The Girls Are All So Nice Here

Written by Laurie Elizabeth Flynn

Narrated by Erin Mallon and Alex Allwine

‘Gone Girl meets Mean Girls and The Secret History’ Guardian

A darkly intoxicating novel of female friendship and obsession that will keep you turning the pages, perfect for fans of My Dark Vanessa and The Virgin Suicides

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Nice girls can do bad things…

When Ambrosia first arrives at prestigious college Wesleyan, she’s desperate to fit in. But Amb struggles to navigate the rules of this strange, elite world, filled with privileged ‘nice’ young women – until she meets the charismatic but troubled Sully, with whom she forms an obsessive friendship.

Intoxicated by Sully’s charm and determined to impress her, Amb finds herself drawn deep into her new best friend’s dangerous manipulations. But if she wants to play Sully at her own game, Amb has no idea just how devastating the consequences will be…

Deeply unsettling and compulsive, The Girls Are All So Nice Here is a gripping exploration of the brutal lengths girls will go to, to take what they think they are owed.
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Readers are gripped by The Girls Are All So Nice Here:

‘I couldn’t stop turning the pages of this obsessive thriller’
‘The Secret History meets Heathers, with a dash of Mean Girls’
‘Dark, twisted and compelling’
‘A compulsive exploration of the dark complexities of female friendship’
‘Gripping and addictive’
‘This deliciously dark tale had me on the edge of my seat’
‘Impossible to put down’
‘This book really got under my skin’

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
• Release date: Mar 9, 2021
• ISBN: 9780008388881

Laurie Elizabeth Flynn

Laurie Elizabeth Flynn is a former model who lives in London, Ontario with her husband and their four children. She is the author of three young adult novels under the name L.E. Flynn. Her adult fiction debut, The Girls Are All So Nice Here, was named a USA Today Best Book of 2021 and became an instant bestseller in Canada. It has sold in 11 territories worldwide and been optioned for television by AMC.

Reviews for The Girls Are All So Nice Here

[Valerie Laing · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I lost my patience with this repetitive, amateurish twaddle. I tried to find spoilers online but wasn’t successful yet, beyond caring

[Gabriela Scalon · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Narrator is terrible!!! Her entonation is confusing, tiring and keeps going up and down. I don't know how to explain it but it just sounded like she was being ironic all the time. Terrible.

[jynell-71874 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

What college did you go to?

I went to a small country community college. I always dreamed of going to the University of Michigan, but I just haven't made it there... yet...

Ambrosia went to fictitious Wellington and her class reunion has arrived. She'd totally avoid going except her husband is all about the weekend get-away and forces her back onto campus.

None of this would be a problem if she had admitted what happened her freshman year to her husband long ago. Instead, she's kept the secret and her guilt bottled up and forgotten.

If you're a fan of "mean girls" this is right up your ally. And the only thing I have to complain about is the ending - no part of that was really thrilling, if I'm being honest. It was more of a let down. Overall, I did enjoy the book and I definitely recommend it. I was sucked into the Wellington world and couldn't wait to keep listening!

Oh, did I mention that it's narrated by one of my favorite female narrators - Erin Mallon? She doesn't a phenomenal job reading books and I could listen to her read me stories all day long!

This one is out now so go grab your copy and get reading!

[akbouterse · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I got this book via Netgalley in exchange for a review.

3.5 stars but I'm rounding up because I think a lot of the things I disliked about this were personal preference things and not necessarily the books fault. This is a dark book so I'm putting some trigger warnings in the spoiler tag at the very end of this review.

To start with what I liked, the setting of this book is really strong. It has two timelines and the one in the past is set at Wesleyan and that part was very well written. It really sucked me and really made reading the more gruesome parts of this book difficult. I could vividly picture everything and while this story was incredibly dissimilar to my own freshman year experience, it all felt very grounded. Like every character in this book was such a stereotypical WASPy person at small college in Connecticut, with names like Ambrosia, Flora, Sloane, and others. This could have made the world seem flat but I think it really added to the setting by really driving home what kind of world these characters are in.

I also thought the character building was excellent. These main characters are not people I think you're supposed to like and I did not. I think this book does a good job presenting the reader with scenarios and having the reader figure out what they think about some action while still presenting the events of the book as horrifying overall. The thing I would have liked to see a bit more of was some other sides to some characters but especially Sully and Amb. Though there was a couple of times I felt some sympathy for Amb, such as the different feeling she had with her husband when it came to children, most of the time, I just didn't like her. I don't think there's anything wrong with having purely unlikable characters and that can be really interesting. I think it was interesting to read in this book and this seemed more like a fall from grace story where the characters get less and less sympathetic but I think if I had liked Amb more when she started college, that decline would have been more impactful.

There were a few things I didn't like. I just generally do not enjoy mysteries with a dual timeline. This one had both a present and a past timeline. The big event happened in the past and the characters in the future reflect on it and the past chapters slowly lead up to what happens. This isn't a bad format, I just don't like it. My other problem with that timeline is this book is written in the first person so it always breaks immersion for me because it's hard for me to really feel like I'm in that characters head when they're actively not thinking about the big thing that happened. I saw a different reviewer once say that you can't keep secrets in first person and I think that's true. I also wasn't completely satisfied with the ending. Poppy, Flora's sister, sets Amb up to go to prison for killing Sully and I just didn't like that as an ending because Poppy is barely in this book up until that moment and I just don't like that when I'm reading a mystery.

This is this authors debut book and I think she did a really good job the first time out. This book is genuinely upsetting at parts and I think the author finds the balance of tension and release pretty well in this story. I look forward to seeing what this author does next.

Content Warnings
There is a rape in this book, drug use, and a graphic description of suicide, and I do mean graphic. I can usually read those sorts of scenes but I had to skim this one

[khal_khaleesi · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I love a good psychological thriller. In fact, that's one of my favorite genres. When I read the synopsis of The Girls Are All So Nice Here by Laurie Elizabeth Flynn, I knew it was a book I had to read. It was giving me Pretty Little Liars vibes in a way. I ended up really liking this book.I really enjoyed the plot of The Girls Are All So Nice Here, and the pacing was perfect. To say I devoured this book is an understatement. I had to know more. I had to know more about Amb, Sully, and Flora. I was totally invested in this story. I will say that most of the book is predictable with a few unpredictable plot twists. It's quite obvious, for the most part, how the story will end and who the guilty party is. However, the execution was done very well that knowing what was going to happen didn't put me off reading the book. I wanted more backstory for my theories, and the author did not disappoint. I enjoyed that the story alternated between Amb in college and Amb in the present time. One thing I didn't predict was what happened to Sully and Amb at the end of the book. I will say the ending was a tad rushed and a bit unbelievable with how easy it was for one such character to get away with what they did. However, this book does try to convey the lesson of be careful how you treat people.I found the characters in The Girls Are All So Nice Here to be fleshed out enough to feel more like real people instead of just some random characters in a book. I really, really did not like Sully and Amb, not because they weren't written very well (which they are written amazingly), but because they were just so mean and selfish. They were the total mean girls at college. I think everyone knew at least one mean girl at some point in their life. I enjoyed reading about Sully and Amb then and now. It was fun to learn how much they had (or hadn't in some cases) matured. I really loved Flora and how much she genuinely seemed to care about everyone even those she never met. I wanted to be friends with Flora, and when I read about how mean Amb and Sully were to her, it broke my heart. Flora did not deserve any hate.Trigger warnings for The Girls Are All So Nice Here include profanity, promiscuity, many sex references though not super graphic, rape, murder, mentions of suicide, underage drinking, drugs, and gaslighting.Overall, The Girls Are So Nice Here is an intriguing read that will pull its readers in from the very first page. With characters the reader will love to hate and a story line that sucks you in, this is one novel that you won't soon forget. I would definitely recommend The Girls Are All So Nice Here by Laurie Elizabeth Flynn to those aged 18+ who are after a well developed story that will leave you gasping by the last page.

[susan.h.schofield · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

The premise of this book was intriguing. It definitely held my attention and I wanted to know what happened to Flora and who was contacting Amb about it. It would be a good vacation distraction and would definitely provoke conversations in a book club. Thanks to NetGalley for the digital ARC.

[choirchik · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

*There are some spoilers about the ending at the end of the review; they are in parenthesis, so stop there if you don't want your ending to be spoiled.*Overall this was a solid read. I found this through an HPB e-mail; the synopsis caught my attention and decided to give it a go. The author did an excellent job of switching back and forth between time periods. Many times it can get confusing or events can get muddled, but she did a great job keeping everything separate. The characters didn't turn out to be annoying which I was praying they wouldn't be when I found out it was going to be 99% women.One thing I did not like was the husband. He reminded me too much of my ex, lol. Lazy! Get a job brah, you know you aren't ever going to finish that book. He just upset me. Another thing that I took points off for is that I figured out the twist too soon. I like to be left in suspense up until the very end.The biggest thing that got me was the ending. I didn't like it at all. Amb definitely wasn't the best person, but I feel like her punishment didn't fit the crime (both jail and never being able to see her baby girl :(, which I do believe she actually wanted at the end), hence the 4 stars.Would recommend, and honestly, even though it took me like 2 weeks to read, someone who really ends up liking this could probably read it faster since the font is on the larger size and towards the end the book moves pretty fast.

[kulmona · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

My thanks to Edelweiss and the publisher for my e-ARC.Female friendships can be many things. Enriching. Complicated. Damaging. Deadly?Ambrosia("Amb") Wellington's college days were memorable. But, not in a good way. If only she could forget them, pretend they never happened. But, they won't let her. The endless emails from the Weslyan reunion committee and her college pals urging her to attend and reminisce. And, now her husband, Adrian, wants to go. He knows nothing of those days and the girl she was then. If he were to find out...As soon as they arrived, it was almost like stepping into a time machine. Almost. Her classmates were the same, yet different. There was one missing...her roommate, Flora. Everyone knew why, everyone except Adrian. Amb tried to keep him out of the loop, but her efforts backfired. Because guilt makes one paranoid. And paranoia makes one act "weird." Ultimately, the truth does come out.I was so thrilled to be approved for this book. It had the two elements I am typically drawn to : toxic female friendships and an academic setting. The blurb was promising, but the execution...It started well enough, with mystery and foreboding. My curiosity was piqued. But, the plot did not have me on the edge of my seat. I found it to be somewhat slow and repetitive. Nothing was happening. It took me longer than expected to finish. And the ending was unsatisfying.