Books I've Read: All These Beautiful Strangers

 

I know you're not supposed to judge books by their covers, but I have to admit that it was the cover that drew me to this one.  

Set in an exclusive boarding school, this is an unusual YA mystery in that it is told from multiple points of view, across multiple timelines and some of the narrators are adults rather than teenagers.  Seventeen-year-old Charlie Calloway's mother disappeared when she was seven and nothing has been the same since.  She has never wanted for anything in terms of material comforts, but her father is remote and her mother's family have long suspected him of playing a role in the disappearance.

When Charlie is invited to join her school's exclusive secret society, she thinks it might be an opportunity to throw herself into something worthwhile that might take her mind off her mother and the hurt she still deals with on a daily basis.

But the initiation rituals the 'A's require put her into increasingly perilous positions amongst her peers, friends and the school faculty.  And when the past and the present start to converge, Charlie is forced to face the truth about her dark legacy and make choices that might just change her life forever.

I enjoyed this book, but I found Charlie to be a difficult character to warm to.  I find these privileged kids at private schools hard to swallow and their self-centeredness always bugs me.  Charlie uses the people around her to her own gain, never thinking about the toll that might take on them.  She is often cold and cruel to people who try to help her, and she seems surprised when she's called out on it.

But I enjoyed the multiple perspectives and time-frames and seeing the development of  the relationship grow between Charlie's young parents in the years before she was born.

If you enjoy complex, layered family mysteries, this just might be the book for you!

But don't just listen to me.  Here's the blurb:

In the last day of summer, Grace Fairchild, the beautiful young wife of real estate mogul Allister Calloway, vanished from the family’s lake house without a trace, leaving behind her seven-year old daughter, Charlie, and a slew of unanswered questions.

Years later, seventeen-year-old Charlie still struggles with the dark legacy of her family name and the mystery surrounding her mother. Determined to finally let go of the past, she throws herself into life at Knollwood, the prestigious New England school she attends. Charlie quickly becomes friends with Knollwood’s “it” crowd.

Charlie has also been tapped by the A’s—the school’s elite secret society well known for terrorizing the faculty, administration, and their enemies. To become a member of the A’s, Charlie must play The Game, a semester-long, diabolical high-stakes scavenger hunt that will jeopardize her friendships, her reputation, even her place at Knollwood.

As the dark events of past and present converge, Charlie begins to fear that she may not survive the terrible truth about her family, her school, and her own life.