Look Around. Look at Everyone Else. They Wish They Were Us.

~They Wish They Were Us~
By Jessica Goodman
Amazon ~ Powell's

A murder mystery set against the backdrop of an exclusive prep school on Long Island.

In Gold Coast, Long Island, everything from the expensive downtown shops to the manicured beaches, to the pressed uniforms of Jill Newman and her friends, looks perfect. But as Jill found out three years ago, nothing is as it seems.

Freshman year Jill's best friend, the brilliant, dazzling Shaila Arnold, was killed by her boyfriend. After that dark night on the beach, Graham confessed, the case was closed, and Jill tried to move on.

Now, it's Jill's senior year and she's determined to make it her best yet. After all, she's a senior and a Player--a member of Gold Coast Prep's exclusive, not-so-secret secret society. Senior Players have the best parties, highest grades and the admiration of the entire school. This is going to be Jill's year. She's sure of it.

But when Jill starts getting texts proclaiming Graham's innocence, her dreams of the perfect senior year start to crumble. If Graham didn't kill Shaila, who did? Jill vows to find out, but digging deeper could mean putting her friendships, and her future, in jeopardy.


I have no idea how this book got on my reading list, let alone my library queue. It could have been a new debuts list, or "look at these pretty covers" list. Regardless of how or why I picked it up, it turned into a chance for an impromptu mystery binge (continuing with my next read, Redemption Prep).

I really enjoyed reading from Jill's perspective. She was instantly relatable for me—academic, anti-confrontational, a people-pleaser, a bit of a wallflower, and overly self-judgmental. She knows she wants to change things for the better, but can be easily dissuaded by the louder personalities surrounding her. It was great to see her really come into her own as the book progressed.

Unfortunately, she was the only character who had any kind of morality. The best way to define the majority of characters here was scripted. It seemed like every character was antagonistic to a fault, successfully isolating Jill for the majority of the story, and then when the story needed to progress they had a convenient change of heart. It felt very CW, or MTV's Teen Wolf to me.

And that goes for the mystery elements, too. It wasn't as if new evidence suddenly comes to light during the story, just that the guy who said he did it suddenly decided he didn't. And then any clues they find require only the effort to look for them. Granted, that does take some doing as the majority of the story is fighting against peer pressure and the status quo, but it still made for a fairly simple mystery overall. In fact, knowing it's a mystery from the beginning allowed me to compile a list of suspects in the first couple chapters, then whittle them down as the book progressed to the point where I knew who the killer was long, long before they were even a suspect.

But I get the feeling that the mystery wasn't really where the book wanted to focus. While the back blurb calls it a mystery, the front cover features a review calling it, "A searing novel about power, privilege, and the dangerous pursuit of perfection," which is definitely where the majority of the conflict lies. Jill is constantly regretting things she did under peer pressure, primarily by older boys, and is looking to change things now that she's the one in power. Yet she finds that traditions hold a stronger power than she thought as she and her friends fall once again to the same depravity they suffered from. It's largely a case of, "If we had to go through that, why shouldn't they?"

Unfortunately, as power dynamics often imply, this story features a lot of instances of sexual harassment and assault. There are scenes in which highschool freshman are forced to strip to their underwear, kiss, read & act out pornography, and regularly drink alcohol (and possibly worse liquids) in excess at the behest of their upperclassmen. There is also one scene in which it is heavily implied that a girl is roofied (she wakes up unable to move or speak) and narrowly escapes being raped. The morality of these incidents is not glossed over, but none of the perpetrators are ever held accountable due partly to their power within the school, as well as the willingness of the adults in town to look the other way largely because of money and reputation. I can't help but draw the comparison to Martin Luther King, Jr's letter mentioning white moderates:

I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action"; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a "more convenient season." Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.

While race isn't the issue at hand here, sexism and classism definitely are. Jill's friends, and even her teachers tell her over and over that it's better for them not to stir things up in regards to the murder, that it'll be better for everyone involved if they just let it go. And if something as heavy as murder shouldn't be revisited, why would something so small as sexual harassment or assault be brought up? It isn't, and so nothing is ever done about it. Even in the end of the book, it is assumed that things will change for the better, but nothing is ever done to ensure it happens. There are no consequences, so who's to say it will change when the current seniors move on? I get where the book was trying to go, but I just don't think it went far enough to get its message across.

Overall, this story was okay but could have been better. The mystery element was often pushed aside for other drama, and was therefore solved without much effort. The meat of the story tried to bring some focus on disturbing issues in modern society, and while succeeding in perhaps starting a conversation, it didn't really hold much resolution to its own characters, especially where sexual harassment and assault is concerned. So unless you're starved for some elite prep school drama with a mystery subplot, maybe give this one a miss. It just doesn't offer the resolution I wished for.