Chloe Roberts is on top of the world at Morton Academy. She’s a shoo-in for Head Girl and the lead spot in the school’s secret Jewel and Bone. But then her best friend, Nikhita Patel, betrays her, and life comes crashing down.
Things take a darker turn when Chloe stumbles upon the Book of Crime and Punishment – a record of every misdeed committed by Morton students and the fitting penalty. And it’s not long before entries in the book start to match up with murders of Jewel and Bone members. Anyone could be a suspect.
Can Chloe get to the bottom of this twisted game before she’s next on the killer’s hit list . . . ?
**When We Were Monsters comes out September 2, 2025**
Thank you to Penguin Random House Canada for this copy in exchange for an honest review.
I haven’t been reading a lot of thrillers lately so it’s been nice to jump back into a few in a row. This premise had the makings of something really great, but I think ultimately fell a bit short of 4-star for me with its execution. It was an enjoyable summer read, and had pretty good pacing, but was simultaneously predictable and unpredictable. There’s a surprise twist at the end, but for some reason it was not too impactful? Overall not a bad story but just isn’t one of the greats for me
Chloe Roberts is our main character, who gets robbed (ha!) of her Head Girl position at Morton Academy by her supposed best friend, Nikhita Patel. Being Head Girl is important as it comes with a load of perks like your own room at the Academy, and sponsorships by the rich Morton alumni to have her life paid and paved for her. Yes, there is also a Book of Crime and Punishment quite akin to the infamous Burn Book. I have to also inject that there are a lot of references to Mean Girls, including some that are very, very, direct references.
I really enjoyed the premise after the initial backstory is introduced, and I was certainly expecting some sort of fun revenge story. Unfortunately that’s not what I got. The backstory is really just a reason for Chloe to hate Nikhita and be suspicious of her the entire story. It did add a bit to the suspense, but not really the stakes. There were the beginnings of many different storylines that I could have seen explored, but none of the ones I wanted were actually explored. The story actually follows a much more classic story of Chloe going through school as suspicious things happen around her, and getting ostracized from the “secret society,” etc. Think Mean Girls but thriller. All the expected high school teenaged-girl drama appears, but with some dead bodies that pop up. I really expected more active revenge, rather than just suspicion.
Nikhita is just so annoying and over-the-top that she becomes a bit of a caricature of Regina George, and it’s hard to take her seriously as a real character. The other girls around her (basically, the plastics) are also not super interesting. The two new friends outside of the main group that Chloe makes (think Damien and Janice) are the focus of the story. But ultimately we really only follow the POV of Chloe and the decisions that she make as her world crumbles around her and suspicious activity (obviously, murder) happen at her school.
Obviously I have just made a list of things that I didn’t enjoy, but honestly the overall story was an easy read and had a good level of suspense. I did want to find out what happened and what the big denouement would be, though ultimately it was not what I expected. The turnaround from the climax to the finish (end of the book) was also extremely fast, I felt like it was …. <4% of the book if I remembered correctly. That really surprised me as I felt like there could have been a lot of resolution time, but it was more of a typical time skip “haunting” epilogue. I put the quotes there because to me it was pretty obvious that this would be the epilogue, so it did not really add anything for me. But again, this doesn’t make it back, but just for someone like me who has read what feels like hundreds of these, it didn’t quite tickle the itch.
Down the Rabbit Hole 