Follow Me Down by Tanya Byrne

 

I'd recommend this to the dark academia girlies who are fans of Donna Tartt's SECRET HISTORY and Kate Moretti's THE SPIRES, as it kind of reads like a YA version of that. Set in an English boarding school, this is about Adamma, a Nigerian student, and her close and somewhat toxic friendship with the school golden girl, Scarlett. It's told in dual timeline, starting from Adamma's first day at school and ending after their friendship does... and something terrible happens.

I don't want to say too much about this book because less is more going in (I feel like I say this a lot??) but it's so full of surprises. Tonally, it's quite dark for a YA and deals with a lot of unsavory and mature topics. I actually like it when I find YA that is clearly meant to appeal to the college-age and/or college-bound youths, because I think there should be books for every maturity level of teens. Byrne always knew when to pull back and not provide too much detail, but this is definitely sensual and terrifying by turns, and often left me feeling desolate and hollow.

Loved the Nigerian protagonist and the little snippets of her culture. I also think that this author did the best job depicting the intimate push-pull relationship of vicious teen girl relationships in a way that puts her on par with Megan Abbott (who's famously good at it). The ending made me gasp, and was appropriately gutting. I feel like maybe part of the reason this book doesn't have more of a following is because it's ridiculously slow burn for a thriller. The character portraits are just as important if not more so than who did the bad things. That said, I'm absolutely obsessed. Do I wish the ending was happier and the pacing had been a little neater? Yes. But I'm still gonna read everything she writes.

4 out of 5 stars