Book Review || Girls With Sharp Sticks by Suzanne Young (I need the sequel now!!)

‘The roses. They’re alive, you know. All of them. And if you listen closely enough, you can hear their shared roots. Their common purpose. They’re beautiful, but it’s not all they are.’

Hi friends, and happy Tuesday!

Thanks to a recommendation from my sister, I picked up a book that is probably one of my favorite reads of the year, and now I’m here to hopefully form some coherent words about it.

I have read the first book in The Program series and really enjoyed Suzanne Young’s writing style, so I knew that Girls With Sharp Sticks would be no different. But, you guys. The plot was wonderfully terrifying, and the characters fascinated me. I knew I was going to like this book, but I had no idea that I was going to fall in love with it.

Also, the sequel isn’t planned to come out until March 2020, and I really don’t have that kind of patience.

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Synopsis: The Girls of Innovations Academy are beautiful and well-behaved—it says so on their report cards. Under the watchful gaze of their Guardians, the all-girl boarding school offers an array of studies and activities, from “Growing a Beautiful and Prosperous Garden” to “Art Appreciation” and “Interior Design.” The girls learn to be the best society has to offer. Absent is the difficult math coursework, or the unnecessary sciences or current events. They are obedient young ladies, free from arrogance or defiance. Until Mena starts to realize that their carefully controlled existence may not be quite as it appears.

As Mena and her friends begin to uncover the dark secrets of what’s actually happening there—and who they really are—the girls of Innovations will find out what they are truly capable of. Because some of the prettiest flowers have the sharpest thorns.

add it to your shelf!

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First things first, Girls With Sharp Sticks is a very dark social commentary on what it means to be a woman and feminine, and it is written within the YA genre. Like it says in the synopsis, Innovations Academy is a school in which girls learn how to be submissive, please others, and overall pleasant. Essentially, Innovations teaches its students that girls are only valuable for their beauty and their ability to please men. There’s no reason for the girls to learn calculus or chemistry because their responsibilities lie elsewhere, such as in being a wife or in being a person that is worthy of being shown off, like a prize.

The girls that attend the school are given personal and specific recommendations on how to wear their hair, how to do their makeup, and what to wear at special events, all according to what the Guardian thinks best suits their physical attributes. All of the professors at the school are men, including the doctor and the analyst, and they all reinstate the idea that these girls are studying to be “better girls” for the society they live in.

Wow, oh wow.

All of that said, there are quite a few trigger warnings that I would associate with this book. Please know that, because the book touches on these topics, my book review may talk around subjects such as violence, sexual assault, rape culture, and overall degrading comments towards women.

‘They’ve trained you not to believe what you’re told by others. You have trained to come to it in your own. I can’t wake you up, Philomena.’

I think it’s fair to say that this book captured my attention immediately, right on page one.

Like a lot of books, you start in the middle of things. But, I noted that by page 14, I already had a million and one questions. Because we’re thrown into such a private world within a private school that doesn’t make much sense, even to our main character, you’re bound to start asking questions. I found myself instantly wanting to know more about the girls, more about the school, and what’s truly going on behind the school’s gates.

Along that line, you learn the rules of Innovations Academy right away because the rules are shown to you. But, these rules just bring on more questions because you’re not shown any reasoning behind them: Why can’t the girls go outside often? Why aren’t they allowed to eat candy? Why are there only 12 students enrolled? Who is the Guardian and what is his role? Why are these girls treated the way they are? Why is stopping at a rest stop perceived as a huge inconvenience? My questions were endless in the best way possible.

Usually, when you’re confused enough about a book to have lists of questions by page 14, it isn’t a great sign. But, because Girls With Sharp Sticks is a suspenseful YA thriller, these questions keep pushing you forward because you want to learn the answers as soon as you can.

I’m starting to see how unusual our lives are here. And the more I recognize it…the more I want to change it.

Coupled with the oodles of questions I came up with, the characterization and narration was nothing short of wonderful and intriguing.

Philomena Rhodes is probably one of the most dynamic and complex characters I’ve read in a YA book this year. Her character was so easy to love, and she made the perfect narrator. Because Mena is enrolled in a school with plenty of secrets, she starts to ask about as many questions as I asked. Then, as she slowly finds answers to these questions, the reader slowly finds them out as well. That also goes to show that even if Mena makes a wrong assumption or theory, you’re bound to believe it because she’s so adamant about it. You’re almost always as confused as Mena is, which really plants the idea that no one actually knows what goes on behind the barred windows at Innovations Academy.

I’ve mentioned it before, but I think it’s really easy for main characters in YA books to fall into the hero complex, creating expectations for themselves that they should be able to save the world at the ripe-old age of 16. Mena does not have a “I need to save the world” moment at any point in this book. She is cautious and tries to see the whole picture before acting, but she also is flawed so she occasionally acts without thinking. She almost always acts based on what her heart tells her, not her brain, making her this ultra realistic and easily relatable girl.

Not only was Mena an interesting character to follow, but I found myself wanting to learn as much as I could about everyone else in the school. But, like Mena and because of school rules, I wasn’t always allowed that closeness. This also aided in making the whole book terrifyingly creepy because I had no idea what was going on either. I feel like a broken record here, talking about how easy it was to fall into Mena’s thoughts and thinking patterns, but I was as intrigued as she was about Valentine, Rebecca, and Lennon because of the strange ways they were acting. It’s all really very unsettling.

Early on in the book, we meet the lovely gas station boy Jackson. Again, I’m instantaneously coming up with new questions regarding Jackson and his motives. I will say though, I would have loved to learn more about Jackson outside of his interest of Innovations, and I’m hoping to see more of him in the second book.

And, really quickly, the blurb of the book talks about how robotically these girls are trained. Ultimately, they’re all educated to be the same type of girl: obedient, polite, and beautiful. But, what I really loved, was that when the professors weren’t looking and the girls were left to share gossip between their rooms, they each became their own person. These moments really allowed you to see their personalities and all of their differences, and I think that these moments are what really sold the book for me. Also, I think it’s important to mention that even though Girls With Sharp Sticks is a social commentary that tears down women and degrades them, the women themselves continuously support one another, and it made my heart feel all warm and fuzzy.

We’re going to change the rules.

Have I talked about Girls With Sharp Sticks enough yet?!

Well, don’t unbuckle your seatbelts yet because we’re not quite done here.

I could probably talk about Suzanne Young’s writing in this book until the cows come home, but all you really need to know is that there is a balanced mix of your more conventional and straight forward writing, but there is also countless uses of symbolism and lyrical writing that made me fall in love with the book even more so. The lyrical writing itself made the plot more mysterious and ominous, and kept me begging for more. And, the casual writing made the torture even more unsettling because something so horrific was so simply stated. The writing itself really helps push the novel forward.

Because Girls With Sharp Sticks is deemed as a suspenseful thriller, it’s no surprise that there were plot twists out the wazoo. Some of these plot twists shocked me to my core, and others I was able to guess easily. There were a few plot twists that I had hoped to be stronger, but they in no shape or form affected my reading enjoyment.

By the time I reached the end, I not only was upset to learn that I had to wait until 2020 for Girls With Razor Hearts, but I felt satisfied with the ending I was given. The whole book was wrapped up really well, and I’m excited to see where Suzanne Young takes these characters next.

Now I’m awake. And they will never put me to sleep again.

I think the best word to describe this book is addicting. I didn’t want to put it down at any given moment, even when I had to. Besides the fact of the harsh realities depicted within how women are expected to behave in society, it was such an easy book to love.

I feel like this review is an absolute mess, and it was truthfully one of the hardest reviews for me to write because I obviously want to avoid all spoilers and plot twists. Plus, I really could probably just scream from the mountaintops about how everyone should read this book.

• you like The Handmaid’s Tale
• you are interested in women’s/equal rights
• you enjoy strong female relationships

Overall: 4 gas station candies out of 5 ★★★★☆.

So, have you read Girls With Sharp Sticks yet? Were you endlessly enraged while reading what these men idealized in women? How did you like Mena as the main character? Are you adding Girls With Sharp Sticks to your TBR?! Let’s chat!