Review: All Girls - Emily Layden

Review: All Girls - Emily Layden - February 2021
Even though this book is written in the way that it could come across as a women's fiction novel, the level of language and the characters' personalities comes across as very YA feel. This novel is set at an all-girls boarding school in the year 2015 called Atwater. It is Lauren and her new friends a first year, driving up to the school - they are bombarded with what looks like election signs proclaiming that the school has a teacher who is a rapist.  The novel then follows several of the students' experiences in the school from hazing to initiations to the life of being part of the campus in general. All with the undertones of trying to work out which teacher was accused of rape and the consequences that the student had coming forward in 1995 and the school just sweeping it under the rug as of course this is considered bad publicity for the school. All Girls felt very realistic as you can imagine what schools would have been like back in 1995 which was years before this #MeToo Movement and also boarding schools/ private schools have more often than not a reputation to uphold and don't need this staining their perfect records and image. All Girls by Emily Layden was also a slow-paced read and at times the characters did feel a bit immature but overall was a thought-provoking novel as we think about how far we have come in terms of the #MeToo movement and what it is has meant for the development of rape accusations in today's world as things like this are taken more seriously now and a lot of women are now being listened too, whereas in 1995 - it was mainly he said/she said and without any evidence, it was seen as simple hearsay and if the person was in a position of power, the odds were in their corner to come out on top rather than the victims.