Name: Oligarchy
ISBN: 9781786897817

Scarlett Thomas

'Hugely enjoyable' Observer 'Wickedly funny' The Times When Tash, daughter of a Russian oligarch, is sent to an English boarding school, she is new to the strange rituals of the girls there. Theirs is a world of strict pecking orders, eating disorders and Instagram angst. While she spends her time at the lake and the stables, a few hand-picked girls are invited to join the Headmaster at his house for extra lessons. Then her friend Bianca mysteriously vanishes, and the routines of her dormmates seem darker and more alien than ever before.

Oligarchy

From the author of The Seed Collectors comes a darkly comic take on power, privilege, and the pressure put on young women to fit in--and be thin--at their all-girls boarding school It's already the second week of term when Natasha, the daughter of a Russian oligarch, arrives at a vast English country house for her first day of boarding school. She soon discovers that the headmaster gives special treatment to the skinniest girls, and Natasha finds herself thrown into the school's unfamiliar, moneyed world of fierce pecking orders, eating disorders, and Instagram angst. When her friend Bianca mysteriously vanishes, the world of the school gets ever darker and stranger. The halls echo with the story of Princess Augusta, the White Lady whose portraits--featuring a hypnotizing black diamond--hang everywhere. She fell in love with a commoner and drowned herself in the lake, and her ghost is said to haunt the dorms. But the girls don't really know anything about the woman she was, much less anything about each other. Hilariously dark, Oligarchy is The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie for the digital age. Scarlett Thomas captures the lives of privileged teenage girls seeking to be loved and accepted in all their triviality and magnitude. With the help of her diet-obsessed classmates, Tash must try to stay alive--and sane--while she uncovers what's really going on.

Teenage girls really are feral little freaks

Regan Martin

From the author of The Seed Collectors comes a darkly comic take on power, privilege, and the pressure put on young women to fit in—and be thin—at their all–girls boarding school It's already the second week of term when Natasha, the daughter of a Russian oligarch, arrives at a vast English country house for her first day of boarding school. She soon discovers that the headmaster gives special treatment to the skinniest girls, and Tash finds herself thrown into the school's unfamiliar, moneyed world of fierce pecking orders, eating disorders, and Instagram angst. The halls echo with the story of Princess Augusta, the White Lady whose portraits—featuring a hypnotizing black diamond—hang everywhere and whose ghost is said to haunt the dorms. It's said that she fell in love with a commoner and drowned herself in the lake. But the girls don't really know anything about the woman she was, much less anything about one another. When Tash's friend Bianca mysteriously vanishes, the routines of the school seem darker and more alien than ever before. Tash must try to stay alive—and sane—while she uncovers what's really going on. Darkly hilarious, Oligarchy is Heathers for the digital age, a Prep populated with the teenage children of the European elite, exploring youth, power, and affluence. Scarlett Thomas captures the lives of these privileged young women, in all their triviality and magnitude, seeking acceptance and control in a manipulative world.

A Novel

Vicky (A City Girl's Thoughts)

I couldn't get into this. Part of it is because I'm busy but the narrator is kinda all over the place

Oligarchy

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