Saturday, October 29, 2016

“Beware That Girl” by Teresa Toten


Kate O’Brien’s dark past has molded her into a cunning liar determined to move up the social ladder at the A-list Waverly School in New York City. Olivia Sumner is Waverly’s uber wealthy it-girl who has been damaged by psychological issues. Kate, a new scholarship student at Waverly, sets her sights on befriending Olivia in order to escape poverty as well as her past.
In comes Mark Redkin, a handsome and charismatic new administrator at Waverly School who’s charm has the entire faculty and student body under his spell. As Olivia grows especially close to Mark, it becomes clear that he threatens Kate and Olivia in ways that could force them to expose their mutually troubled pasts.
From the first few pages, this book immediately made me think of Gossip Girl due to its similar setting in a elite New York City private school with its fair share of drama. However even as a fan of Gossip Girl, this book wasn’t really my cup of tea.
Despite the book’s label as a “psychological thriller”, it didn’t really have as much mystery and unpredictability as I expected, which made the story fall flat. At the end of the novel, I wasn’t satisfied with the ending, which left me feeling a little confused. I also couldn’t relate or sympathize with the main characters, Kate and Olivia, because they each seemed to lack a distinct personality.
However, I really enjoyed the minor characters like Mrs. Chen and Anka, Olivia’s housemaid, who brought a lot of humor into this somewhat dark story. I also thought Teresa Toten did a great job gradually giving out information about Kate and Olivia’s pasts over the course of the book, so that the reader can try to piece it all together and figure the characters out. Also, this book had two unreliable narrators, so anything mentioned by the narrators could be false, which kept me on my toes as I read.
While not my favorite book, “Beware That Girl” by Teresa Toten was a super quick read perfect for the weekend that I would encourage Gossip Girl fans and drama lovers to give a try.

by Meredith B. - TAB Member

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