This book could have been good. It had intriguing elements: murder of a teenage boy, two close cliques of girls, boarding school. But the characters and the storyline were cliche, lackluster, and frankly, this book was kind of boring. 
 I've come to realize that French's books are more about the psychology of the characters than about the mystery, but how is it that I have read 4/5 of her books and have guessed the murderer early on in all of them except one? 
 And also, what was up with (view spoiler)[Jules having sex with Chris to prevent her friend from doing the same? That doesn't even make any sense! And it's not like she'd had any sexual experience before that. What kind of teenage girl does something so stupid? (hide spoiler)]. 
 I still want to read her fourth book, which I am waiting on from the library. Despite the usually disappointing endings to her novels, French is a skilled writer and is usually good at plotting and character psychology. I had hope for this book since I saw it so heavily lauded in Time magazine, but alas, it was not to be. Oh well.