, Jay Kristoff, and Maggie Stiefvater!), so it was definitely NOT going to be a 5-star read. But I wanted to see where it would go, and I was still ready to give it a high rating and letting it take permanent residence on my shelf... however:
• the last several chapters are VERY lame (possibly rushed, but certainly trite and a poor segue to the main story).
• the “resolution” and main reveal are somehow completely devoid of tension and shock. 
• and there are more details that don’t add up when one looks at the police investigation. It was just... tidied up a bit too much, and there are some obvious holes.

It also left me feeling a little bitter and quite annoyed, which isn’t exactly the first feeling you want to elicit when looking at a book, is it?

So, while it is a relatively interesting read, I had to knock down another star in the end, settle on 3 STARS, and place it on my swap pile.

I did like the commentary about group dynamics and peer pressure and such. That may be one of the more interesting parts of the book.
But my memory of it goes: boring, sort of interesting, a bit tedious but relatively intriguing, plot hole/mess-up, tension, lame ending. So somehow I find myself not really willing to recommend it.

Alyssa Huffman

Wow. This was quite literally the best book I have ever read. It includes one of my favorite tropes and my heart was actually pounding with suspense almost the entire time. All of the characters were so interesting and complex in their different contributions to the Neverworld. There was one tiny plotpoint that I wish would've been explained further but, I can look passed that because the rest was incredible. Just....Wow.

cheyenne 

*3.5 

I'm a bit conflicted on this book. It had its ups and downs for me. I enjoyed the plot/concept very much. The entire idea of the "neverworld" was very interesting to me. The writing was good, along with the pacing and the reveal of the ending. It's pretty straightforward, but pleasing. However, there were moments where I wasn't as captivated and it would lose my interest for a bit. I didn't have a strong connection with any of the characters, and that was probably my main problem. That, most likely, could just be a "me" thing and others might find themselves attached to the characters. While they had their interesting moments, I just didn't automatically feel a spark with any of them. Nevertheless, I still enjoyed reading the book.

Neverworld wake

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