After 15-year-old Zahabiya's father remarries, she can't wait to leave home and convinces him to send her away to boarding school. But will she fit in? She joins a clique of smart students but isn't sure if she measures up or how to read the mixed messages from a guy she's crushing on.
Seventeen-year-old Leesa has been at Thornton since middle school after her parents' messy divorce. She's been climbing the school's social ladder with equal measures of meanness and manipulation. She's also guarding a big secret that she has to work overtime to keep from her friends.
Fresh out of university, this is Nahla's first real teaching job, and she's drowning. She has her distractions though: the flirty art teacher and a cryptic notebook left behind by her deceased predecessor, Mademoiselle Leblanc.
Zahabiya and her friends - all racialized girls and victims of Leesa's bullying - uncover Leesa's secret. But can they help Leesa? Nahla, too, is embroiled in her own mystery, assisted by Mademoiselle Leblanc's ghost. Each is indelibly changed by what they learn.
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'Flushing!' I turned over and away from the sunshine that pierced through the drapes. (FALL TERM, SEPTEMBER 1984)
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(@ecwpress, 17 September 2024, e-galley, 304 pages, ARC from the publisher via @NetGalley)
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This is a new author for me. I really enjoyed The Beauty of Us. I liked the fact the book is set at an elite boarding school which made it a little different than the books I usually read. The author does a great job bringing this setting to vivid life. The book focuses on the lives of three women; Leesa and Zahabiya who are students and one of the teachers, Nahla. I found this a gripping read about coming of age, culture and identity. I'd recommend this.
