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The Schoolhouse
Isobel lives an isolated life in North London, working at a nearby library and feeling safe if she keeps to her routines and doesn't let her thoughts stray too far into the past. But a newspaper photograph of a missing local schoolgirl and a letter from her old teacher are all it takes for her ordinary, careful armour to become overwhelmed and the trauma of what happened when she was a pupil at The Schoolhouse to return.
The Schoolhouse was different - one of the 1970s experimental schools that were a reaction to the formal methods of the past. The usual rules did not apply, and life there was a dark interplay of freedom and adventure, violence and fear. It was there Isobel learned that some truths are safest kept hidden. Only her teenage diary recorded what happened. But the truth is coming for her and everything she has tried to protect is put at risk.
Set between the past and the present, The Schoolhouse is a masterful and gripping novel about the gulf between the truths we contain and the truths we reveal; about how silence keeps us safe and holds us hostage; about institutional abuse of power; and how the lessons we learn as children informs the adults we become.
The Schoolhouse was different - one of the 1970s experimental schools that were a reaction to the formal methods of the past. The usual rules did not apply, and life there was a dark interplay of freedom and adventure, violence and fear. It was there Isobel learned that some truths are safest kept hidden. Only her teenage diary recorded what happened. But the truth is coming for her and everything she has tried to protect is put at risk.
Set between the past and the present, The Schoolhouse is a masterful and gripping novel about the gulf between the truths we contain and the truths we reveal; about how silence keeps us safe and holds us hostage; about institutional abuse of power; and how the lessons we learn as children informs the adults we become.
289 pages, Paperback
First published May 5, 2022
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6485 people want to read
About the author
Sophie Ward
4 books163 followersSophie Ward is the winner of the 2018 RA and Pin Drop short story award with her story 'Sunbed'. Her first book, A Marriage Proposal, was published by the Guardian in 2014. Her debut novel, Love and Other Thought Experiments, was published in February 2020 by Corsair and was longlisted for the Booker Prize in July 2020.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 162 reviews
April 12, 2022
On an objective, intellectual level this just shouldn't have worked for me: two stories are mashed up together with only the most tenuous of links between them; the narrative splits into various different strands following Isobel 'now' as a lurid past comes back to haunt her; Isobel 'then' as a teenager whose diary we're reading; and a female police officer investigating a missing teenager 'now' whose story is rather laboriously and coincidentally crammed into that of Isobel. And yet...
And yet, despite all the qualms in my head, on an emotional level this book really managed to squirm under my skin, something I can only attribute to the powerful writing of Ward. I can easily tick off on my fingers all the elements that just shouldn't work: too much plot, too many stories, too many horses, too much sensational violence - but on a visceral level this got to me!
Many thanks to Little, Brown/Corsair for an ARC via NetGalley.
And yet, despite all the qualms in my head, on an emotional level this book really managed to squirm under my skin, something I can only attribute to the powerful writing of Ward. I can easily tick off on my fingers all the elements that just shouldn't work: too much plot, too many stories, too many horses, too much sensational violence - but on a visceral level this got to me!
Many thanks to Little, Brown/Corsair for an ARC via NetGalley.
September 29, 2023
Shortlisted for the 2023 Polari Prize
Sophie Ward’s debut novel was the outstanding “Love and Other Thought Experiments” – longlisted (but disappointingly not shortlisted) for the 2020 Booker Prize – it was an original, entertaining and rather unique blend of novelisation of philosophical thought experiment, science fiction and a family tale about love and grief over the loss of others. The publisher compared it - for its synthesis of fiction and philosophy - to the young adult bestseller “Sophie’s World”.
This her second novel is a rather more conventional blend of a revenge thriller, a police procedural and a young adult diary set in an experimental school in the 1970s, (both of which involve missing girls) with an overarching theme of guilt and grief over one’s own actions. I might compare it to Sophie Mackenzie’s YA novel “Girl, Missing”.
The book has three main elements to it – two set in 1990 and one in 1975.
In 1990 a deaf girl Isobel, working in a University library spots two 9-10 year old girls (whose presence there is incongruous) having a whispered conversation. But her whole attention is focused on a letter she receives from an old school teacher which brings the horrors of her past back into present day focus as she finds that a man has been released from jail.
Also in 1990, a Detective Sergeant Sally Carter – is called in to investigate the disappearance of a 10 year old girl from a primary school. Suspicion is immediately focused on the parents and on local registered paedophiles - but Carter also thinks the headmaster may be hiding something he knows or suspects.
In 1975 we read the diary Isobel wrote when she started at a new school at 11 – an experimental school (similar it seems to one the author attended) with a mix of pupils – some handicapped, and some like Isobel with parents who want their children to have a freer and less conventional education.
The stories initially link when Isobel comes forwards a potential witness – albeit no one else in the library appears to have seen the children (one of whom she claims looks like the missing girl) and who she saw the day after that girl went missing.
The storylines further link when Isobel herself and those close to her are subject to violence – seemingly related to the man released from jail and to the mystery of what happened 15 years ago and lead to Isobel’s deafness and also her guilt about the part she played in not preventing a tragedy. There is also a rather gratuitous additional coincidental link which emerges over time with a link to what Isobel was involved in, in 1975, and Carter’s first ever missing child case as well as with hints of Carter’s own troubled childhood which means both the 1975 and 1990 cases resonate with her.
Isobel’s 1990 storyline seemed to introduce rather gratuitous amounts of drama and violence in what seemed an attempt to graft a thriller onto a police procedural. That police procedural interested me as much as any other book from that genre – i.e not really at all – and was additionally hampered by some rather odd breakthroughs by the detective and further some key elements of the eventual resolution of the disappearance seemed to me to make no sense. And I found the diary sections particularly uninteresting – they read like a 11 year old’s diary but I do not really want to read a 11 year old’s level of literary ability. And the early letter rather removed for me much (in fact pretty well all) of the tension as to what happens – I simply found myself flicking through the entries looking for when the various people mentioned in the letter appeared.
I feel like the review has been very negative. I do congratulate the author on writing something very different – too many authors, literary fiction authors as much as genre authors, largely write and rewrite the same book (see for example the latest novels of Douglas Stuart, Jennifer Egan, Ali Smith, Moshin Hamid – four of my very favourite authors).
But my disappointment is entirely driven at my love of “Love and “ – and my own thought experiment which had imagined that her second novel – even if very different – would share the freshness of the first, whereas this feels like a pretty standard genre novel.
I recall that Sophie Kinsella blurbed “Love and Other Thoughts Experiments” and tweeted her the author to congratulate her on her longlisting, so in what seems to be a clear tradition of “sophie-stry” in her writing - I think we can expect a book about shopping (which also explores love and grief) from Sophie Ward next.
My thanks to Little, Brown Book Group UK for an ARC via NetGalley
Sophie Ward’s debut novel was the outstanding “Love and Other Thought Experiments” – longlisted (but disappointingly not shortlisted) for the 2020 Booker Prize – it was an original, entertaining and rather unique blend of novelisation of philosophical thought experiment, science fiction and a family tale about love and grief over the loss of others. The publisher compared it - for its synthesis of fiction and philosophy - to the young adult bestseller “Sophie’s World”.
This her second novel is a rather more conventional blend of a revenge thriller, a police procedural and a young adult diary set in an experimental school in the 1970s, (both of which involve missing girls) with an overarching theme of guilt and grief over one’s own actions. I might compare it to Sophie Mackenzie’s YA novel “Girl, Missing”.
The book has three main elements to it – two set in 1990 and one in 1975.
In 1990 a deaf girl Isobel, working in a University library spots two 9-10 year old girls (whose presence there is incongruous) having a whispered conversation. But her whole attention is focused on a letter she receives from an old school teacher which brings the horrors of her past back into present day focus as she finds that a man has been released from jail.
Also in 1990, a Detective Sergeant Sally Carter – is called in to investigate the disappearance of a 10 year old girl from a primary school. Suspicion is immediately focused on the parents and on local registered paedophiles - but Carter also thinks the headmaster may be hiding something he knows or suspects.
In 1975 we read the diary Isobel wrote when she started at a new school at 11 – an experimental school (similar it seems to one the author attended) with a mix of pupils – some handicapped, and some like Isobel with parents who want their children to have a freer and less conventional education.
The stories initially link when Isobel comes forwards a potential witness – albeit no one else in the library appears to have seen the children (one of whom she claims looks like the missing girl) and who she saw the day after that girl went missing.
The storylines further link when Isobel herself and those close to her are subject to violence – seemingly related to the man released from jail and to the mystery of what happened 15 years ago and lead to Isobel’s deafness and also her guilt about the part she played in not preventing a tragedy. There is also a rather gratuitous additional coincidental link which emerges over time with a link to what Isobel was involved in, in 1975, and Carter’s first ever missing child case as well as with hints of Carter’s own troubled childhood which means both the 1975 and 1990 cases resonate with her.
Isobel’s 1990 storyline seemed to introduce rather gratuitous amounts of drama and violence in what seemed an attempt to graft a thriller onto a police procedural. That police procedural interested me as much as any other book from that genre – i.e not really at all – and was additionally hampered by some rather odd breakthroughs by the detective and further some key elements of the eventual resolution of the disappearance seemed to me to make no sense. And I found the diary sections particularly uninteresting – they read like a 11 year old’s diary but I do not really want to read a 11 year old’s level of literary ability. And the early letter rather removed for me much (in fact pretty well all) of the tension as to what happens – I simply found myself flicking through the entries looking for when the various people mentioned in the letter appeared.
I feel like the review has been very negative. I do congratulate the author on writing something very different – too many authors, literary fiction authors as much as genre authors, largely write and rewrite the same book (see for example the latest novels of Douglas Stuart, Jennifer Egan, Ali Smith, Moshin Hamid – four of my very favourite authors).
But my disappointment is entirely driven at my love of “Love and “ – and my own thought experiment which had imagined that her second novel – even if very different – would share the freshness of the first, whereas this feels like a pretty standard genre novel.
I recall that Sophie Kinsella blurbed “Love and Other Thoughts Experiments” and tweeted her the author to congratulate her on her longlisting, so in what seems to be a clear tradition of “sophie-stry” in her writing - I think we can expect a book about shopping (which also explores love and grief) from Sophie Ward next.
My thanks to Little, Brown Book Group UK for an ARC via NetGalley
April 19, 2022
Sophie Ward's debut novel was a fascinating inclusion on the 2020 Booker longlist, a book rather more innovative than is usual for that prize, which is I suspect why it didn't make the shortlist, and ideally suited for the Goldsmiths Prize, for which it was unfortunately ineligible (my review).
So I was eager to read her new novel.
Unfortunately The Schoolhouse should really come with a "if you loved Love and Other Experiments ... then don't read this one" blurb. It is designed for a completely different audience, a very-standard, YA-style, contrived police procedural. One I would say for fans of Holly Jackson or Karen M. McManus books.
The story, set mainly in 1990, has a young girl missing, the only sighting of her since she left school by a university librarian, Isobel, who noticed the girl and a companion because of the anomaly of seeing children in her institution. But none of her colleagues saw the girls, and they disappeared suddenly.
Isobel was herself involved in a missing-girl situation 15 years earlier, based around The Schoolhouse (a sort of free-school, largely aimed at troubled or handicapped children, but to which Isobel was sent by liberal parents). The incident 15 years earlier ended with the missing girl being found, but dying 6 months later, and Isobel's own loss-of-hearing following a brain injury, but Isobel is still haunted by what happened feeling she was in some way the guilty party. And now, in 1990 and at the same time, it seems the perpetrator of that crime is out of prison and seeking revenge for those who put him behind bars.
And the detective in charge of the crime in 1990, has a troubled past and present-day secrets of her own, and was also involved in the 1975 case.
Leabrook police station was a forty-minute walk from Palmerston Housing Estate. Detective Sergeant Sally Carter had noted it that morning while she waited for Susan Thompson. It took less than ten minutes to drive, avoiding the High Street and the one-way system, but no one in the Thompson residence had a car.
Although the story is told in rather clunky prose, the reader persists to discover how this is all connected. Spoiler alert - it isn't. Indeed the real mystery at the heart of this novel is a metafictional one - has the author of Love and Experiments been replaced by an impostor?
I'm tempted to award 1 star, but rounded up to 2.
Thanks to the publisher via Netgalley for the ARC.
So I was eager to read her new novel.
Unfortunately The Schoolhouse should really come with a "if you loved Love and Other Experiments ... then don't read this one" blurb. It is designed for a completely different audience, a very-standard, YA-style, contrived police procedural. One I would say for fans of Holly Jackson or Karen M. McManus books.
The story, set mainly in 1990, has a young girl missing, the only sighting of her since she left school by a university librarian, Isobel, who noticed the girl and a companion because of the anomaly of seeing children in her institution. But none of her colleagues saw the girls, and they disappeared suddenly.
Isobel was herself involved in a missing-girl situation 15 years earlier, based around The Schoolhouse (a sort of free-school, largely aimed at troubled or handicapped children, but to which Isobel was sent by liberal parents). The incident 15 years earlier ended with the missing girl being found, but dying 6 months later, and Isobel's own loss-of-hearing following a brain injury, but Isobel is still haunted by what happened feeling she was in some way the guilty party. And now, in 1990 and at the same time, it seems the perpetrator of that crime is out of prison and seeking revenge for those who put him behind bars.
And the detective in charge of the crime in 1990, has a troubled past and present-day secrets of her own, and was also involved in the 1975 case.
Leabrook police station was a forty-minute walk from Palmerston Housing Estate. Detective Sergeant Sally Carter had noted it that morning while she waited for Susan Thompson. It took less than ten minutes to drive, avoiding the High Street and the one-way system, but no one in the Thompson residence had a car.
Although the story is told in rather clunky prose, the reader persists to discover how this is all connected. Spoiler alert - it isn't. Indeed the real mystery at the heart of this novel is a metafictional one - has the author of Love and Experiments been replaced by an impostor?
I'm tempted to award 1 star, but rounded up to 2.
Thanks to the publisher via Netgalley for the ARC.
June 24, 2022
(2.5) This was a capable police thriller, and the special school and the protagonist's deafness were somewhat interesting elements, but I'd expected much more originality from Ward based on her previous book (Love and Other Thought Experiments). Instead, this is pretty standard, and sordid. The 1990s setting, and the way that a girl's disappearance brings back traumatic memories for a female detective, reminded me of the superior When the Stars Go Dark.
July 13, 2022
I picked this up because I loved Sophie Ward's debut novel 'Love and other thought experiments'. This was very different. It felt a bit like an old-fashioned but not necessarily bad British TV police series, something like Inspector Morse. The mystery kept me interested and I read it very quickly, but it completely lacks that special literary quality of 'Love and other....' You hear stories sometimes of literary authors that put out a straightforward thriller in order to pay the bills - perhaps that is what she is doing here? Anyway, I hope her next one will be a return to the style of her debut.
April 19, 2022
Sophie's debut, Love and Other Thought Experiments blew me away. To this date I have never read quite anything like it. So naturally I had sky high hopes for her second book. Which isn't fair I know but I can't help it.
The Schoolhouse is a complete departure from it's predecessor. A school for handicapped children in the 70's. In the present day, the 90's, our protagonist, a former student is reminded of her stay at The Schoolhouse after a girl is reported missing. The book is made up of her flashbacks and a policewoman investigating the missing child.
The premise is a good one but I feel the book needs more severe editing and some format and language restructuring. I'm hoping the editors will do that before it's May release. In the ARC that I read, the characters come off somehow incomplete and story quite vague. Nothing gels nor comes together. Almost like it was written by a completely different person altogether.
I'm forever grateful to Corsair Books for sending me an early proof.
The Schoolhouse is a complete departure from it's predecessor. A school for handicapped children in the 70's. In the present day, the 90's, our protagonist, a former student is reminded of her stay at The Schoolhouse after a girl is reported missing. The book is made up of her flashbacks and a policewoman investigating the missing child.
The premise is a good one but I feel the book needs more severe editing and some format and language restructuring. I'm hoping the editors will do that before it's May release. In the ARC that I read, the characters come off somehow incomplete and story quite vague. Nothing gels nor comes together. Almost like it was written by a completely different person altogether.
I'm forever grateful to Corsair Books for sending me an early proof.
May 8, 2022
Some of my goodreads friends didn't like this book, especially when they compared it to 'Love and Other Thought Experiments' (which I loved). So my expectations weren't that high when I started this. From the description 'The Schoolhouse' seemed more of a thriller and so totally different from LAOTE, but with that in the back of mind it turned out I actually quite liked this book. It isn't innovative literary fiction perhaps, but fun enough in its own genre.
June 17, 2022
Stick to the formula that works so well for many.
Nothing new to see here.
Predictable to the extent that I found it boring.
All the necessary inclusion boxes ticked.
But I know, many will enjoy it..
Nothing new to see here.
Predictable to the extent that I found it boring.
All the necessary inclusion boxes ticked.
But I know, many will enjoy it..
December 15, 2022
This is a new style for Sophie Ward (of Love and Other Thought Experiments fame). Its part police procedural, part mystery thriller and part found media in a journal that provides necessary flashbacks. For me, this was enjoyable but not as unique as the last book which I loved!
In The Schoolhouse we meet Isobel, a deaf woman who was a student many years ago in the schoolhouse, a school for handicapped children. A letter she receives and the news of a recent disappearance of a student brings back traumatic memories of her time. Through journal entries, flashbacks and the POV of a the police we learn about a very upsetting practice. It's a well written book and great for anyone who loves police procedurals or interested in learning more about the sordid history of education for handicapped students.. #Knopf
In The Schoolhouse we meet Isobel, a deaf woman who was a student many years ago in the schoolhouse, a school for handicapped children. A letter she receives and the news of a recent disappearance of a student brings back traumatic memories of her time. Through journal entries, flashbacks and the POV of a the police we learn about a very upsetting practice. It's a well written book and great for anyone who loves police procedurals or interested in learning more about the sordid history of education for handicapped students.. #Knopf
March 13, 2023
I'm not sure what it was about this murder mystery book but the style/tone or something just didn't work for me. I did like the school librarian and deaf rep but there was a lot of heartbreaking abuse of young vulnerable girls. I think it was just really slow moving and the flashbacks to the younger years kind of took me out of the present timeline. Not a bad book, just wasn't for me I think. Good on audio narrated by the author herself. Many thanks to @prhaudio for a complimentary ALC in exchange for my honest review!
March 7, 2024
So much potential !! Although it did not give what it was supposed to give. 2 story lines that had the promise of interlinking and being a clever past / present crime novel. But felt like jamming a square peg into a round hole.
Too many unnecessary plot lines that confused the important bits. I’m just a bit lost tbh lol
Too many unnecessary plot lines that confused the important bits. I’m just a bit lost tbh lol
February 24, 2023
After a bit of a rough start (I found the prose a little choppy at first), “The Schoolhouse” builds to a satisfying conclusion, melding
-an epistolary storyline occurring in 1975 and set mostly at the Schoolhouse, and
-a story set in 1990 as Detective Sergeant Sally Carter investigates a young girl’s disappearance.
On the surface, the two timelines don't appear to be connected, except they are, somewhat, through Isobel Williams.
Isobel is a librarian. She's deaf, and lives a life isolated from others, eschewing relationships, except the most transactional and impersonal. Her deafness is not the cause of her refusal to connect. Rather, her reasons for isolation are gradually revealed over the course of the 1975 diary entries, written by her, and the 1990 action.
Isobel's diary entries lay out the events at an unconventional, private, dysfunctional school, called The Schoolhouse. Isobel is eleven in 1975 and she describes her classmates and the staff, a few of whom are pretty cruel. Isobel babysits one of her classmates, Angie, who had Down Syndrome, after school. We learn something bad happened to Angie, and Isobel was also gravely injured then, leading to a loss of her hearing.
DS Carter begins the search for missing eleven-year old Caitlin, knowing that the longer the girl is not found, the outcome is not good. After the parents make an appeal through the media for help, Isobel realizes that she had seen Caitlin and another girl at the library where Isobel works. Feeling a duty to help, and to atone for her past, she contacts police, and DS Carter interviews her. Though the author does not elaborate, DS Carter has had experience with child services and the judicial system in her youth, and it's this that allows her to recognize something similar in Isobel. And leads DS Carter to not only pay attention to what Isobel said, but also to investigate her.
Author Sophie Ward brings the past and the two women's present together with the missing girl's case, but also with an individual from Isobel's past who comes back into it, setting off a series of violent incidents but also the reveal of a few big secrets in Isobel's life.
While I had a bit of trouble getting into the book, I found that once I had become accustomed to young Isobel's voice (in her cleverly written diary), adult Isobel's desire to avoid notice, and Sally Carter's thoughts as she worked to find Caitlin, Sophie Ward had grabbed my attention, and I began reading in earnest, wondering how the different story strands would resolve.
Despite my initial misgivings, I ended up really enjoying this book, and found myself eagerly turning pages so I could get to the satisfying conclusion.
Thank you to Netgalley and to Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage and Anchor for this ARC in exchange for my review.
-an epistolary storyline occurring in 1975 and set mostly at the Schoolhouse, and
-a story set in 1990 as Detective Sergeant Sally Carter investigates a young girl’s disappearance.
On the surface, the two timelines don't appear to be connected, except they are, somewhat, through Isobel Williams.
Isobel is a librarian. She's deaf, and lives a life isolated from others, eschewing relationships, except the most transactional and impersonal. Her deafness is not the cause of her refusal to connect. Rather, her reasons for isolation are gradually revealed over the course of the 1975 diary entries, written by her, and the 1990 action.
Isobel's diary entries lay out the events at an unconventional, private, dysfunctional school, called The Schoolhouse. Isobel is eleven in 1975 and she describes her classmates and the staff, a few of whom are pretty cruel. Isobel babysits one of her classmates, Angie, who had Down Syndrome, after school. We learn something bad happened to Angie, and Isobel was also gravely injured then, leading to a loss of her hearing.
DS Carter begins the search for missing eleven-year old Caitlin, knowing that the longer the girl is not found, the outcome is not good. After the parents make an appeal through the media for help, Isobel realizes that she had seen Caitlin and another girl at the library where Isobel works. Feeling a duty to help, and to atone for her past, she contacts police, and DS Carter interviews her. Though the author does not elaborate, DS Carter has had experience with child services and the judicial system in her youth, and it's this that allows her to recognize something similar in Isobel. And leads DS Carter to not only pay attention to what Isobel said, but also to investigate her.
Author Sophie Ward brings the past and the two women's present together with the missing girl's case, but also with an individual from Isobel's past who comes back into it, setting off a series of violent incidents but also the reveal of a few big secrets in Isobel's life.
While I had a bit of trouble getting into the book, I found that once I had become accustomed to young Isobel's voice (in her cleverly written diary), adult Isobel's desire to avoid notice, and Sally Carter's thoughts as she worked to find Caitlin, Sophie Ward had grabbed my attention, and I began reading in earnest, wondering how the different story strands would resolve.
Despite my initial misgivings, I ended up really enjoying this book, and found myself eagerly turning pages so I could get to the satisfying conclusion.
Thank you to Netgalley and to Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage and Anchor for this ARC in exchange for my review.
December 20, 2022
2.5 rounded up
This is a very different novel from Ward's Booker shortlisted 'Love and other thought experiments' which was innovative and interesting. By contrast 'The Schoolhouse' is a fairly straight forward police procedural which considers two cases linked by the fact that the victim of one was a witness in the the second and by the involvement of schools in both events. Told largely through a child's diary entries, the historic case is from 1975, but with current (1990) repercussions. The second case is that of a missing child set in 1990.
This was a generally well written novel but given my previous experience of this author I guess I expected something different, therefore my disappointment is very much of my own making rather than the fault of the novel.
This is a very different novel from Ward's Booker shortlisted 'Love and other thought experiments' which was innovative and interesting. By contrast 'The Schoolhouse' is a fairly straight forward police procedural which considers two cases linked by the fact that the victim of one was a witness in the the second and by the involvement of schools in both events. Told largely through a child's diary entries, the historic case is from 1975, but with current (1990) repercussions. The second case is that of a missing child set in 1990.
This was a generally well written novel but given my previous experience of this author I guess I expected something different, therefore my disappointment is very much of my own making rather than the fault of the novel.
Want to read
September 8, 2023I won this in a Goodreads giveaway and NEVER received my book so there will be no review.
January 8, 2023
needs a character list bc i was like who tf is that every couple pages but besides that WOW so good i LOVED
Read
September 1, 2023As far as I can tell, my problem with this is everyone’s problem with this: it is no more or less than what it is. What it is is a dual-timeline story about the disappearance of a schoolgirl with learning disabilities in the 1970s and the disappearance of a schoolgirl in the same area in the novel’s present (sometime around 2000?) They’re linked by Isabel, a Deaf woman who attended the same school as the 1970s girl and who claims to have seen the 2000s girl after her disappearance. There’s a subplot about the police detective on the case and her fear of being outed as a lesbian in a not-very-modernised Met, which I’d have liked quite a bit more of. Ultimately, though, it’s a very standard thriller plot, which from most writers would be fine but which from Ward, author of the mind-boggling Love and Other Thought Experiments, is quite disappointing.
October 14, 2022
This one has such middling reviews but the premise was just too good to pass up (I’ve been watching Unsolved Mysteries on loop so anything with disappearances or cold cases is hitting that spot at the moment). And I was pleasantly surprised!
The Schoolhouse has three different narrative perspectives chains across two different time periods which was hard to get used to initially but as the story progressed it really worked in its favour. I enjoyed the quick switch of POV when things felt like they were getting convoluted with one narrator.
My favourite segments followed Detective Sergeant Carter, the straight-forward police work contrasts really well with the other strands which feature slightly more unreliable accounts.
I did really enjoy this book, but at times it felt it just brushed the surface level of the extreme and disturbing things it had to discuss. I suspected that the author wanted it to be a bit more ‘literary’, but didn’t quite manage it, hence the rating; it was a little confused in what it wanted to be. That said, The Schoolhouse is a very solid crime / drama / mystery novel and I would recommend it!
The Schoolhouse has three different narrative perspectives chains across two different time periods which was hard to get used to initially but as the story progressed it really worked in its favour. I enjoyed the quick switch of POV when things felt like they were getting convoluted with one narrator.
My favourite segments followed Detective Sergeant Carter, the straight-forward police work contrasts really well with the other strands which feature slightly more unreliable accounts.
I did really enjoy this book, but at times it felt it just brushed the surface level of the extreme and disturbing things it had to discuss. I suspected that the author wanted it to be a bit more ‘literary’, but didn’t quite manage it, hence the rating; it was a little confused in what it wanted to be. That said, The Schoolhouse is a very solid crime / drama / mystery novel and I would recommend it!
February 15, 2024
Didn't think too much about this, I felt the conclusion was rushed and underbaked, and the connection between two different timelines/cases tenuous at best.
I liked the conversations around deafness/sign language
I liked the conversations around deafness/sign language
October 5, 2022
Video review to follow
July 31, 2023
An enjoyable thriller which didn't quite reach the heights for me. I found the ending a little melodramatic and far fetched. The setting for much of the novel in a Montessori school, which the author attended herself, was interesting.
June 2, 2022
This book wasn’t for me. I felt that it didn’t live up to the intrigue I felt after reading the blurb. The writing was a bit clunky and it didn’t capture my attention. There were two separate plots running through the book, and I spent most of the book wondering how they were connected. Isobel’s story centres around her living with her past and of what happened at The Schoolhouse in 1975. Then we have the story of a missing schoolgirl in 1990, with Isobel randomly appearing as the only witness to having seen the girl. It just didn’t really make sense, something done more to force the two plots together. The diary sections which are told from the point of view of an eleven year old are quite jarring, and didn’t quite fit with the writing of the other sections. I’m sorry for quite a negative review but this was a disappointing read and I was happy to reach the end.
Thank you to Netgalley for the copy of this book. My review is honest and unbiased.
Thank you to Netgalley for the copy of this book. My review is honest and unbiased.
June 8, 2022
This is a mystery book not a Booker prize type book! This book has been well reviewed by others and is highly rated. No need for a description of the book here. However a wee scan of the poorer ratings reveals they are cometed by people enamoured with her first book and were expecting more of the same. This is not at all like the first book, which I adored. This book is a beautifully crafted page turner with great characterisation (a rarity together). I loved it and couldn't put it down. Also on a different note the hardback version is a thing of beauty, the colour of the cover etc - delightful
November 26, 2022
So many other viewers' seemed to favor the author's previous book (Love & Other Thought Experiments) but I was immediately drawn into Isobel's quietly and carefully constructed existence in the "present day" (the 90's, lol) and the journal excerpts from the 70's. The muted menace of the past leeches into the current narrative, coming to a not completely unexpected conclusion, but still enjoyable all the same.
Thanks to Netgalley for an advanced copy!
Thanks to Netgalley for an advanced copy!
April 20, 2022
I loved The Schoolhouse by Sophie Ward. The story follows two characters, in two different timelines, present day and 1975, and concerns a missing girl, and a traumatic incident in the past, both of which are connected. The plot was intricate, clever and fast moving, the characters complex and believable, and the mystery was intriguing. Brilliant.
July 17, 2023
With only the loosest of links between the trauma in Isobel's past and how it ties to her present and an investigation into the disappearance of a child, I felt like the Ward was try to tell two different stories within one book and that one book as a whole came off worse for it.
Taking Isobel's story, I thought Ward did a really effective job of finding the voice of a little girl and her narrow world, the reader able to see the things between the lines that a child simply could not comprehend. It highlighted the vulnerability of Isobel and her fellow pupils, the way that they were let down within a school setting that was supposed to be a safe place that embraced children with additional needs. Instead, Isobel was left to carry the physical and emotional scars into childhood, unable to move past the feelings of guilt and fear that she had as a child.
The other half of the story was completely different. Although both explored crime and the effects of it, the investigation of DS Sally Carter into the missing child was far more tonally in line with a typical, modern police mystery. The link between the two halves of the narrative didn't really add anything to either strand, whereas two standalone novels would have allowed Ward a deeper dive into her two protagonists, especially with the allusions to the sexism and intolerance Sally faced within the police force. Instead, with Sally's further vague references to a childhood in care and her feeling no option but to hide her same-sex relationship without the author ever exploring the relationship itself, there just wasn't enough substance to Sally's character and the case itself felt plodding.
Taking Isobel's story, I thought Ward did a really effective job of finding the voice of a little girl and her narrow world, the reader able to see the things between the lines that a child simply could not comprehend. It highlighted the vulnerability of Isobel and her fellow pupils, the way that they were let down within a school setting that was supposed to be a safe place that embraced children with additional needs. Instead, Isobel was left to carry the physical and emotional scars into childhood, unable to move past the feelings of guilt and fear that she had as a child.
The other half of the story was completely different. Although both explored crime and the effects of it, the investigation of DS Sally Carter into the missing child was far more tonally in line with a typical, modern police mystery. The link between the two halves of the narrative didn't really add anything to either strand, whereas two standalone novels would have allowed Ward a deeper dive into her two protagonists, especially with the allusions to the sexism and intolerance Sally faced within the police force. Instead, with Sally's further vague references to a childhood in care and her feeling no option but to hide her same-sex relationship without the author ever exploring the relationship itself, there just wasn't enough substance to Sally's character and the case itself felt plodding.
June 9, 2022
At the beginning I found the story a bit confusing due to to the changing of the time sequences. It was also a bit to much concerning the names but after a while I got used to it and managed to follow the story more easily. At the end I was quite sucked in and couldn’t stop reading. I really liked the characters and their development (or better to say what we learn about their past and thoughts throughout the book). It is not a light story to read but enjoyable after all.
I recommend this book.
I recommend this book.
February 5, 2025
Considering this book was told over a couple days, it felt like the longest story of my life. Until it didn’t and the last 50 pages were crazy. The book had way too many perspectives and storylines in my opinion.
September 7, 2025
3.5 Stars ✨
A good story with a mystery that kept you wanting to find out more.
It was nice to read a book with diverse characters.
The only thing that let it down was the ending. I didn’t think it was as good as what I’d thought it could be.
A good story with a mystery that kept you wanting to find out more.
It was nice to read a book with diverse characters.
The only thing that let it down was the ending. I didn’t think it was as good as what I’d thought it could be.
July 22, 2022
This was really good. Like reading an episode of Vera. The past comes back to haunt, horrible things happen, people die. Will it resolve well? Also has well-drawn female characters.
November 10, 2022
Readable enough but a little confusing as to what, where and why.
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