Name: Briar's Reviews's review of The Girls Are All So Nice Here by Laurie Elizabeth Flynn
Item: The Girls Are All So Nice Here
Rating: 4
Author: Briar's Reviews

Laurie Elizabeth Flynn

Two former best friends return to their college reunion to find that they’re being circled by someone who wants revenge for what they did ten years before—and will stop at nothing to get it—in this shocking psychological thriller about ambition, toxic friendship, and deadly desire. A lot has changed in the years since Ambrosia Wellington graduated from college, and she’s worked hard to create a new life for herself. But then an invitation to her ten-year reunion arrives in the mail, along with an anonymous note that reads “We need to talk about what we did that night.” It seems that the secrets of Ambrosia’s past—and the people she thought she’d left there—aren’t as buried as she’d believed. Amb can’t stop fixating on what she did or who she did it with: larger-than-life Sloane “Sully” Sullivan, Amb’s former best friend, who could make anyone do anything. At the reunion, Amb and Sully receive increasingly menacing messages, and it becomes clear that they’re being pursued by someone who wants more than just the truth of what happened that first semester. This person wants revenge for what they did and the damage they caused—the extent of which Amb is only now fully understanding. And it was all because of the game they played to get a boy who belonged to someone else, and the girl who paid the price. Alternating between the reunion and Amb’s freshman year, The Girls Are All So Nice Here is a shocking novel about the brutal lengths girls can go to get what they think they’re owed, and what happens when the games we play in college become matters of life and death.

A Novel

The Girls Are All So Nice Here

Essence

The Girls Are All So Nice Here by Laurie Elizabeth Flynn is a wrecking ball of a thriller that will make you question everything you read and everyone you read about.

The girls are definitely not nice in this book! But wow, did Laurie Elizabeth Flynn do an excellent job crafting this mystery and making me question everything. I didn't expect the ending until about two-thirds of the way through and I did enjoy every second of my theorizing. 

Two best friends, Ambrosia and Sully, are invited back to their college reunion... but things weren't so pretty back in their college days. They ruined the lives of some people and someone is sending them menacing messages to make sure the girls know someone is onto them. 

The book breaks down the story into the present, the reunion, and the past, their college days. The story slowly unfolds and lets you in on the dark secrets that happen and eventually unveil about 98% of the truth by the ending. The dark and twisted minds of these women are analyzed and we learn a lot about the kind of people they are. I mean, we all know mean girls that we think would act this way (or we know they did), so it feels REALLY on point. It's a unique take on a classic trope - those dreaded mean girl bullies, except we watch the bullies this time.

I did feel bad for the girls but also wanted to smack them in their college sections. I felt so connected and hoped they were better people, but... yeah, they are pretty darn messy. 

Regardless, I enjoyed this book! I wanted a thriller in my life and I got it!

Briar's Reviews

The Girls Are All So Nice Here by Laurie Elizabeth Flynn is a wrecking ball of a thriller that will make you question everything you read and everyone you read about.

The girls are definitely not nice in this book! But wow, did Laurie Elizabeth Flynn do an excellent job crafting this mystery and making me question everything. I didn't expect the ending until about two-thirds of the way through and I did enjoy every second of my theorizing. 

Two best friends, Ambrosia and Sully, are invited back to their college reunion... but things weren't so pretty back in their college days. They ruined the lives of some people and someone is sending them menacing messages to make sure the girls know someone is onto them. 

The book breaks down the story into the present, the reunion, and the past, their college days. The story slowly unfolds and lets you in on the dark secrets that happen and eventually unveil about 98% of the truth by the ending. The dark and twisted minds of these women are analyzed and we learn a lot about the kind of people they are. I mean, we all know mean girls that we think would act this way (or we know they did), so it feels REALLY on point. It's a unique take on a classic trope - those dreaded mean girl bullies, except we watch the bullies this time.

I did feel bad for the girls but also wanted to smack them in their college sections. I felt so connected and hoped they were better people, but... yeah, they are pretty darn messy. 

Regardless, I enjoyed this book! I wanted a thriller in my life and I got it!

Four out of five stars.

Gretchen Sartele

This was a good book. My only complaint is that the ending happened really fast and I could have used more detail/dialogue. 

NOTE: check trigger warnings before reading this book.

Alex Q

This book is like if Thirteen was about college girls (and a thriller)

Lacey Feigl

Ambrosia receives an invitation to her 10 year college reunion much to her dismay. She does everything she can to hide the invitation from her husband because why would she want to relive the worst years of her life? She doesn’t want her husband to know what she did while she was under the spell of her magnetic friend Sully. But when Ambriosa’s friends bring it up in front of her showy husband, Ambrosia is forced to attend. Faced with the ghosts from her past, Ambrosia feels herself slipping while at the reunion. Not only does she feel like she is hallucinating but she is certain someone wants revenge, she just can’t figure out who.

The Girls is 304 pages long and took me two days to read.

I enjoyed this book but it left me in a real funk but I think that’s the sort of book this aims to be. I’m giving it a 3.5 out of 5! There are some very upsetting things in the book so beware!

Thank you, William Morrow, for sending me this copy!

Here’s to the adventure of finding a novel novel!

Lacey

Amanda Autumn Berrey

A brief synopsis: When Amb receives emails inviting her to her 10 year college reunion she has no plans on going. In fact, she plans to adamantly avoid it. Soon however, she begins receiving cryptic messages that threaten to tell everyone her secret if she doesn’t attend. Amb’e secret is abnormal and dripping in guilt and she can’t afford to let it out

My review: I knew I would love this book, and I did. It was written really well and it kept me interested the entire time. I saw the twist coming but it still was interesting to see how it played out

Emma Jacqueline

I'm a little done with thrillers—and honestly not just thrillers, but contemporary novels in general—that can't tell a straightforward narrative. Why does there always have to be a past and a present now? The "present" storyline in The Girls Are All So Nice Here adds nothing but misleading (and repetitive) foreshadowing. It became a struggle to finish around the halfway mark because I was getting so sick of reading "and he wouldn't come back. Not after what we did" in its one-thousandth variation.

And what made it more frustrating was The Girls Are All So Nice Here had some great things going for it in the "past" section. Ambrosia was a frustrating but deeply realistic narrator and Flynn was not afraid to make her cruelty truly awful. I just wish the "past" which had plenty of compelling twists and turns was the singular story we were reading.

Lauren Attaway

Ambrosia/Amb is invited to her college ten-year reunion and is reluctant to go, after events that we know involved her former friend Sloane/Sully and some sort of even that Amb is reluctant even to think about. It becomes clear that someone is terribly upset about past events that took place and determined to have comeuppance. 
Ok, I have thoughts about this book. It is hard to decide who I would recommend it to in my own friend groups, because I have hung out with enough mean girls that I would not want anyone thinking I was passing judgment on their college stories. I think a general recommendation to women who love stories about toxic friendships and bullying that allow the events to stand on there own without a television movie comeuppance. 
There is a distinctly toxic way that these girls treated each other that reminded me of my worst memories of trying to fit in during college. This book nails the desperation to be accepted and the lengths that young women go to for social status, then ups the ante. 
There is a strong nineties thriller vibe going on while Amb flashes between the past where we wait for whatever terrible thing to happen, and the present when she is being threatened with exposure for her past actions at every turn. This book is so dark, and a must read for fans of the crazy, cruel twisted psychological suspense! 
Thanks to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for the ARC!

Sara Bean Duncan

Let’s get something out of the way first: no, no they are certainly not nice here! I found myself trying hard to find a redeemable character in this toxic yet enthralling book. Ambrosia (Amb) is invited to her 10-year college reunion and, after trying to avoid it thanks to an ominous, anonymous letter, her golden retriever husband is all in to go! Amb has been diligent since college to hide just under the radar – but it turns out someone with a score to settle has their eye on her and this reunion is the perfect time to settle old scores.

What happens when you make a mistake and befriend the wrong person your first time away from home? The Girls Are All So Nice Here takes you on a dark ride to find out. I loved how deep Flynn dug into the darkness that can circle when all you want to be is adored and included with the “cool girl.” Sully is no Amy Dunne, turning her focus on the female friendships in her life instead, but the two of them certainly are cut from the same cloth.

This is the perfect dark novel for those who like their MC’s unreliable, their plots roller-coaster filled, and their book endings twisted.

Neva Davies

A decent thriller with a really frustrating twist at the end. 

3.75/5 stars

Mary Rose Gibson

Michelle Miller

Katheryn

Samantha cooper 

Hannah E

Elizabeth 

Kay Sutherland

armoni mayes

Lis Amorelli

Mitz

Cassandra Jane

Alexandra Coleman

Micah

Two former best friends return to their college reunion to find that they’re being circled by someone who wants revenge for what they did ten years before—and will stop at nothing to get it—in this “propulsive” (Megan Miranda, bestselling author of The Girl from Widow Hills) psychological thriller. A lot has changed in years since Ambrosia Wellington graduated from college, and she’s worked hard to create a new life for herself. But then an invitation to her ten-year reunion arrives in the mail, along with an anonymous note that reads, “We need to talk about what we did that night.” It seems that the secrets of Ambrosia’s past—and the people she thought she’d left there—aren’t as buried as she believed. Amb can’t stop fixating on what she did or who she did it with: larger-than-life Sloane “Sully” Sullivan, Amb’s former best friend, who could make anyone do anything. At the reunion, Amb and Sully receive increasingly menacing messages, and it becomes clear that they’re being pursued by someone who wants more than just the truth of what happened that first semester. This person wants revenge for what they did and the damage they caused—the extent of which Amb is only now fully understanding. And it was all because of the game they played to get a boy who belonged to someone else and the girl who paid the price. Alternating between the reunion and Amb’s freshman year, The Girls Are All So Nice Here is a “chilling and twisty thriller” (Book Riot) about the brutal lengths girls can go to get what they think they’re owed, and what happens when the games we play in college become matters of life and death.

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The Girls Are All So Nice Here by Laurie Elizabeth Flynn

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