They Wish They Were Us

In They Wish They Were Us, Jill is in her senior year and continues to struggle to come to terms with the death of her best friend three years ago. Although from the outside Jill has everything going for her. She earns top grades in her classes, is dating the perfect guy, and is a Player--Gold Coast Prep's exclusive secretive society. The Players rule the school and everyone wants to be them. But beneath the perfect exterior lies many secrets, for all of the Players. Most members try to ignore and forget but Jill gets pulled into the deepest and darkest secret of all and the more she digs into it, the more her perfect senior year expectations fall apart. This is a fact-paced, quick read that is exactly as I expected. The story is a reflection upon the pressure for perfection, the dangers of privilege, and the secrets that we all carry and weigh heavily upon us. I did find that the story was predictable, however, I think that is hard to avoid when the story genre and premise is known from the beginning. How many ways can you twist and spin an old story, right? For that reason, I don't think that this is necessarily a bad thing, since many people who read this genre appreciate this predictable story arc. It was still a fun read with well developed, albeit trope-y, characters. I would recommend to anyone who enjoyed One of Us is Lying.

They Wish They Were Us is a novel about a secret society at the high school level. It also is a statement about the system in which we live that is founded upon patriarchal ideals and boosting up the socio-economic status-quo. On that level, it is infuriating to read about the world of elite private schools and the students who go on to get Ivy League educations. The book reads like a Sara Sheppard novel and is a fun, interesting take on the genre of wealthy teens at a prep school who are trying to determine the truth about their murdered friend while also trying to maintain their status in the high school hierarchy and discovering the truth about who is pulling the strings. The ending was a little predictable, but that didn't make it any less fun to read!

It's like a mix of pll, nerve and somethin else. Really liked the narrative and the character development. Although, it is not surprising who ends up being guilty, you see it coming from afar.