When We Were Monsters - Jennifer Niven

 

Brighton Hove is a college set near the woods of north-eastern Massachusetts.  Every year in January, the college holds 'Jan Term' where eight of the brightest and luckiest students are invited to live and study at Moss House  (the sprawling house in the nearby woods built by the college's founder; the same forest where a girl was killed years earlier).  This year's lucky students include Effy, Isaac, Vanessa and Arlo who will spend 16 days being mentored by Meredith Graffam, the famous writer director and actress.  At first, the group are excited by the opportunity and in awe of Graffam, but as her teaching methods being to grow increasingly unorthodox, the group start to wonder if this really is the opportunity of a life-time.

I've been reading an increasing number of YA books recently and have very much enjoyed them, so when I saw When We Were Monsters on NetGalley, I jumped at the chance to read it.

Told in dual narrative from Effy and Arlo's point of views, it is clear that the main characters all have 'issues' they are harbouring: for Effy it's the fact that her father killed her mother in a road accident when she was six; Arlo is still trying to come to term with the death of his best friend; Vanessa is quiet and just wants to be accepted; whilst Isaac is struggling to live up to his family's expectations.  Each is being encouraged to dig deep within themselves and step outside their comfort zone in a way they could not have expected, but under the guise of needing to be vulnerable to help develop their writing.  The more you read, the more you discover about each character's individual demons and how they influence their lives.  But how much are they prepared to take in order to win that one coveted scholarship?

There is a real darkness to this book.  Yes, it's set in January in an old and sprawling house in the middle of the woods; yes, they are cut off during bad weather; yes they are without mobile phones and phone lines - these are things that help to build the atmosphere.  But the real darkness comes from the teaching; the expectations Meredith has on each character; the secrets that she is determined to prize out of them and the deepest thoughts she wants them to reveal.  She is a character who is fascinating: enigmatic and compelling yet happy pit the students against each other to get to her end goal.  

The book is well-paced and made the perfect read for my homeward flight yesterday evening.  It's a thrilling read, especially as the first chapter hints at what is to happen which means some of the suspense comes from not knowing when or how things are going to happen.  

Publishing on the 4th September, When We Were Monsters is a darkly immersive YA that will make the perfect read at the start of a new school year as the nights start drawing in.