READING: They Wish They Were Us by Jessica Goodman

Publication date: August 4 2020

Published by: Penguin Teen  

Genre: High School, Secret Society, Cliques, Silly  

Rating:

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.

This book sucked the life out of me 😣
Even though I am a sucker for high school cliques and secret societies, this one was just not my cup of tea.

I could almost forgive the non - existent mystery; it is very obvious from the beginning who the murderer is. Again, I wouldn't have a problem with that if the rest of the book was alright.
What I couldn't get past was the despicable characters.
Jill was a mean, terrible person, who valued being the most popular girl in school more than anything. It seemed to me she was relieved her friend died, so she could take her place in the hierarchy and be the queen of the school. Even after 3 years of her friend's death, she kept that awful secret club alive, along with its inhumane hazing.
Now, all of a sudden, Jill decides to grow a conscience for reasons unbeknownst to the reader (really, no explanation at all) and finally sees that what she has been doing all this time is actionable, to say the least, and tries to stop it. However, she still really misses her "friends", who are even worse than she is, and her hard earned popularity.
Ugh, I disliked Jill very much.

They Wish They Were Us was kind of OK until 20% where I was still curious about where all this was going and Adam's character was intriguing. It went downhill very fast from there. I struggled to finish it, and I really don't think it will appeal much to ages older than 12-13 yo, if that.