Special

I was challenging myself to read some fiction that was different from my normal fare, and this Advance Reading Copy has been in my collection for a while. (It says the publication date was to be May 9, 2003. This is not very advanced.) This turned out to be very different.

Eight girls and two teachers leave in a minibus for a field trip that sounds like it is supposed to last about two weeks, to the countryside for "undignified exercises." As the girls keep explaining to those they meet - because the teachers don't know what to do with them while they wait for their test results. The girls are 13/14, though they constantly try to pass as older, like girls that age do.

The trip starts with an ominous omen, and the tone of the novel makes show more clear that it's all going downhill from here, that we will be crashing down to some unseeable crisis. Envy, peer pressure, lack of meaningful supervision, access to a nearby college town with drugs, alcohol, sex, and strange men also staying at the manor house. Many potential sources of outside danger, but it is the girls who will do the most damage to themselves and each other.

It is a compelling read, to be sure. At times I wanted desperately to reach through the pages of the book to shake a character. Or to rip one apart with my bare hands. The girls and all their insecurities are familiar, to be sure. but at times it strained credulity. For instance, are boarding schools still so much a thing? Even in England? What school has a student-teacher ratio that could send two teachers with eight girls for two weeks? (All the other girls are also on similar trips with other teachers at the time.) I know drinking ages are different in England, but would 13-year-old girls really be allowed to get falling down drunk at a pub?

Not my favorite, but it was good. Would recommend to fans of sinister coming-of-age tales. Or someone who needed to be slapped in the face with the pressures on young teen girls. show less

An absolutely horrifying novel about a group of wicked fourteen-year-old girls on a two week long school trip to a manor in the English countryside. It's a good story that will keep you awake at night but also sheds light on the issues that adolescent girls face including sex, eating disorders, and various societal pressures.

Just awful.

This book is very bad. I couldn't recommend it for anyone to read.

Eine Gruppe dreizehnjähriger Schülerinnen wird zur Erholung aufs Land geschickt. Es könnten sorglose Ferien werden. Doch wer sich die eng verschworene Clique als Freundinnen vorstellt, liegt falsch. Jules, die Rebellische, entwickelt eine Hassliebe zu Caz, die ihre Schönheit auf grausame Weise ausspielt. Die sensible Hen kultiviert eine gefährliche Krankheit. Ali sieht keine andere Lösung, als sich schweigend mit ihren Büchern auf Bäume zurückzuziehen, und die dicke Izzy »wird gebraucht, weil man immer jemanden zum Hassen braucht«. Dreizehn Tage dauert der Aufenthalt im Forest of Dean, und jeden Tag wird klarer, wie dünn die Decke der Normalität ist. Bis eines der Mädchen mit dem Leben bezahlt.