What readers say
4.75/5 ⭐️ Truly riveting dark academia story that was hard to put down once I started. It’s beautifully written and reminded me a bit of “Crime & Punishment” by Dostoyevsky mixed with the movie “Dead Poets Society”. Richard leaves sunny California and starts college in elite small-town Hampden,Vermont. He is indoctrinated into a preppy, cultured Greek class that only has five other students and taught by a quirky, manipulative professor, Julian. In order to join the highly exclusive class, Richard is forced to drop all other classes and be taught solely under Julian, in an experimental and controversial way. Richard becomes obsessed with the other students in the class, idolizing them extremely. On page one of the book, we learn that one of the students (Bunny) has died, and we spend the first 1/3 of the book in suspense trying to figure out how & why. An event occurs which rips the dynamic of the group apart. Richard discovers what happened & is faced with the decision he should make with the information he has. The rest of the book falls in line with what the group decides to do next, & the decisions Richard makes knowing what has happened. It’s a story on ethics, on morality, on friendship, on the disguise some wear to your face and the person that they are behind closed doors. It’s also interesting to see the other paths Richard could have chosen if he had not gone down the one he did; which are displayed subtly via the outcomes of his other friend’s (those outside Julian’s class) lives in the end. There’s not much in terms of a twist, but the suspense is eerie and chilling. A perfect autumn book to get trapped in as the season changes. I can understand the hype behind this book.