Originally Posted at All I Ever Read A book about secret societies? A book about secret societies of girls? A book about secret societies of girls wreaking havoc on those around them? I am so in. Add in a murder of the girl who is rumoured to be the head of said secret society and it should be a great read.
Well, it didn’t work out as well as I had hoped.
The book begins with scatter brained Madeline who now has a new job at the prestigious Armitage boarding school as a teacher, despite being little older than the student’s she is in charge of. Within the first few pages of the book, a student named Claire, is found dead in her dorm room. It soon becomes clear that Claire was not only murdered, but that she had recently had a baby. A baby, that none but a select few were aware she was even carrying, and a baby who is now missing. From there is not only becomes a case of whodunnit, but it also becomes an investigation into the secret society that Claire was rumoured to run.
The story itself, at least the idea of it, was good. It’s the execution that falls a little short. For some reason, we are introduced to 15 characters or so it seemed.. Characters, whose stories are so developed, and more often than not irrelevant to the central plot of the story. I often found myself having to flip back and forth trying to remember what they brought to the story. The answer: nothing! I felt like I spent too more time trying to keep all the back stories straight than I did trying to figure out who killed Claire. The fact that a girl was murdered and her baby was missing got lost in the back story until the last 40 pages.
I will say this, I really didn’t see the ending coming and the culprit never even made it to my suspect list.
My Rating:
3*