New Girl by Paige Harbison

Being the new girl during your senior year is bad enough, but taking over the boarding school spot of the most popular, lusted-after, gorgeous, beloved girl at your new school—mere months after she goes missing—is pretty much a living nightmare. No one cares who you are, they only care who you’re not. To them, you’re perpetually the new girl, and they will never let you forget whose shoes you can never fill. Paige Harbison takes the beloved gothic romance Rebecca and gives it a fresh and suspenseful twenty-first century update in New Girl. Our main character remains nameless throughout much of the novel (as does the heroine in Rebecca); no one is interested in saying her name, she's just the new girl. From the moment she arrives at Manderley Academy, she receives a frosty reception—the frostiest of all from her mentally unhinged roommate Dana, who is still hung up on her best friend’s disappearance. Our new girl finds herself compared relentlessly to perfect Becca, particularly when Max, Becca’s ex-boyfriend, begins to pay her attention. It is torture to get through school days and parties filled with whispers, gossip, nasty practical jokes, and knock-down-drag-out screaming matches with her roommate. At boarding school, you can’t escape, even when the school day is over. Harbison succeeds marvelously in retaining nearly everything I love about Rebecca—the psychological torture of having your personality subsumed by some perfect, ghostly ideal person, the tortured romances, the mercurial love interest, and the perfectly-paced mystery—and improves upon elements of the original that grate to this contemporary girl’s ears—such as the second Mrs. DeWinter’s deer-in-headlights, simpering “I TOTALLY get it Mrs. Danvers, I’m NOT good enough” attitude, and the too-tidy and too-creepy ending (not the Rebecca movie ending, peeps, the book). Harbison’s new girl sticks up for herself again and again, frequently calling her classmates out on their baseless cruelty, and showing her spine when Max runs hot and cold with her. The secrets and lies surrounding Becca and her increasingly reckless actions prior to her disappearance unravel perfectly to an ending that is both unexpected and satisfying. New Girl is a quick, sexy thriller that promises to horrify you for all the right reasons, and leaves you with an atmospheric aftertaste, like you woke up from a bad dream that somehow seemed to last all school year.

Comments

[Gina]

This book sounds awesome! I love Rebecca, but I do think the ending is a bit sexist and crazy for me. Sounds like this one may be an improvement!