They Wish They Were Us is a story of betrayal and privilege, of elite of the worst kind, and its mystery will pull you in straight away! This YA thriller centres around a group of Players’, an elite group in Gold Coast Prep, which you can only get accepted into based on rigorous criteria and after completing a great number of daunting and frankly terrible tasks. And once you do get in, you will be the coolest, most envied person in the entire school. You will be a Player, but this title doesn’t just carry perks of the popularity kind; you will also get cheat sheets for different subjects and Ivy League schools won’t only be a dream, but a fast approaching reality. People will know your name. This quote from the book says it best: “Look around. Look at everyone else,” Shaila whispered into the huddle. “They wish they were us.”
Jill Newman, our main protagonist, was one of the lucky ones when she got drafted into the Players as a freshman. Despite the terrible tasks she had to complete in her first year to get in, she always had her best friend Shaila and her will-they-won’t-they friend Adam at her back. But when the initiation rolled around at the end of her freshman year, Jill and her group of other Player recruits had to pay the ultimate price: Shaila’s life.
The murder of Shaila was blamed on her boyfriend Graham, while Jill and the rest of her squad tried their best to move on. Now Jill is a senior, ready to lead the Players and enjoy her last year at Gold Coast Prep, but suddenly Jill gets a text warning her that Graham might be innocent. Her world turns upside down and Jill has to decide between finding justice for her best friend and enjoying her senior year, pretending that Graham is the one to blame.
“I want to mourn what I thought I knew about the people I love. Loved. How do I recover? How do I get over this? I can’t. Not yet, anyway. Because it feels like my heart has been smashed open and every truth I ever knew is spilling onto the floor.”
Now I want to start by saying that this is the perfect YA thriller if you are new to this genre as there is a lot of intrigue and back-stabbing and mystery involved. They Wish They Were Us was described as Gossip Girl meets One of Us Is Lying and I can partially agree with that. In the centre of the story are the ugliest bits of being a part of the elite, similar to what Gossip Girl had to offer. But unlike Bayview Four and the Gossip Girl gang, this story focuses mostly on Jill. Sure, we get to meet her friends, Nikki, Quentin, Adam, Marla, Robert, and Henry, but they take the backseat to Jill’s storyline and mostly act as sounding boards for her story and character development.
Jill herself is in many ways a rather unlikeable character, but with a few beautiful redeeming qualities. For example, her love for her brother and friends is commendable and I think many of us would react in similar ways she did if put in the same situation. On the other hand though, she is rather judgmental, especially towards other girls in the story, both main and side characters. This fuels the idea that Jill is, despite being a scholarship student, privileged, and was raised with many prejudices. However, she does make strides towards being a better person.
And while we’re on the topic, one of the things I loved most in this book was how Jill becomes more and more aware of the casual sexism and misogyny present in their elite group. The tasks for girls are harder, more cruel, and full of shaming and humiliation. Sure, Jill and her friends are now seniors and in charge, but the price they paid to get there was steep and they are not done paying quite yet. This whole sexist situation in the midst of the Players is a nice reflection of our world in many ways as women have to work harder to prove themselves and then keep proving themselves worthy. Goodman did a really good job of portraying that in this YA thriller.
Now let’s get down to the whole ‘Who killed Shaila Arnold?’ part. While the story served a few unexpected plot twists, there were also quite a few bread crumbs that made it possible to uncover the real killer pretty quickly. I wouldn’t consider myself the next Sherlock Holmes, but I could smell something fishy from a mile away and made a wild guess at who the killer is on the mid-point of the story. And guess what? I was right. The killer might not always be the most obvious character. Sometimes there are invisible strings linking them to the victim… or are the really that invisible?
They Wish They Were Us was a quick and intriguing YA thriller with some nice plot twists and good character growth when it came to our main girl. Goodman also interwove past and present storylines without disturbing the flow of the story and all the snippets from Jill’s freshman year added a lot to the overall mystery. And while I did want something more from all the side characters, I am also convinced that this story is a very nice allegory for the world we live in today, where the elite can go unpunished and all sorts of discrimination are still in full swing.
Make sure to add They Wish They Were Us to your August TBR if thrillers and dramatic stories of betrayal, love, and murder are your thing!
They Wish They Were Us is available from Amazon, Book Depository, and other good book retailers.
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Synopsis | Goodreads
Gossip Girl meets One of Us Is Lying with a dash of The Secret History in this slick, taut murder mystery set against the backdrop of an exclusive prep school on Long Island.
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.
