Gossip of the Starlings

by Nina de Gramont

When Catherine Morrow is admitted to the Esther Percy School for Girls, it's on the condition that she reform her ways. But that's before the beautiful and charismatic Skye Butterfield, daughter of the famous Senator Butterfield, chooses Catherine for her best friend. Skye is in love with danger and the thrill of breaking rules, taking risks, and crossing boundaries, no matter the stakes. The problem is, the stakes keep getting higher, and Catherine can neither resist Skye nor stop her from taking down everyone around her.

De Gramont's chilling novel is a portrait of the seductions of adolescence in all their beauty and terror. Caught in this alluring world, the girls of Esther Percy are optimistic and willful, loving and selfish, daring and cruel―all the while believing they're utterly indestructible.

Genres: Fiction, Young Adult, Boarding School, Chick Lit, Coming Of Age, Contemporary, Literary Fiction

276 pages, Hardcover

First published May 28, 2008

About the author

Nina de Gramont's latest novel, The Christie Affair, is an international and New York Times best seller, and the Reese Witherspoon Book Club pick for February, 2022. Nina is also the author of a collection of short stories, Of Cats and Men, as well as the novels Gossip of the Starlings and The Last September. She has written several YA novels (Every Little Thing in the World, Meet Me at the River, The Boy I Love, and -- under the pen name Marina Gessner -- The Distance From Me to You). Nina teaches creative writing at the University of North Carolina Wilmington. She lives with her daughter and her husband, the writer David Gessner.

Reviews

[karen · Rating 3 out of 5]

to be fair, this book doesn't specifically claim to be like secret history the way so many others do, but one review i read did compare the two. it is in no way like secret history—oh wait—it's set in new england and it takes place at a school. fair enough. it is more like a separate peace, which i have not read, but know alllll about thanks to greg stahl, king of all spoilers. the book is good; it's not chick lit, it's that range of women's fiction that is above chick lit—it's pam lewis-level fine. it's readable and fun, but it didn't rock my world. it's worth the time, if you are a quick reader.

come to my blog!

[Elise Russell · Rating 4 out of 5]

I waffled between 3 & 4 stars on this one, because the book really grew on me. Gossip of the Starlings illuminates the friendship of two wealthy & pampered students at a prep school in the 1980's. I guess since I never went to one, I have always been fascinated with stories about boarding schools - John Knowles' A Separate Peace is one of my all-time favorites. The narrator, Catherine, explains - "In my mind, there were three worlds. The world outside - lofty and compelling, the whisper of destruction and glamour. The world inside - where rules were made for us to follow, a comforting but cumbersome straitjacket. And the world in between: a no-man's land where my friends and I could build camp and call our own. It had no past, no future, and no consequences." The author did a great job illustrating the complex friendships that girls have, particularly with the one that you know you really shouldn't be friends with because they will just get you into trouble. The plot is a little thin at times, but it really picked up towards the end where I just couldn't put it down, because I wanted to see how everything played out.

[Kelly · Rating 1 out of 5]

What a disaster of a book. I can't begin to comprehend what the goal or purpose of this way, and I feel like it was a major rip off a lot of other stories and rehashed terribly.

First, the over reliance on drug use as a major theme in pre-college boarding school is plain absurd. Whoever the audience is for this story is in for disappointment - this is way too adult for the high school age and way too juvenile for adults. De Garmont wants to write something similar to Curtis Sittenfield's "Prep," but falls so flat.

Second, the title has nothing to do with the book. There is one line in the entire book and in no way is this about gossipy folks. All of the characters are dry and predictable, with no depth and no interest in anyone except themselves. It's like De Garmont wanted to portray something that she wanted to convey, but failed in both respects as the story falls flat and the title does nothing more than make clear this is nothing but "show."

The writing is not spectacular. It's cliched, and it's not original. There's nothing spectacular here, and all of the hype surrounding this book (through its publisher and through press) is nothing but a means of trying to sell something that just isn't. The story line has too many elements cobbled together poorly without giving an indication of aim or aspiration in any character - Catherine apparently is a big deal horse rider, but we know so little about it. Sure it comes up, but maybe only after a few chapters. It was a total afterthought...a detail added simply because it adds to the air of the prep school. Maybe if this had actually been developed and made a reader care about Catherine's passion it could have worked but since Catherine didn't care herself (until the horse went missing, a la the end of the book), we can't care, either.

I would not recommend this for anyone. I finished it simply because I wanted to see what the disappointing ending was that other reviewers mentioned. I found the ending to be the only redeeming quality of the book: one character ends up dead (not that she was ever alive, anyway) and the others have nothing going for them. I love myself a good prep school story, but this was painful not because of that, but because of how poorly executed and planned it was. Really - high schoolers able to hop a plane to South America on a whim to get coke without a parent even knowing? Even for the early 80s, you have got to be kidding me.

[Sarah · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is just another example of how I get sucked in by covers alone, despite the fact that I shouldn't. Just look at that cover though: understated, elegant, stark. It's beautiful. Unfortunately, I should have looked a little more at what the book was about before delving into it--it would have tempered my unrealistically high expectations based on artwork.

The Gossip of the Starlings focuses on a group of coke-snorting, precocious New England prep students. Enter the beautiful daughter of a maverick senator and everything spirals downward.

The characters never came across as believable to me. They wax poetic about their drugs and their unchaperoned exploits away from the school, trying to be philosophical in order to justify their behavior. I understand that it's the character looking back after many years, but I still didn't buy it. It's pretty and lyrical enough, but it seemed inauthentic to me. I like the general premise of the book (and that artwork!) and found it to be a pretty average novel.

[sarah gilbert · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nina de Gramont writes beautifully, and it is this, and this alone, that I am giving the book its three stars. Sadly, I don't think I like Nina very much, even though, because of her lovely descriptive qualities, I want to.

Having read that she, too, went to a prep school and that she identifies closely with the two main characters, I realize why it is that I don't like Skye at all, and was startled to find myself not at all saddened by the ending, which Nina goes to great lengths to describe, in terms of heightened and flowing emotion, as tragic. She writes in the questions at the end of the paperback version that her novel was described as "elegiaic," that it is her elegy, and I think this describes the writer perfectly: with an overwrought sense of her own poetic tragedy.

Because there is very little in the way of true tragedy here. One reviewer's praise, printed on the back, says the novel "trumps 'A Catcher in the Rye' and 'A Separate Peace.'" (How you can "trump" a classic novel is beyond me. "10 times better than 'Romeo and Juliet' will, I am sure, be printed on the next edition.) It doesn't, not only because it so achingly conscious of 'A Separate Peace,' and with a general feeling of being too lightly edited. I look back at the book later and wonder, what happened? and it is not because I do not remember or cannot believe, but it is because so little happened. A blood pact. A few grams of cocaine, shared. A weekend of dark fun and not-quite-sex. A few rounds of hitchhiking. A couple of horse shows. A ruinous flirtation with a male teacher. It will be easy to turn this book into a movie. They will not have to leave out a single bit of the action.

I am caught up in the simultaneous beauty of the phrasing and the sense that I am being weighed down with so much, so much foreshadowing, I know too well how tragic the book is before I am even introduced to the character's loveless families. If I am saddened by anything, it is that Nina obviously sees distant, angry, remote fathers as worth justification (in one part she, in the narrator's voice, excuses her father for his lifetime of gruff distance because of his "rage at me, for placing the most precious part of his interior in harm's way"), it is that she believes that she now has a "sharper insight" to her younger self. I don't see any of that maturity in her narrator (who is, supposedly, a woman of de Gramont's own age looking back at her teenage self); I see a pretense at a weighty realization of the world's meaning, of true mournfulness. I see no actual deep knowledge.

And I am sad, sad, that this book is so little of what it could be; I am sad that her characters see tragedy in brushes with jail time (they're all let off, except the lower-class ex-boyfriend, who ends up never finishing high school, and it's all Nina's, err, Catherine's fault); I am sad that the parents of these prep school teens are all so stunningly out of touch with their children's lives. Most of all I'm sad for Catherine's mother, the only one who seems to truly love her child, but who is ordered not to show it too much by the aforementioned rageful, gruff dad.

[Jeanette · Rating 4 out of 5]

Adolescence is a time of questioning rules, testing rules, breaking rules and creating one s own rules. Catherine, a sixteen-year-old equestrian and prep-school student, has worked all her life toward showing in the National Horse Show in Madison Square Garden. In regional summer circuit shows, she places first or second, but each year fails to rank in the fall indoor show, the one that would qualify her for the National show. It s now Catherine s next-to-last year to qualify. [return][return]After being severely disciplined at one exclusive boarding prep school where her best friend and boyfriend continue to board, Catherine and her horse, Pippin, are now boarding at the Esther Percy School for Girls. There she meets Skye Butterfield, the lanky, beautiful daughter of popular, charismatic Senator Douglas Butterfield. Skye had recently been in the news for breaking rules at her prep school. Catherine and Skye are immediately drawn to each other and become fast friends. Intending no harm, their year is spent taking cocaine and otherwise bending and breaking the rules of the school, of their parents, of their peers, and of society. Skye, previously sheltered, because of her father s political career, seems unaware of the increasingly harmful consequences her escalating recklessness causes to herself and those around her. [return][return]de Gramont develops each of the young characters in Gossip of the Starlings fully. The students parents make only a few appearances, but de Gramont skillfully uses these appearances to distinguish how each of the students Catherine, Skye, Susannah and John Paul matured uniquely in response to their parental influences. [return][return]For the most part, the plot is believable. A quick marital breakup based on unreliable hearsay may have been a stretch to further the plot. Except for that minor flaw, Nina de Gramont has written a suspenseful portrayal of Catherine, a young woman growing away from childhood poems, best friends, and dreams of equestrian glory into the world of adulthood, where devastating consequences of heedless behavior need more than a mother s forgiving touch to soothe the pain. Suspense is built slowly and subtly until the chilling end. Gossip of the Starlings is an excellent debut novel from a young writer.

[Liz Barnsley · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this. It came up on a recommended list of books set within educational settings which I tend to enjoy so I bought a copy and I'm so glad I did.

This is a powerful tale of toxic female friendship, of betrayal and of love. The two girls at the centre of it are cleverly drawn and utterly compelling. The author creates a slow burn towards an irrevocable conclusion that left me in tears and was beautifully written throughout.

Highly Recommended.

[Abby Hargreaves · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've sat on this review for a while because it was such a perfect fit for my reading tastes that I'm not sure I can (A) accurately describe how and why I liked it and (B) make it a review that would actually be useful to anyone who doesn't have identical reading tastes to mine -- which, based on my fairly extensive number of conversations and readings around bookish preferences, seem to be somewhat unusual. So, no promises this will actually say much of anything that will be useful to you other than I loved this book and definitely think it's worth reading.

Let's set the scene. Catherine has recently enrolled in the Esther Percy School for Girls after some behavioral issues at her last school, where she's left her small group of close friends (including her boyfriend). Privileged -- but not too privileged -- Catherine is suddenly swept up into a world steps above her own when Skye Butterfield, a senator's daughter, also enrolls. Fast and deep friends, Catherine and Skye are inseparable. Catherine can't help but fall deeper and deeper into Skye's world, no matter how outrageous she is and no matter how dangerous a crash course she knows Skye is on. Until it's too late.

I suspect if I were to classify this as dark academia, a lot of folks would balk at the idea. Strictly speaking, I suppose it's not technically dark academia -- but it's a sibling of the genre enough that fans of dark academia will almost definitely be on board with the premise and story of this novel. You've got your boarding school setting, your 1%-er drama, your high stakes and dark events, and an introspective narrator who, for the most part, is quite secondary (Richard of The Secret History is an excellent comp for Catherine). One of the things I loved about the plot of this book -- and, another thing I think it has in common with many dark academia novels -- is how the storyline that is ultimately the main plot of action creeps throughout. Mentions of drugs start off like passing details and the mentions grow until their role is evident.

With this method of plotting, the story lends most of its focus to Catherine's observations and indecision around what to do about her relationship with Skye. Even as she sees the damage Skye causes, Catherine again and again convinces herself to return. While it's true that Catherine's narration style -- and, ergo, the prose -- is lofty and, really, what you'd expect from campus literary fiction, and it's also true that this style is unlikely both for Catherine's age and what we know of her personality, the captivating style pushes all that aside and manages a fantastic balance of compelling the reader forward while still maintaining that particular tone and texture so common in literary fiction. All to say -- despite still coming off as distinctly literary, the prose is still massively accessible and the plot, perhaps, makes the story even more so. Although they're totally different books, I was frequently reminded of Ellen Hopkins' Crank as I read this one, noting how the use of drugs (as in the characters' use as well as the use of the concept of drugs in the story) somehow humanizes characters and story in a way that few things can. There's the danger of drugs being a cliché or otherwise not working in a story, but Gossip never falls prey to it. Meanwhile, despite the deliberate pacing, the tension of Catherine and Skye's story make it exceedingly difficult to put down.

Gossip's cast of characters, too, rely somewhat on archetypes (again, those typical to dark academia). But these types are never boring, often surprising, and all the better for their slightly fewer years of experience compared to the casts of most dark academia novels. Though about 17, most of the main characters shine through in moments of typical teenage behavior and immaturity while the story still acknowledges the privilege and circumstance (ie, largely unsupervised lives thanks to boarding school and the 1980s) in their independence. The cast moves throughout New England and beyond as they please, not restricted by authority figures, the law, or the societal expectations (hitchhiking, for instance) more common today. Any reader who suggests the characters acted beyond their years don't know teenagers very well, have forgotten their own teenage selves, and probably have not considered the importance of Gossip's setting.

I hate to always compare dark academia (-adjacent) novels to The Secret History, but as Tartt's novel is the gold standard, it's hard not to. Gossip hits many of the same notes as TSH while drawing from real-life events at Choate Rosemary Hall that make the story even more interesting. While the book will satisfy a lot of the cravings that TSH appetizes readers with, it's also less of a commitment, both in page count and prose density. It's a novel that will appeal both to adults and (perhaps slightly precocious) teens, and one that, now having read it, I'm surprised is not more frequently mentioned or discussed by book lovers. It's a book lovers book and one I absolutely recommend clearing your weekend for.

[Iahc · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book for a number of really different reasons. The prose is beautiful and it was a pleasure to read just to read some of the incredible sentences. But the plot was also truly exciting. I knew someone was going to die from the opening but wasn't sure who or why. I won't spoil the plot by divulging too much, but let's just say, a group of high school students get over their heads into trouble--testing the limits of their friendships, their relationships with their parents, drugs, breaking rules, etc. What separates this novel from the usual high school students run amok story is the sophistication of the characterizations. Nobody's completely a villain and nobody's completely heroic. In other words, the characters seem real! They're not always likeable, but they are always believable. Finally, I LOVED the witty way the author skewers stereotypes about social class, politics, privilege, families, prep schools, the meritocracy...I could go on and on. I think Nina de Gramont is the Jane Austen of our era. I don't mean that she imitates Austen's plots or her 19th century mores, but rather she reveals hypocrisy while creating indelible characters. I could go on and on, but I'm afraid I'd give away too much of the plot, and that would be a shame. Readers should be able to discover on their own the delicious wickedness displayed in Gossip of the Starlings.

[Jen · Rating 5 out of 5]

At first glance, I figured this book was yet another story about rich kids run wild at their New England boarding schools. Which is not necessarily a bad thing - I do enjoy those types of books.[return][return]But this one was different. Even though the main characters were rich and privileged, it wasn't in an annoying way - more like it was just a fact that was secondary to the story. The main character, Catherine, had many layers that made her more than just a cookie-cutter rich teen. Her relationships with her parents, her friends, her boyfriend, and her horse were deep and true. And the ending wasn't a happily-ever-after ending, yet it completely fit with the rest of the novel and was actually quite satisfying.[return][return]The author has a lyrical, soothing writing style that propelled the story forward - this is a beautifully written novel. [return][return]A quick read that will keep you engrossed. I even read it in the car while waiting in an exceptionally long drive-thru line at lunch! I highly recommend this novel - go read it! :)

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

When a book starts out with a couple of boarding school girls cutting lines of coke on their toaster oven, I'm so in. Rebellious teen girls, an R-rated coming of age story, prep school AND self-destructive but kinda glamorous debauchery? That's sort of a "you had me at hello" kind of beginning for me. And the rest more or less lived up to the setup, with some lovely, lyrical writing. If it didn't QUITE live up to some of my favorites in the misbehaving-disallusioned-rich-kids-at-fancy-school genre (like Special Topics in Calamity Physics and The Secret History) I nonetheless really liked it a lot.

[Julie Failla Earhart · Rating 4 out of 5]

Draped against the background of the Regan years, first-time novelist, Nina De Gramont, delivers a cautionary tale of teenage rebellion in Gossip of the Starlings.
Catherine Morrow was supposedly expelled from Waverly after she and her boyfriend John Paul were caught in bed. Upon her arrival as the Esther Percy School for Girls, Catherine will try to make her affair with John Paul work via long-distance. Catherine has a few other issues also: she loves her cocaine.
When she arrives, another new student, Skye Butterfield, immediately befriends her. Skye has always been in the public eye; the dutiful, beautiful, and intelligent daughter of Senator Douglas Butterfield. While Catherine has pushed the envelope that many teenagers so, Skye has never truly rebelled.
At seventeen, the new Skye Butterfield is eager and ready to risk everything. She binges with Catherine on coke and other drugs, she has an affair with her English teacher, and hitchhikes were she wants to go off campus.
Catherine decides that it is time for her to stop her reckless behavior if she ever wants to make it to the National Horse Show. She does a good job of taking care of her horse, Pippin, and trains regularly, but the need points always seem out of reach. When Skye tries to worm her way into Catherine’s friendship with her old high school buddies, Catherine realizes that Skye cannot be trusted.
There is an interesting cast of adult characters who seem fairly stereotyped, but the true power of Gossip of the Starlings lies in De Gramont’s ability to portray teenagers’ feelings. Catherine’s turnaround is well-done when she realizes that her horse and what she has worked toward for years if more important than either John Paul or drugs.
The ending was disappointing in that I feel that De Gramont’s took the easy way out with Skye’s character. This is one of the books where the ending did not feel as if it could be the only one. Still, it was a good read.
Review originally appeared on www.armchairinterviews.com

[Janice · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book has an interesting plot and premise-- rich prep school girls break every rule in an effort to be treated normally--but the writing is uneven and the point of view shifts are distracting and ineffective. Some of the writing is well done, but the point of view problem is serious. de gramont has Catherine, the main character, narrating but writes a number of passages from other characters' POVs, told as Catherine recounting them as memories. Multiple points of view with an omniscient narrator would have worked much better. The shifts in point of view aren't believable, and I found myself skimming through those scenes in annoyance.

The characters are described convincingly as spoiled rich kids, but I didn't really care about them. As the books draws to a close and the inevitable tragedy unfolds, I was not emotionally moved at all.

Nina de Gramont also seems to be in over her head a bit as a writer. Too many misplaced modifiers and clunky sentences, and some outright errors. She mistakenly uses the word "keened" several time to mean "longed for" or "yearned". On page 317, when she writes "Even this most grave incident would be a conflagrated version of ones that had come before," surely she means "conflated," not "conflagrated."

At times the writing is pretentious and overwrought; for example, this passage from page 313: "the dark freckles across her face fluttered and shimmered. One of them grew wings and flew away. It crossed the short stretch of air between us and landed just above my right eyebrow, planting itself there where it's remained--I swear--until this very day."

if this type of writing appeals to you, read this book. But if, like me, it nauseates you, don't waste your time. I bought this book because it was only $1.99 on iBooks, but I'm not sure it was worth even that.

[Erica · Rating 2 out of 5]

I purchased this novel based on two separate reviews in People Magaizine. Sadly, I did not love this novel as much as People did.

The only character that I had any feelings for was John Paul. After finishing this novel more than a day ago, I am still unnerved about his "ending". Being that he was the only character with a moral compass, I feel like he deserved more. In John Paul's case, I would have appreciated a triumph over tradgedy.

As far as Skye was concerned, I could not wait for her to die! I don't feel like I'm revealing any spoilers, because her demise is implied in Chapter One. How Catherine could feel any compassion for Skye and be drawn in by someone so selfish, spoiled, toxic and cruel is beyond me.

[Ange · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the story of privileged New England prep school girls, coming of age in 1984. Not only is this a book about the social lives of teens, it's about the pressures and coping mechanisms they employ: sneaking to the Cape, cutting classes, snorting coke, interactions with other friends, boyfriends and teachers. This is one of those books that seems more like 3 1/2 stars, rounded up to 4 for being a quick read with good writing.

[Terri Milstead]

This is definitely in the "not for Terri" camp. I bought this probably based on the description in my book-a-day calendar years and years ago. IF that had mentioned the nonchalant teenage cocaine use that starts in, oh, paragraph five, I would not have put it on my list, much less purchased it.

[Emily · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book a few years ago. Underrated in my opinion. I enjoyed it thoroughly.

[Josephine (Jo) · Rating 2 out of 5]

If I told you that this book is about drug-taking, underage sex, drinking, oh and horse riding, you might instantly think of a book like Riders by Jilly Cooper, you would be wrong!
The narrator is Catherine Morrow, a former pupil of Waverly School and now transferred to Esther Percy School because of her dubious behaviour. If Catherine was a girl from a less wealthy family she would not have been given this second chance but because mummy and daddy can wave their cheque book at any problem and make it go away then Catherine is at another expensive private school together with her horse which cost many thousands of dollars.
Catherine has left behind her best friend Susannah, they have been close for years and are partners in crime, also Susannah's boyfriend Drew and Catherine's boyfriend John Paul. With the exception of John Paul they are all spoilt little rich kids aged 16 and 17, John Paul is at Waverly on a scholarship and his single mother works long hours to support them.
On the day that Catherine arrives at Esther Percy she meets Skye Butterfield, another spoilt rich kid but Skye is also the daughter of senator Douglas Butterfield. Skye has appeared on t.v. with her father and he has exploited her shamelessly to advance his career, she is famous and pretty and everyone wants to be her friend but Skye chooses Catherine. At this point the outcome of the book is a foregone conclusion, Sky is wayward and reckless, an attention seeker, none of their parents are very much aware of what their children are doing, (that's what they pay all the school fees for, to have someone else parent their children) and so the five of them can run amok and get away with anything. Until it all catches up with them and things start to go wrong.
I can't say that I particularly enjoyed the book because I was so annoyed with the parents who behaved like children and failed to teach their children how to behave and also with the children who knew the price of everything but the value of nothing. Neither generation cared about anyone but themselves and the did not mind whose lives they destroyed in their pursuit of a nice time.
A sad reflection of upper-class life today I feel.

[Melanie Rippon · Rating 4 out of 5]

VERY loosely inspired by a drug scandal at Chaote School in 1984. Reminiscent of The Secret History & Prep, only in in that the narrator Catherine is looking back on events after years have passed, and the setting is one of an exclusive community of privilege & power. Well paced & atmospheric, evoking the adolescent sense of invulnerability, all the more tense even as you see the almost-inevitable "car-crash" approaching. Illustrative of how access to wealth, power & privilege, can result in vastly different consequences for transgressions, and how disastrous friendships can be.

[Jodi · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book had been on my "to read" shelf for a long time, and I finally picked up, and then wish I had just passed it on in my library. I did not identify or connect with any of the characters. I did not understand the relationship between Catherine and Skye, and I was continually frustrated that none of the characters in this book (except maybe John Paul who least deserved it) had any real consequences from their destructive actions.

[Wendy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Overwhelmed with all the drugs. I was in high school 20 years before this so I simply cannot relate. Skye is such a mess, and she loves messing up other people's lives so I didn't much care for her, but not especially warm to Catherine either. If you are lucky enough to go to a private school, it would seem there would be more appreciation for an elevated education. In the end, this seems to be a young adult book but the copy I read was from the fiction section of the library.

[Ninamarie · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars, de Gramont's fluid writing style makes this an easy and engaging read. Don't know why I was surprised that the entire story is about teenagers...at prep school...but it is certainly not a YA novel. Prefer to read about flawed adults than risk-taking, immature kids, I guess.

[Holly Vancourt · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a 3.5. Once I got into this story it is an easy read. I had a hard time forgiving the very random point of view story changes. They were never consistent. There also was only one character I felt any empathy for, and he was far from a primary. Maybe that was the point?

[Kelly Krucki · Rating 4 out of 5]

There's something dangerous about the boredom of teenage girls. This book def embodies that and my one critique is that Skye could've been more developed as a character. I still very much enjoyed the drugs and the boarding school and the intense friendship.

[Allie Demoe · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5. This book was fine. Skye was too much of a manic pixie dream girl for me to really enjoy.

[Kathy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book. A good cold fall weekend read about adolescence of the rich, famous and rebellious in the 90s. Which is why I only gave it 3 stars.

[:P · Rating 4 out of 5]

“i know how much you loved her”

[Nancy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pretty good beach read. Good writing. Really more of a 31/2 star, but …

[Rebecca Marks · Rating 1 out of 5]

Maybe I'm just too old, but there was not a single character I liked or cared about.

[Kristyn Bray · Rating 1 out of 5]

Dnf hated characters , mean girl prep school, couldn't be bothered