A dark and brutal variation on the familiar mean-girls trope with an ending that disappoints.
Flynn’s adult debut thriller is a turbo-charged variation on the mean-girls trope that opens with an invitation to a ten year college reunion that send shivers down the spine of thirty-one-year-old Ambrosia Wellington. Now working in PR in Manhattan and married to sociable Adrian, Ambrosia has worked hard to move on from her time at the prestigious university of Wesleyan and the acting career she once dreamt of. Adrian finding out about the events of a particular night dubbed ‘Dorm Doom’ is definitely not on Ambrosia’s agenda but when she starts receiving handwritten notes that explicitly refer to “what we did that night” she assumes they are from her manipulative former best friend, Sloane “Sully” Sullivan. Boxed into a corner and encouraged by Adrian to attend she reluctantly agrees, but reuniting with Sully reveals that she too has received the same notes and Amb feel sure that someone is out for revenge and determined to make the old friends pay... The book follows a ‘now’ and ‘then’ narrative hearing from Ambrosia (“Amb”) in the first-person and unfolding over the course of the weekend reunion.
Arriving at Wesleyan and desperate to fit in, Amb finds herself magnetically drawn to the larger-than-life character of Sully who seems almost sociopathic in her destructive behaviour and casual cruelty. Amb craves her approval and the duo do everything to excess - boys, alcohol, drugs and bullying - eventually culminating in a night dubbed ‘Dorm Doom’ that saw the pair wreak havoc in the life of a fellow student. Hearing directly from Amb allows the reader to see just what an insecure character she is as she starts her freshman year desperate to move on from her staid upbringing in New Jersey and keen to shake off her kind but ultimately dull “try-hard” roommate, Flora. Amb isn’t a likeable character and there is no clear evidence of remorse but she is a self-aware narrator and in the years following college has reinvented herself once again in her life with Adrian.
The first two-thirds of the book were a propulsive read as I raced through the back and forth with Amb scrambling to keep Adrian in the dark about the night in question, and I read on with increasing dread. In the final third I felt that the story was running out of steam with the events of ‘Dorm Doom’ rehashed multiple times and, given how callous Amb and Sully are from the off, there is very little in the way of shock value left and I felt inured to the constant sucking, snorting and back-stabbing. The detail on the girls exploits is quite graphic and more or less constant throughout the past narrative and whilst I found it a twisted and addictive read it was not a particularly pleasant one. I did feel the denouement and the reckoning that was on the cards from the first page was over-the-top and pretty ridiculous but the book was certainly an education in toxic female friendship!
Arriving at Wesleyan and desperate to fit in, Amb finds herself magnetically drawn to the larger-than-life character of Sully who seems almost sociopathic in her destructive behaviour and casual cruelty. Amb craves her approval and the duo do everything to excess - boys, alcohol, drugs and bullying - eventually culminating in a night dubbed ‘Dorm Doom’ that saw the pair wreak havoc in the life of a fellow student. Hearing directly from Amb allows the reader to see just what an insecure character she is as she starts her freshman year desperate to move on from her staid upbringing in New Jersey and keen to shake off her kind but ultimately dull “try-hard” roommate, Flora. Amb isn’t a likeable character and there is no clear evidence of remorse but she is a self-aware narrator and in the years following college has reinvented herself once again in her life with Adrian.
The first two-thirds of the book were a propulsive read as I raced through the back and forth with Amb scrambling to keep Adrian in the dark about the night in question, and I read on with increasing dread. In the final third I felt that the story was running out of steam with the events of ‘Dorm Doom’ rehashed multiple times and, given how callous Amb and Sully are from the off, there is very little in the way of shock value left and I felt inured to the constant sucking, snorting and back-stabbing. The detail on the girls exploits is quite graphic and more or less constant throughout the past narrative and whilst I found it a twisted and addictive read it was not a particularly pleasant one. I did feel the denouement and the reckoning that was on the cards from the first page was over-the-top and pretty ridiculous but the book was certainly an education in toxic female friendship!