They Wish They Were Us by Jessica Goodman
This book completely filled my void for Pretty Little Liars-like drama and I am here for it!
I forgot how much I love teenage, high school dramas. They Wish They Were Us hit every mark I was hoping it would. I wanted high school drama and I got it. I wanted a good mystery and I got it. I wanted a love story and I got it. I wanted to read a fictional book that had me glued to the page and be unable to set the book down and that is exactly what I GOT!
TWTWU is told from the perspective of the book’s protagonist, Jill, which made me feel like I was a teenager once again. This story gave me major PLL vibes because it’s about a group of popular, wealthy high school students who are living their lives after the ring leader of their class was murdered by a fellow classmate. Jessica Goodman takes us on a wild, sultry, and insightful journey that gives us all of the thrills of a good mystery novel, all the while still being an entertaining coming-of-age story.
Despite this book being set in a current-day Long Island and following the lives of the wealthiest kids, I somehow still found this book a bit relatable. Sure, I may be 25 now, but I was once a teenager who just wanted to fit in, get good grades, and get into a good college. Despite Jill (the main character I mentioned before) trying to solve the murder of her best friend back in Freshman year, she’s still just a high school senior, trying to make her parents proud at the end of the day, and that is something I could identify with. I think that’s something that everyone could identify with. So it made it easy for me to completely slip into Jill’s perspective.
I told you this was a mystery, along with being a high school drama, which means it gives the readers time to make predictions about how it’s all going to go down. I have to admit, my initial guess of who the killer was wrong, but the person I had in the back of my mind was right! I love it when a mystery can spin me in a million directions and mislead me to the point where my main guess was wrong, which is what this book did! For that, I proclaim They Wish They Were Us as a good Mystery novel.
All in all, this book was a lot of fun and kept me entertained throughout. I really enjoyed reading this book, and it was a great break from the more serious books that I have been reading lately, like How To Be An Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi. If you ever watched and loved Pretty Little Liars, Gossip Girl, The Clique, or even Teen Wolf then I’m gonna need you to read They Wish They Were Us!