Came into this blind and mixed on this one:

The good: propulsive, reads quickly. I wanted to keep turning pages to see how it all played out! Dark academia ft. tarot reading was a catnip combo.

The not-so good: insufferable characters, that I could neither root for nor even relate to; requires suspended disbelief at points; plot relies very heavily on equestrianism.

The spoiler-free setup:

Four girlfriend/roomies on their Yale equestrian team take on a fifth their sophomore year of college. Things are good in the friend group until they aren't. Relationship fractures appear. Someone dies somewhat mysteriously, though Yale and the girls' lives go on as if nothing happened.

Main character - Rosie - is upper middle class, but is alternatively resentful and ashamed that compared to her Yale classmates, she's a 'poor' with financially struggling (vet) parents. She's a social striver, so entranced by the trappings of wealth and privilege, that her goal was to become uber-wealthy by proxy and proximity. She's so hungry for table scraps from her wealthy roommates that she doesn't realize she's seen as invisible and dismissible to those she's trying so hard to impress. She's willing to sellout anything - including herself - for money.

Although it's definitely YAish, this book kept my attention. If you like PLL, or Yellow Jackets or similar, you'll probably like this, too. Coincidentally, after finishing this I blind picked up In My Dreams, I Hold A Knife, which is thematically very similar. ( )

Very atmospheric novel mixing dark academia with ruthless ambition. ( )