I received an ARC from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. It has not affected my opinions.
Genre: Thriller
Age Range: YA
Star Rating: 4 stars
Series: standalone
Blurb:
It’s like I keep stumbling into a dark room, searching for the switch to make things bright again. To make me remember. But the switch isn’t there. Was it there before?
Sade Hussein is starting her third year of high school, this time at the prestigious Alfred Nobel Academy boarding school. After being home-schooled all her life and feeling like a magnet for misfortune, she’s not sure what will happen. What she doesn’t expect though is for her roommate Elizabeth to disappear after Sade’s first night. Or for people to think she had something to do with it.
With rumours swirling around her, Sade catches the attention of the most popular girls in school – collectively known as the ‘Unholy Trinity’ – and they bring her into their fold. Between learning more about them – especially Persephone, who Sade finds herself drawn to – playing catch-up in class, and trying to figure out what happened to Elizabeth, Sade has a lot on her plate. It doesn’t help that she’s already dealing with grief from the many tragedies in her family.
And then a student is found dead.
The more Sade investigates, the more she realizes there’s more to Alfred Nobel Academy and its students than she realized. Secrets lurk around every corner and beneath every surface…secrets that rival even her own.
Blurb taken from Goodreads. Add to your shelves here.
Blurb:
WHERE SLEEPING GIRLS LIE is a private school thriller about how power and privilege protects and enables crime, particularly sexual assault.
This is an intense book full of mysteries that wants to be read in as few sittings as possible. The primary mystery is what happened to Elizabeth, with begins to open up the world of the ultra elite with all their tricky relationships and secrets. There’s also the mystery of what happened to Sade and who the girl she sees when she sleeps is.
I had to know the answers, discover what had happened and why. It felt like if I knew then maybe there could be justice as Elizabeth hadn’t got any from authorities who couldn’t be bothered to look into it. It was a clever device to get you invested.
The relationships are so fraught. It feels like everyone has slept with/dated everyone at some point – but doesn’t necessarily want anyone to know. It makes working out who knows what hard and who they might be covering for.
The book approaches some tricky topics like sexual assault through drugging victims. It also looks at how hard it can be to get justice as systems close around the rich and powerful (and male), refusing to believe women.
Read my reviews of other books by Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé:
Standalones:
Sifa Elizabeth Reads 