THE PLOT: ‘Where Sleeping Girls Lie’ by Faridah Abike Iyimide is a dark academia young adult mystery novel. When Sade arrives at Alfred Noble Academy after years of home-schooling, she quickly makes friends with her roommate Elizabeth. But then Elizabeth goes missing and Sade is suspect number one, especially when another student is found dead. Following a trail of cryptic clues, Sade sets out to find out what really happened to Elizabeth. But as she uncovers dark secrets about her new school, she realises all is not what it seems.

SUMMARY:  This novel has a great premise which will hit the spot with many fans of YA mystery novels. The cast is diverse, the overall message about sexual assault in schools is very moving, and there is a slow burn sapphic romance fluttering in the background. However, this one missed the mark for me as the mystery didn’t have the oomph I wanted. Despite a promising start, the main character was a terrible detective and there were so many obvious hints so I didn’t get a satisfying reveal/twist at the end. The novel seemed to veer away from the central premise (solving the disappearance) and several elements (e.g., sleepwalking, morse code, the main characters’ wealth) weren’t capitalised on for dramatic effect. Finally, I feel the book had no business being 550 pages and could’ve been truncated on both an overall plot and on a sentence level. Therefore, it’s three stars for a great idea with lacklustre execution.

GOOD BITS: I loved the opening sentence of chapter one: “Sade Hussein was used to being lied to”. The writing on the first page felt very sharp and engaging, making me extremely curious about the characters past and what would happen next. I also liked the racial diversity throughout the book, as the Black and brown characters weren’t just the “losers” or scholarship students, but also the more wealthy and popular kids too. The opening image of Sade as a beautiful, wealthy Black girl wearing Chanel was so strong, and I was a bit surprised how her wealth and resources didn’t play into the plot more (e.g. utilising them to solve the mystery).

NOT SO GOOD BITS: This book reads like the author became confused with the plot. Best illustrated by the two prologues (one past and one future), the balance of back-story and story-forward plot was off-kilter. IMO, there needed to be more focus on what was happening on the page, rather than withholding backstory from the reader, which would have made the whole story sharper and shorter. In particular, there were no personal stakes for Sade to investigate what happened to Elizabeth. She’d only known Elizabeth for 24 hours and was integrating into school nicely. She could’ve walked away from being an amateur detective at any point before the murder. Yes, there’s a semi-good reveal to give her additional motivation but with such a long book, the reader needs a reason to root for the main character to solve the mystery at the start, not 300 pages in.

OVERALL: I’d recommend this book to fans of ‘A Good Girls Guide to Murder’ by Holly Jackson, ‘Their Vicious Games’ by Joelle Wellington and ‘Everyone’s Thinking It’ by Aleema Omotomi.

Thank you to Usborne for my #gifted copy in exchange for an honest review. This book publishes on 14th March 2024 and is available to order via my bookshop.org account.