Release Date: October 26th, 2021

Genre(s): Young Adult, Mystery, Thriller, Retellings, LGBT

Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire

Pages: 400

Rating:⭐️⭐️⭐️

Synopsis

Once Upon a Time meets Pretty little liars.

Four troubled friends, One murdered girl… and a dark fate that may leave them all doomed.

After the mysterious death of their best friend, Ella, Yuki, and Rory are the talk of their elite school, Grimrose Académie. The police ruled it a suicide, but the trio are determined to find out what really happened.

When Nani Eszes arrives as their newest roommate, it sets into motion a series of events they couldn’t have imagined. As the girls retrace their friend’s last steps, they uncover dark secrets about themselves and their destinies, discovering they’re all cursed to repeat the brutal and gruesome endings to their stories until they can break the cycle.

This contemporary take on classic fairytales reimagines heroines as friends attending the same school. While investigating the murder of their best friend, they uncover connections to their ancient fairytale curses and attempt to forge their own fate before it’s too late.

Review

The Grimrose Girls is a book that’s been on my radar for quite some time now. A mystery set at an upscale school seems to always catch my attention! I was also excited to see that there were fairytale retellings being integrated into the story. But my thoughts on this book seem to be overall in the middle! This book was just okay for me, but I am still interested in the second book.

The Grimrose Girls starts off with a bang, and it was hard to put down for the first hundred pages or so. But as the book progresses, I became less invested in the mystery. It took me a while to understand why, but I now think this is mainly because of how magic was introduced to an otherwise ordinary world. You know this coming from the synopsis, but the execution just didn’t hit right for me. Once this book gets its footing in the last third, however, I read 150 pages in one sitting, wanting to know now the book would end.

I loved seeing how diverse the characters were in this book as well, from LGBTQ+ representation to racially diverse characters to characters with chronic illness as well as mental illness. And while the characters’ identifies are built out in this book, I would have loved to see more detail on that. I was surprised to see a character with OCD and was happy to see that representation, but as an example, I would have liked to see more regarding her thoughts and obsessions leading up to her compulsions, rather than just the compulsions themselves. I think more details like these not only help to flesh out the characters but also are helpful to readers, especially young readers, who feel represented by these characters.

The Grimrose Girls leans to the younger side of YA,  which I am personally happy to see. Many ya novels border on adult so this is one that I would recommend to younger readers, as young as those looking to transition from middle-grade books.

Despite my issues, many of my questions remain unanswered and so I’m looking forward to seeing what happens in the next book. Considering that most of my issues had to do with the initial setup, I think there’s a good chance that I will enjoy the second book more than the first.

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