Synopsis:
But as Jill found out three years ago, nothing is as it seems.
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.
Review:
They Wish They Were Us was a random choice for my June to be read and honestly, I really enjoyed it. I made a lot of notes while reading that seem negative, but actually, the way these characters are written so you hate them is actually good. This is a well written mystery, that I did guess the outcome of very early on (that’s all I’ll say on that as I don’t want to spoil anything) but there are a lot of moving parts that get revealed over time.
I’d be lying if I said the fact that this being adapted for TV starring Sydney Sweeney didn’t have any impact on my reading experience. I found this out by accident and it made me go “ugh when will she stop playing teenagers?” It’s actually getting a bit weird now, especially after the baby thing on Euphoria that I don’t even want to explain because it’s disgusting.
Bringing us back to the point of hating the characters that I made in the introduction. I despised Adam pretty much straight away. Here’s a note I made after the very frist time he goes to Jill’s house to tutor her brother: Adam is 100% grooming Jill and you can’t convince me otherwise. Why on earth would an 18 year old want to give a 14 year old alcohol and drugs, and text with them on a daily basis? He made my skin crawl every time he popped up.
I followed this thought up later with: Then when he’s in college, he and his friends play beer pong with her and he ends the night with “See you soon, kid.” Is it just me that finds that weird? One minute he treats her like an adult and the next she’s just a little kid to him. Jill clearly idolises and has a huge crush on him so it all feels very creepy.
That’s enough talking about Adam for this review. He sucks, he’s a creep and he was actually a huge baby. Constantly whining to Jill that people don’t like his screenplays and “she’s the only one that gets him” – that sounds like grooming 101 to me. Gross.
I ended up hating every character in They Wish They Were Us by the end but I mean that in the best way possible. They’re all terrible but in a way that made this a great read. A great instance of this is very early in the book: “It occupies the best real estate by far, nestled smack dab in the middle of the cafeteria, so everyone has to pass us and bear witness to the fun we can have, even at lunch.” These teens think way too much of themselves. The ego on all of the Players is actually insane and this is before the whole thing is revealed. You don’t know what being a Player means at this point.
This “Players” thing is all good and well in high school but what happens when they get to college/uni and no one cares about that or they don’t do well in their classes because they no longer have the answers for every test?
Also, it’s extremely weird that the seniors find interesting freshmen, spend time with them, get them to do borderline or outright illegal activities just so they can prove themselves to continue this weird tradition. There’s a tradition within their ‘initiation’ process where the freshman read and act out “adult movie” scenes. Apparently some of the girls were asked to send nudes in the past and they always seem to make two girls kiss at some point. So not only is the organisation grooming kids, they’re also committing crimes by having inappropriate photos of minors. In what world are 18 year olds forcing 14/15 year olds to do these things not a huge issue? The fact that all of the teachers seem to know what’s going on makes it so much worse.
The development of Jill’s character begins fairly early but it takes her a very long time to see the Players for what they are: evil. Even though she’s reached the top of the food chain she starts to question whether it was all worth it. Especially when her brother is one of the new chosen freshmen. It becomes even more clear to her when she realises even some of her fellow Players aren’t as well off as she assumed. They all have their reasons for taking part but it doesn’t stop them from being as corrupt as those before them.
As I’m reaching the end of this review I’m questioning whether I thought this book was well written or if I liked it because I read it so quickly. If the author’s goal was to make you hate every single character: mission accomplished. If the goal was to write a super complex mystery that you can’t guess: mission failed. Maybe it’s not obvious and I’m just very good at reading people, but either way I enjoyed They Wish They Were Us.
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