For as objectively not-good as this book is, I flew through it. 400 pages in two days is a lot, even for me.

Maybe because this is one of the most hamfisted things I've ever read in my life.

I can't even fully explain WHY this book is so obvious without spoilers, but I'll say this: Read the description. Look at the cover. Insert overt objectification and hatred of women that even I would have to say is a little much to be believable (not something I think I've ever said, but they way), and blind, seething, immediate rage against it. You now know the entirety of this 400 page book, congratulations. I just saved you ~$18.

Here's to the book with one of the worst attempts at feminism I have ever seen first place, of course, still belongs to the garbage that is From Blood and Ash


Welcome to my very chaotic review! Good luck making sense of it!



Can you tell I'm salty?? and I will probably be like this for the rest of the review
I've seen so much hype around this book, literally everyone loves it and says it's such a great book that deals with feminism, and I'm just sitting here not seeing this at all.


The Girls of Innovations Academy are beautiful and well-behaved, and under the guidences of their teachers all male might I add, they are bound to turn into perfect housewives. The all-girls boarding school offers courses like “Growing a Beautiful and Prosperous Garden”, “Art Appreciation” and “Interior Design”. They are obedient young ladies, free from arrogance or defiance. Until Mena realises that their so beautiful existence is not as quite as it seems. And of course she and her friends stat to uncover the secrets of the academy and about themselves.


I don't know why I thought I would like this book. I should have figured out from the sypnopsis that I would not think this book to be good. But the hype got to me.



The premise actually sounded cool in a way, but also pretty basic for this kind of a book. Either way my expectations were higher. Did the idea seem original? Not really. Did I still hope for something great? Yes, as I've been unluckily lately with my book picks.


I don't even know what the plot was supposed to be. Everything was all over the place and the moment you think you get a hang on what the plot is supposed to be, the author throws in another shit that makes no sense. After a while, the book also became pretty repetitive and I was not a fan of that. The book could have been way shorter if the author just got to the point.


I couldn't care less about the characters. I don't even remember their names. For me to care about a book, I need to see well rounded characters with more than one character trait. They left no impression on me aside from the fact that they are all idiots. How could you not see those red flags?? They made have been raised like they were from the 1800s, but still they lived in the 2000s, there must have been something there to open their eyes to everything sooner.


The first red flag should have been that the teachers are all men and the women work in the kitchen

Innovations Academy is an elite, girls-only boarding school. Run almost entirely by men, the school teaches young girls how to be polite, courteous, good homemakers, all with the goal of pleasing the men in their lives. Students never leave campus except for occasional field trips, they have little contact with the outside world (phones and computers are banned), and the school has strict expectations for them in terms of beauty and obedience. But when Mena meets a boy from the outside, she starts to realize that things are far from normal. And as more of the girls begin to wake up, the sisterhood and their desire for justice grows stronger.

I have mixed feelings about this book. If I was just judging it by the last 2/3, my rating would be higher. I knew coming in that this was a feminist dystopian a la Handmaid's Tale. But it takes SO long to finally get to the point where the girls start waking up, the plot twists come in, and things start to shift. I found myself getting angry and frustrated at how blind they were to the injustice of their situation. I think if the waking up had happened earlier, this would be a much stronger book. That being said, once the girls start to grasp that their lives are not "normal", it gets interesting much faster, and becomes a thrilling story of a sisterhood banding together and refusing the let the men in their lives continue to abuse them. And then the plot twists start coming in, which could lead to some great discussions of ethics. It just takes too long to get there.

A few content warnings: there's a ton of blatant misogyny, fat-shaming, physical abuse, sexual harassment. Fear of rape is there although it's never specifically named. Some strong language from specific characters. And a discussion about a magazine article on blow-jobs that gets referred back to a lot.