Where Sleeping Girls Lie

Finally! Ever since reading and reviewing Faridah Abike-Iyimide's most excellent debut novel, Ace of Spades, I've been eagerly awaiting her sophomore offering. Where Sleeping Girls Lie is a very worthy successor. It's a truly suspenseful narrative, set in a elite boarding school with equal amounts of tradition and creepiness that is populated by an ensemble cast of fascinating individuals. It also delves into subjects that are all too often swept under the rug by well meaning and not so well meaning adults.
Sade has seen a lot of tragedy in her childhood and teens. Her mother committed suicide when she was only ten. Her very controlling father kept the girls basically house bound and home schooled. Her twin drowned herself. With her father's death she's become an orphan well acquainted with regret, anxiety and depression.
Now Sade is starting her junior year, her first of not being home shooled, in a highly elite boarding school, Alfred Nobel Academy. Her arrival is disturbingly eventful. When her roommate is showing her their dorm they find a dead rat on the mat in front of their room. The next morning Sade wakes up to find out that Elizabeth has gone missing. Eventually the head of the school receives an email from Elizabeth's great-aunt saying that the girl is safely at her house and in need of a break from academics. Case closed.
Or is it? Elizabeth's aunt is dead.
Baz, Elizabeth's best friend, convinced that something bad has happened to Elizabeth and that the school is not making enough of an effort to find her, is taking matters into his own hands. Sade joins him in this mission. It starts off rather innocuously with a trip into town where they show people Elizabeth's picture and ask if they's seen her. But it's not long before they're learning some of ANA's dark secrets and putting themselves in peril.
Then at an off campus party a golden boy athlete is found murdered.
In an open letter the author the author tells readers: "Where Sleeping Girls Lie is about a lot of things. It's about the necessity of community and the importance and joy of platonic relationships. It's about the ghosts that haunt us and that we haunt back. It's about the many valid ways we respond to painful experiences.
More than anything, this book is about survival…"
I'm not entirely comfortable with the book's YA designation. It's not really middle school fare. But it's a really excellent read not only for high school students, but for the undergraduate crowd. I'd also include a trigger warning because it contains descriptions of suicide, homicide, and sexual violence.
On a purrrsonal note, my son, Adam, now has his masters in business administration. I was one proud mom at his graduation!
A great big shout out goes out to the UMaine class of '24 as they celebrate their achievement and embark on the next phase of their lives.
Jules Hathaway