I had not read anything by this author & was excited to read this, based on the description. Not to give any spoilers, but it is not as described. Will be reluctant to read her work in the future. 😳 ( )

The beginning of this book is a 3, but the ending made me want to give it a 4. ( )

Featured in a blog post at https://booksbeyondbinaries.blog/2019/09/02/fall-preview-pet/ ( )

I don’t know what it is with YA and horror, but most the time they are an absolute mess. At least – that’s how I feel about it. The Tenth Girl is no exception to that rule, but I had problems with so much more than the faltering genre fit.

For starters, The Tenth Girl feels like a between-novel as far as target audience goes. It’s a little too ridiculous to appeal to most adult readers, but the language and sexual themes (especially early in the book) are a bit too mature for the average YA reader. I feel like The Tenth Girl was plummeted into the YA zone because the publisher felt it would make the most money there when it would really be better suited for something-in-between – after all, the New Adult genre does exist, but the industry still feels determined to make that exclusively about steamy romances.

The characters are another problem. At best they are flat, at worst they are inconsistent and uninteresting. I was never able to really root for any of the characters in this book, because they were utterly forgettable. And it’s really not about relating or not relating to either Mavi or Angel. It’s utter indifference because they aren’t rounded enough to get invested.

But wait! There’s more!

Faring was all over the place with plot. The Tenth Girl is advertised as a YA ghost story and it … is not. It may start out that way, with ghosts and the such, but it quickly starts to jump all over the place and really ends more in science fiction than paranormal fantasy. It was supposed to be a major twist, but it was so out-of-the-blue that it didn’t make sense. It was less a “surprise” and more… simply confusing. Sometimes a really good plot can make up for flaws in character and writing because it keeps you curious as to what is going to happen next… but this one absolutely did not.

Finally, I want to talk about Faring’s writing a bit. When I was researching this author, I found a scattering of reviews talking about racist themes and language in The Tenth Girl. Holy smokes this should be discussed more. Faring comes from Argentinian heritage and as such had an opportunity to share her culture, but instead she’s created a “fantasy” indigenous group that is one letter away from being the real thing. The entire first half of the book and the ghost story portion revolves around a bloody sacrificial ritual which is such a horrifying representation of an indigenous people! It’s mentioned in detail for the first time a few chapters in – so early in the story – and is cringy then… but then Faring repeats the story multiple times as we keep going through The Tenth Girl. This book could have strongly used a sensitivity reader because the premise of the entire first half of the book is based around some very problematic material.

Even beyond problematic themes, her writing isn’t good. It’s so metaphor heavy and a lot of the behaviors and threads don’t make sense. Faring works for Penguin Random House and while I truly hope she didn’t get this published exclusively through having all those connections… I’m struggling to see how such a mediocre book in every sense not only was picked up, but advertised so well. I’m trying to be directly mean to Faring (I actually had the opportunity to meet her at BookCon 2019 and she was absolutely lovely) but this book… it’s not good.

If this book is on your TBR… honestly… you can skip it. There’s nothing particularly redeeming about The Tenth Girl. Those who have been with me for a while know that I try to twist books I don’t like as good for another audience, but The Tenth Girl is utterly mediocre in every way and insulting in others and… I’m struggling to think of an audience for it. If you loved this book, I am so happy for you! But for me… yikes. ( )

2.5 YA I could see some Gen Z teen loving this, but it was a little too much of a stretch for me. It gets an A for setting in creating a gothic creepy vibe: an all girls school in some old mansion at the literal edge of the world: the southern tip of Argentina on a mountain in the ice flows, complete with unreadable housekeeper Morency. The aristocratic De Vaccaro family built it over a century ago on sacred indigenous land belonging to the Zapuche whom they displaced. Hence the haunting. Over time, all the De Vaccaros died on site or fled, and now the school is being resurrected by the sole surviving descendant, Carmela. But she seems to have an ulterior motive: communing with her dead daughter via the "Others." Meanwhile her living son, Domenico is an evil degenerate who terrorizes the students (9 of them) and the staff. Present day is 1978 and the story is told by Mavi, an 18-yr newly hired teacher, fleeing her own "haunted" past in Buenos Aires where her professor mother has disappeared under the fascist regime in power. Alternating chapters are narrated by Angel, a spirit with a ravaged past possessing Dom, and making him much "nicer" and more palatable and definitely attractive to Mavi. This is where I started to lose the thread and the interest. The nine students and some of the teachers begin to mysteriously behave and/or fall ill. Meanwhile, Mavi is also visited by a particular spirit (the 10th girl) who may have been sacrificed by the Zapuche in a long ago past, or may be Carmela's dead daughter, or may be just an evil spirit sent to warn her to get out (which she can't really do, because there is only 1 sporadic supply boat that comes and goes and they are heading into ice-locked summer. Again, great tension building and some gems of narrative observation: "If you can survive living in a haunted house, you can come to know all the oddest little nooks in yourself." (48) "Souls aren't like steam, I realize. They're like viruses, spreading to the surrounding organisms, infecting them with the unfulfilled dreams and inescapable worries." (60) "Some people just don't get what this life is all about. We all go through our own personal hells at one point or another; we all lose shit we thought we couldn't live without, but there's still so much beauty and love and wonder to be found around every corner. How much pain do you have to be in to forget that and give in to the dark?" (244) "Ghost stories help us reconcile ourselves with the unfathomable and the unknown...what if the beauty of our relationships on this earth is in their transience?" But the ending morphs into this meta explanation of the haunting that I couldn't even follow 100% and ultimately seems like a cop-out - again, something someone younger might appreciate more than I could. ( )