Review: Thorn Abbey by Nancy Ohlin.

Book: Thorn Abbey

Author: Nancy Ohlin

Pages: 304

How Long it Took Me To Read: 3 hours

Plot Summary: Nothing is as it seems in this darkly romantic tale of infatuation and possession, inspired by Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca.

Becca was the perfect girlfriend: smart, gorgeous, and loved by everyone at New England’s premier boarding school, Thorn Abbey. But Becca’s dead. And her boyfriend, Max, can’t get over his loss.

Then Tess transfers to Thorn Abbey. She’s shy, insecure, and ordinary—everything that Becca wasn’t. And despite her roommate’s warnings, she falls for brooding Max.

Now Max finally has a reason to move on. Except it won’t be easy. Because Becca may be gone, but she’s not quite ready to let him go. 

General Thoughts and Review: I heard of this book a few months back and just the premise got me massively excited. A re-telling of Rebecca how could I not be excited? Rebecca is one of my favourite books and I recommend it to everyone. It is simply brilliant. This book, a re-telling, based in a prissy boarding school sounded pretty good. I like Rebecca and I like boarding school stories. So how could I not like this? 

Hmmmmmmmmmmmm.....it was...really awful! 

The writing was OK, there isn't much to complain there. But my biggest grouse were the characters. Tess in particular. I wanted to smack her. She was so clingy, needy, insecure and just all round pathetic. She fell instantly in love with Max and was basically a stalker. Ugh! 

The rest of the boarding school kids- especially the girls, were just vile. There was no one who was a nice person. All the girls were bitchy, slutty and mean and nasty~ really? Do all girls in a boarding school have to be mean girls? Not one of them could be normal? Nice? No, they were all caricatures!! 

Apart from that the story was just...blah. There was nothing worth keeping my interest piqued and I wanted this book to be over soon. Just not good. 

After a point, I was massively pissed that this book was pretending to be like Rebecca. 

I do not recommend this book, it was painful and the end was just so predictable and horrible. 

Rating:  1/5