Welcome to Litsy!

A brooding and foreboding debut novel. With palpable tension between its characters, Madam builds suspense and intrigue with every turn of the page. I found it deeply enthralling and look forward to reading more from Phoebe Wynne.

#Middlegrademonday @karisimo
This book doesn't get as much attention as it should. Perfect for slightly advanced middle grade readers. Here's my review!
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3999055035

An intriguing book.

4.25/5

Read for:

#PopSugarReadingChallenge2022

4th book read during #SuperSeptember Readathon @Andrew65 An unpopular opinion. This dark academia book is hated by most reader but I really enjoyed it. This is a boarding school for elite girls. Maybe is unreal, unbelievable and even absurd the dynamic in this school but I love the integration of Classical Greek mythology to create introspection and make changes in these girls. I read it as almost a dystopian world. 4⭐️It has low rating in GR 3⭐️

Entertaining read with some good elements and strong characters. Enjoyed the little viginettes of women in Greek mythology, and the students discussions afterwards.

I had high hopes for this book. I think the story itself is good, but I just didn‘t like how it was written.

How fitting that Rose, who ignored her mother‘s feminism, ended up at such a terrible, misogynist place, where that same feminism was needed.

I wasn‘t sure what I was getting into with this book. It is a version of a type of book about an elite boarding school. It is suspenseful & horrifying & I loved how the author used Classical Mythology to illuminate the narrative.

This book starts off so well: Rose is hired to teach at an exclusive girls‘ boarding school that basically never has job openings, but when she arrives, there seems to be something sinister going on. It builds tension really well, but when it‘s revealed what‘s happening, I wasn‘t remotely convinced and just found it ludicrous. I was hoping it would redeem itself, but that ending? No way. I say skip this one.

Oh myyyyy. Rose is a young teacher recruited to work at a distinguished private boarding school. She accepts the job, but for no reason at all before she even arrives her intuition is telling her something is not right. Always keep in mind the adages, if it looks too good to be true it probably is AND absolute power corrupts absolutely. Be prepared, in the last quarter of the book your jaw will be dropping open often. Wow!

This was just okay. I hyped it up to be better in my mind so was a bit disappointed

Summer Reading 📖🍎

The best thing about this book for me was the unease. The author did a great job of making me uneasy from ten pages in. I was expecting something supernatural, but still thought it was a captivating read. Powered through it in a day. I noticed it got a lot of varying reviews, which I‘m definitely interested in reading now that I‘ve read the book. Solid author debut in my opinion.

Wow! This was a brilliant book! It is sinister, gothic, tense and gripping. Set in Scotland, Caldonbrae Hall is a boarding school for girls. Rose starts working there and is full of enthusiasm. She will teach classics. She attempts to introduce her modernist beliefs but realises the school is very traditional. There is lots of strange goings on and Rose starts to wonder what has she let herself in for working here.

Gothic mystery. Scotland. Antiestablishment. I wanted to love this novel more, but I found myself skipping to the end to see what would happen. Typically, this is my favorite genre and anything Scotland is always going to head to the top of my TBR pile. Unfortunately, this just missed the mark for me. I was annoyed by the main character and I found the conflict to be a bit unrealistic. I hate to trash a novel, but I can only give this 3/5 ⭐️

7-15-21: My 75th finished book of 2021! 1990s Scotland. Caldonbrae Hall is a boarding school for girls. Rose Christie is a newly hired teacher. She quickly discovers that behind the school‘s elitist veneer lies a starkly traditional culture that she struggles to reconcile with her feminist beliefs. This one was a slow build but lots of surprises!! ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 👍🏼📖#️⃣7️⃣5️⃣

Girls boarding school in Scotland for the elite of Britain. Preparing young women for their ultimate job, serving their husbands (🤬😡🤬). Upsetting. A pretty good first novel for Phoebe Wynne.

I think my expectations were too high for this book… it wasn‘t bad, but it wasn‘t as great as it could have been. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Full review on my blog: http://sprainedbrain.blog/2021/06/19/audiobook-review-madam-by-phoebe-wynne/

⭐️⭐️⭐️

I love a boarding school book with a Gothic vibe; however, I felt like some of the story was missing. I would have liked to read more about the students backgrounds and sometimes the book the jumped around by days and I was lost in the narrative. I did read an advanced copy, so I hope that it gets cleaned up before publication.

A moody cover book to start and a moody and perfect night to settle into it - thunderstorms are starting!

Ok, diving into this one..I love a good boarding school book🖤🖤

Part gothic mystery, part feminist dystopian horror, definitely has some plot holes, but it‘s unputdownable! Rose, a young Classics teacher, gets mysteriously recruited to join the staff of an all-girls boarding school, located on a windswept peninsula in Scotland. The remote location and unwelcoming girls (and teachers), help create an eerie atmosphere as a creeping sense of dread grows. It goes a little off the rails, but it‘s a fun page-turner!

Although this one was slow building for me, I loved the setting and the gothic atmosphere so much that I didn't mind the slow pace in the beginning.

This school has a dark secret and one teacher is determined to find out what is really going on. However, as she starts asking too many questions she begins to feel like she might be in danger.

I enjoyed this one; I didn't love it, but it's a well-done mystery/thriller.

#NetGalley

Caldonbrae Hall, or “Hope” to insiders, is a prestigious English boarding school on the craggy shores of Scotland. Rose Christie can‘t believe her good fortune when she is hired to teach the Classics at the elite school. But Rose soon realizes that something sinister is going on inside these ancient halls. This book is DISTURBING, with an increasing sense of dread and horror as you read further along.👇🏼

I‘ve started a new #AudioARC #NetGalley This might be your jam @KarenUK Creepy AF English boarding school for girls, dark academia, gothic vibes, sinister shit is definitely going on...

Mixed feelings here. Gothic feel but set in 1990s Scottish Highlands at a prestigious 150 yo girls boarding school. Rose, the new Classics teacher begins to discover a nightmarish sinister curriculum underneath the illusion. While billed as a feminist tale, I was disappointed in the naivety of Rose and her meekness through much of the book. It was also mentally exhaustingly long dealing with the appalling subject matter of how these girls were⬇️

My Rating: 3⭐⭐⭐

Ok so I did enjoy this book, but would it be a book that I‘d pick up and reread? No its not. The story is based in Scotland during the 1990‘s. Where there are no mobile phones and the only way of communication is via letters or a landline/pay phone. Except this school for girls is run as though they are living in the 1800‘s. Where women had no say or choice in how their lives would work out.

Rose is a young teacher, the first outside hire for a prestigious boarding school for girls, Caldonbrae Hall. But on arrival she finds that things are being kept from her. The girls have lessons that teachers are not privy to, and talk about discipline and value. Her predecessor left under secretive circumstances and Rose is unable to discover why. And when the purpose of Caldonbrae is realised, everything she believes in is threatened.