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The Truants
People disappear when they most want to be seen.
Jess Walker has come to a concrete campus under the flat grey skies of East Anglia for one reason: To be taught by the mesmerizing and rebellious Dr Lorna Clay, whose seminars soon transform Jess's thinking on life, love, and Agatha Christie. Swept up in Lorna's thrall, Jess falls in with a tightly-knit group of rule-breakers -- Alec, a courageous South African journalist with a nihilistic streak; Georgie, a seductive, pill-popping aristocrat; and Nick, a handsome geologist with layers of his own.
But when tragedy strikes the group, Jess turns to Lorna. Together, the two seek refuge on a remote Italian island, where Jess tastes the life she's long dreamed of -- and uncovers a shocking secret that will challenge everything she's learned.
Seductive, unsettling, and beautifully written, The Truants is a debut novel of literary suspense perfect for lovers of Agatha Christie and The Secret History--a thrilling exploration of deceit, first love, and the depths to which obsession can drive us.
Jess Walker has come to a concrete campus under the flat grey skies of East Anglia for one reason: To be taught by the mesmerizing and rebellious Dr Lorna Clay, whose seminars soon transform Jess's thinking on life, love, and Agatha Christie. Swept up in Lorna's thrall, Jess falls in with a tightly-knit group of rule-breakers -- Alec, a courageous South African journalist with a nihilistic streak; Georgie, a seductive, pill-popping aristocrat; and Nick, a handsome geologist with layers of his own.
But when tragedy strikes the group, Jess turns to Lorna. Together, the two seek refuge on a remote Italian island, where Jess tastes the life she's long dreamed of -- and uncovers a shocking secret that will challenge everything she's learned.
Seductive, unsettling, and beautifully written, The Truants is a debut novel of literary suspense perfect for lovers of Agatha Christie and The Secret History--a thrilling exploration of deceit, first love, and the depths to which obsession can drive us.
352 pages, Hardcover
First published August 8, 2019
850 people are currently reading
19632 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 1,375 reviews
July 25, 2020
never have i suffered such whiplash from a story before. the first half (or so) of this is probably worthy of 5 stars, but then it shockingly plummets to like a 3 (possibly even a 2).
there is a really wonderful build-up. the students appear to be mysterious, the professor seems to be allusive, the plot feels like its going to be thrilling, and the writing is downright beautiful at times. but then there is a sudden, dramatic shift and the illusion shatters.
the students arent mysterious, they just lack characterisation. the professor isnt allusive, she just has no substance. the plot isnt thrilling, its shallow. and the writing loses some of its beauty when it tries to be more than what it is. its a very sad turn of events.
so while i was disappointed when i turned the final page, i cant get over how great the first part of the story is. guess i will have to split the difference and give this a 3.5 rating.
↠ 3.5 stars
there is a really wonderful build-up. the students appear to be mysterious, the professor seems to be allusive, the plot feels like its going to be thrilling, and the writing is downright beautiful at times. but then there is a sudden, dramatic shift and the illusion shatters.
the students arent mysterious, they just lack characterisation. the professor isnt allusive, she just has no substance. the plot isnt thrilling, its shallow. and the writing loses some of its beauty when it tries to be more than what it is. its a very sad turn of events.
so while i was disappointed when i turned the final page, i cant get over how great the first part of the story is. guess i will have to split the difference and give this a 3.5 rating.
↠ 3.5 stars
August 28, 2021
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This is the type of non-literary book that has literary aspirations...however, its laboured attempts to imbue its story and characters with a certain dose of moral ambiguity or depth ultimately fall flat.
In spite of its intriguing first few chapters The Truants soon followed the well-trodden path of similar campus/college novels: we have a main character who has a secret related to her past, she makes a new female friend who is more attractive and charming than she is, she falls for an alluring man who has secrets of his own, and she also finds herself drawn to her professor, who also happens to have secrets of her own.
I could have looked past the predictable and lacklustre dynamics around which the story pivots if the writing or the characters had revealed, at any point throughout the course of the novel, some depth or any other spark of vitality. Kate Weinberg's prose was competent enough but as the story is told through an unmemorable main character's point of view, much of it felt dull.
The Truants reminded me a lot of The Lessons by Naomi Alderman (not a good thing).
A more nuanced or interesting protagonist could have made this into a much more enjoyable novel. Our MC however is the typical forgettable young girl who somehow manages to attract the attention of people who seem a lot more fascinating than her...I write seem as I never quite believed that her guy (that's how interesting he is) and her teacher were as clever or as alluring as our narrator told us. And that's where the problem lies: she tells us that these two are such magnetic people. We are never shown exactly why they have such a powerful effect on her. This sort of introspective narrative can work...but here our MC's examination of this period of her life seemed somewhat artificial.
I found this book engaging only when the characters discuss Agatha Christie. The rest is an overdrawn love triangle that is made to be far more tragic and destructive than what it is (dating for a few months when you are a first year uni student...is it as all-consuming as that?). The college aspect of the novel fades in the background, giving way to the usual melodramatic succession of betrayals and shocking secrets. If the characters had been more than thinly drawn clichés then maybe I would have cared for this type of drama.
While this novel was slightly better than other clique-focused releases (such as the campus novel Tell Me Everything and the artsy Fake Like Me) I would recommend you skip this one...maybe you could try the very entertaining If We Were Villains or Donna Tartt's seminal The Secret History or even the hugely underrated The House of Stairs.
This is the type of non-literary book that has literary aspirations...however, its laboured attempts to imbue its story and characters with a certain dose of moral ambiguity or depth ultimately fall flat.
In spite of its intriguing first few chapters The Truants soon followed the well-trodden path of similar campus/college novels: we have a main character who has a secret related to her past, she makes a new female friend who is more attractive and charming than she is, she falls for an alluring man who has secrets of his own, and she also finds herself drawn to her professor, who also happens to have secrets of her own.
I could have looked past the predictable and lacklustre dynamics around which the story pivots if the writing or the characters had revealed, at any point throughout the course of the novel, some depth or any other spark of vitality. Kate Weinberg's prose was competent enough but as the story is told through an unmemorable main character's point of view, much of it felt dull.
The Truants reminded me a lot of The Lessons by Naomi Alderman (not a good thing).
A more nuanced or interesting protagonist could have made this into a much more enjoyable novel. Our MC however is the typical forgettable young girl who somehow manages to attract the attention of people who seem a lot more fascinating than her...I write seem as I never quite believed that her guy (that's how interesting he is) and her teacher were as clever or as alluring as our narrator told us. And that's where the problem lies: she tells us that these two are such magnetic people. We are never shown exactly why they have such a powerful effect on her. This sort of introspective narrative can work...but here our MC's examination of this period of her life seemed somewhat artificial.
I found this book engaging only when the characters discuss Agatha Christie. The rest is an overdrawn love triangle that is made to be far more tragic and destructive than what it is (dating for a few months when you are a first year uni student...is it as all-consuming as that?). The college aspect of the novel fades in the background, giving way to the usual melodramatic succession of betrayals and shocking secrets. If the characters had been more than thinly drawn clichés then maybe I would have cared for this type of drama.
While this novel was slightly better than other clique-focused releases (such as the campus novel Tell Me Everything and the artsy Fake Like Me) I would recommend you skip this one...maybe you could try the very entertaining If We Were Villains or Donna Tartt's seminal The Secret History or even the hugely underrated The House of Stairs.
March 17, 2021
NOW AVAILABLE!!!
the name-drops to donna tartt and muriel spark are great bait, as though i needed any bait to read a campus novel about obsession with charismatic and unstable figures, betrayal, and tragic seeeecrets. this is not a thriller; it’s a slowly-building character-driven narrative whose dramatic happenings are on a somewhat smaller scale than The Secret History and whose emphasis is more upon the shifting interpersonal dynamics of its characters than on its mystery angle.
the set-up is very conventional for a book of this genre: jess is an eighteen-year-old girl with personal and academic ambitions, desperate to escape her banal middle-class hometown of milton view, norfolk, where “everything ugly or interesting was edited out,” and to avoid turning into her quietly unfulfilled parents.
beguiled by a book of literary criticism called The Truants by dr. lorna clay, she enrolls in the university of east anglia to study under this woman she so admires, ending up in lorna’s agatha christie seminar,“Murdered by the Campus.”
once there, she quickly befriends georgie—a buxom socialite as careless and wealthy as any fitzgerald character, whose excesses in both drugs and alcohol pair well with her equally dramatic emotional excesses. georgie begins dating alec—a hearse-driving south african post-grad journalist whose work frequently puts him in dangerous situations. jess mistrusts him as much as she is intrigued by him, even as she begins dating geology-student nick, and the four become surface-level inseparable, despite all the cracks in the foundation of their friendship.
lorna’s teaching style is one that blurs the boundaries between classroom and personal space—a practice which forced her to leave her last position, the details of which are murky and scandalously titillating. lorna sees something in jess’ raw clay, or in her naked adoration of her, that is appealing enough to befriend and mentor her, intensifying jess’ covetous regard.
bad things happen, as they must, as jess is led into the selfish irresponsibility of youthful folly, and when everything begins falling apart, lorna shuttles jess away to her italian-island hideaway, where many shattering seeeecrets will come out.
this is a coming-of-age story about consequences, pedestal syndrome, and the loss of illusions. jess is the narrator, looking back over these experiences six years later, and as such, it is her story and her insights, even though she is the least interesting character in the book—although nick’s ‘you are what you study’ emotional rock-steadiness is also pretty undramatic.
compared to the magnetic personalities of lorna, georgie, and alec, jess is an emotionally immature blank slate; a quiet observer just starting to come into her own; test-driving her emerging self in the shadowy proximity of these larger-than-life personalities upon whom she is pinning her unhealthy fascinations. others see more depth and promise in her than the reader encounters on the page, which might be down to her self-effacement and insecurity in the thrall of more grandiose personalities. her role here is almost voyeuristic in nature, a position made literal by her first encounter with alec—making eye contact with him as he intercourses a woman who is not georgie in the back of his hearse, but continues in figurative echoes throughout—a girl attracted to confident, charismatic people, an outsider yearning to be what they are, watching and admiring, blind to the flaws beneath their shine.
weinberg writes about this tender developmental stage beautifully—all the testing of wings, pushing of boundaries, the self-destructive habits of newly felt independence, the vitality of college friendships and the manifestations of love in all its different forms. there are so many great lines here; she captures the pain of heartbreak perfectly—not just the icepick immediacy of one’s own personal heartbreak, but also in a more academic remove, during a lecture about christie’s mysterious eleven-day disappearance after learning of her husband’s infidelity:
as far as campus novels go, and i’ve read more than a few, this one may be less flashy than many, but it’s a point in its favor that it’s not trying to be a The Secret History reworking. it has a quiet intensity that i found compelling, and it is an excellent, very promising, debut.
come to my blog!
For some reason, I found myself thinking about the view of the golf course out of the bay windows at Milton View. How I’d stared at it for eighteen years, yearning for a bigger world to live in, thinking I could find it through books, clawing at make-believe in the hope I’d draw blood. Dear God, I thought with a sudden shiver. Was this the “real world” I’d been trying to find?
the name-drops to donna tartt and muriel spark are great bait, as though i needed any bait to read a campus novel about obsession with charismatic and unstable figures, betrayal, and tragic seeeecrets. this is not a thriller; it’s a slowly-building character-driven narrative whose dramatic happenings are on a somewhat smaller scale than The Secret History and whose emphasis is more upon the shifting interpersonal dynamics of its characters than on its mystery angle.
the set-up is very conventional for a book of this genre: jess is an eighteen-year-old girl with personal and academic ambitions, desperate to escape her banal middle-class hometown of milton view, norfolk, where “everything ugly or interesting was edited out,” and to avoid turning into her quietly unfulfilled parents.
For the most part, my parents seemed to me neither noticeably happy nor unhappy, but behaved with each other much as many of my friends’ parents behaved: like two adults without much in common who happened to be thrown together on a long car journey. Drawn-out conversations about logistics, silences filled by the welcome distraction of other voices on the radio, and the recurrent niggle that things would be better if they had taken a slightly different route.
beguiled by a book of literary criticism called The Truants by dr. lorna clay, she enrolls in the university of east anglia to study under this woman she so admires, ending up in lorna’s agatha christie seminar,“Murdered by the Campus.”
once there, she quickly befriends georgie—a buxom socialite as careless and wealthy as any fitzgerald character, whose excesses in both drugs and alcohol pair well with her equally dramatic emotional excesses. georgie begins dating alec—a hearse-driving south african post-grad journalist whose work frequently puts him in dangerous situations. jess mistrusts him as much as she is intrigued by him, even as she begins dating geology-student nick, and the four become surface-level inseparable, despite all the cracks in the foundation of their friendship.
lorna’s teaching style is one that blurs the boundaries between classroom and personal space—a practice which forced her to leave her last position, the details of which are murky and scandalously titillating. lorna sees something in jess’ raw clay, or in her naked adoration of her, that is appealing enough to befriend and mentor her, intensifying jess’ covetous regard.
bad things happen, as they must, as jess is led into the selfish irresponsibility of youthful folly, and when everything begins falling apart, lorna shuttles jess away to her italian-island hideaway, where many shattering seeeecrets will come out.
this is a coming-of-age story about consequences, pedestal syndrome, and the loss of illusions. jess is the narrator, looking back over these experiences six years later, and as such, it is her story and her insights, even though she is the least interesting character in the book—although nick’s ‘you are what you study’ emotional rock-steadiness is also pretty undramatic.
compared to the magnetic personalities of lorna, georgie, and alec, jess is an emotionally immature blank slate; a quiet observer just starting to come into her own; test-driving her emerging self in the shadowy proximity of these larger-than-life personalities upon whom she is pinning her unhealthy fascinations. others see more depth and promise in her than the reader encounters on the page, which might be down to her self-effacement and insecurity in the thrall of more grandiose personalities. her role here is almost voyeuristic in nature, a position made literal by her first encounter with alec—making eye contact with him as he intercourses a woman who is not georgie in the back of his hearse, but continues in figurative echoes throughout—a girl attracted to confident, charismatic people, an outsider yearning to be what they are, watching and admiring, blind to the flaws beneath their shine.
weinberg writes about this tender developmental stage beautifully—all the testing of wings, pushing of boundaries, the self-destructive habits of newly felt independence, the vitality of college friendships and the manifestations of love in all its different forms. there are so many great lines here; she captures the pain of heartbreak perfectly—not just the icepick immediacy of one’s own personal heartbreak, but also in a more academic remove, during a lecture about christie’s mysterious eleven-day disappearance after learning of her husband’s infidelity:
”The whole country was looking for her. Five hundred police officers and fifteen thousand volunteers. But what she wanted, desperately, was the attention of one person.” Lorna looked at us, her eyes very shiny. “Agatha wasn’t breaking down or seeking revenge. She just wanted him to be thinking about her. All the time, like he used to.”
as far as campus novels go, and i’ve read more than a few, this one may be less flashy than many, but it’s a point in its favor that it’s not trying to be a The Secret History reworking. it has a quiet intensity that i found compelling, and it is an excellent, very promising, debut.
come to my blog!
dnf
June 10, 2020DNF - pg 115
This is what I get for only looking at the U.K. marketing:
If I had seen the U.S. cover and read the comparisons to The Secret History, I would have better understood what this book was aiming for, and that it wasn't a book for me. Instead, I thought I was getting some Agatha Christie-inspired thriller and a bit of a first love story.
This is the kind of book that is trying very hard to elevate itself above the level of a standard fun thriller into the realm of literary fiction. By doing so, it is made dry and unengaging. Jess is such a forgettable protagonist and both the guy and professor she is obsessed with don't actually seem half as interesting as she constantly tells us they are.
Outside of my personal distaste for books like The Secret History, I can still see why Tartt is lauded as a writer. There is a density and complexity to her writing and plot that books like this one try and fail to emulate. I found this neither engaging enough to finish, nor smart or well-written enough to really push toward The Secret History fans.
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This is what I get for only looking at the U.K. marketing:
If I had seen the U.S. cover and read the comparisons to The Secret History, I would have better understood what this book was aiming for, and that it wasn't a book for me. Instead, I thought I was getting some Agatha Christie-inspired thriller and a bit of a first love story.
This is the kind of book that is trying very hard to elevate itself above the level of a standard fun thriller into the realm of literary fiction. By doing so, it is made dry and unengaging. Jess is such a forgettable protagonist and both the guy and professor she is obsessed with don't actually seem half as interesting as she constantly tells us they are.
Outside of my personal distaste for books like The Secret History, I can still see why Tartt is lauded as a writer. There is a density and complexity to her writing and plot that books like this one try and fail to emulate. I found this neither engaging enough to finish, nor smart or well-written enough to really push toward The Secret History fans.
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September 10, 2021dnf at 50%
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January 27, 2020Not going to rate since I only read twenty percent. Was attracted to the book because of the Agath Christie theme. It just seemed so slow, going nowhere in a timely manner.
July 5, 2021
Dark academia. Multiple mysteries. Untrustworthy cast of characters. This was definitely the book for me.
The Truants provides the readers an insight to the heady mind of a nineteen-year-old as she first ventures into the wide world outside of the stifling confines of family life. Our protagonist, Jess, journeys to university and experiences the sweet nectar of partial freedom that awaits her there. But something much more longed for also appears: Lorna Clay. Her idol, her new English professor and her, soon to be, so much more.
This was such a fascinating read that brought to mind two other dark academia favourites of mine - The Secret History and If We Were Villains. The way Weinberg introduced both the characters and the course topics covered was far more accessible than the prior two and, so, a more fast-paced and inclusive read was delivered.
This was a book filled with obsessive longing, unstable individuals, hedonistic allure, substance abuse, and ostentatious actions. Each individual portrayed a grandiose sense of their own importance but also betrayed a vulnerable underbelly to their characters that was slowly unveiled as the novel continued. There was much to unpack in each of them, and none more so than our reserved eyes into this world.
I anticipated a dark read but not how invested I would become in what was exposed as the reader was invited to journey through it. The open-ended conclusion left me seething for more, but also seemed the only apt way to close what had been a multi-faceted read, inconclusive in the best possible way and largely open to individual assimilation, throughout.
I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. Thank you to the author, Kate Weinberg, and the publisher, Bloomsbury, for this opportunity.
The Truants provides the readers an insight to the heady mind of a nineteen-year-old as she first ventures into the wide world outside of the stifling confines of family life. Our protagonist, Jess, journeys to university and experiences the sweet nectar of partial freedom that awaits her there. But something much more longed for also appears: Lorna Clay. Her idol, her new English professor and her, soon to be, so much more.
This was such a fascinating read that brought to mind two other dark academia favourites of mine - The Secret History and If We Were Villains. The way Weinberg introduced both the characters and the course topics covered was far more accessible than the prior two and, so, a more fast-paced and inclusive read was delivered.
This was a book filled with obsessive longing, unstable individuals, hedonistic allure, substance abuse, and ostentatious actions. Each individual portrayed a grandiose sense of their own importance but also betrayed a vulnerable underbelly to their characters that was slowly unveiled as the novel continued. There was much to unpack in each of them, and none more so than our reserved eyes into this world.
I anticipated a dark read but not how invested I would become in what was exposed as the reader was invited to journey through it. The open-ended conclusion left me seething for more, but also seemed the only apt way to close what had been a multi-faceted read, inconclusive in the best possible way and largely open to individual assimilation, throughout.
I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. Thank you to the author, Kate Weinberg, and the publisher, Bloomsbury, for this opportunity.
July 30, 2019
Jess Walker is middle class and about to start university. She chose the university due to her obsession with the academic Lorna Clay, whose book "The Truants" is about writers having to push themselves to reach their goals. The Truants is about a clever group of misfits who yearn to break the rules.
The concept sounded just right. Young people trying to find themselves in each other. The book is told from Jess's point of view. There is the usual mix of campus stuff going on but some of it was not what I expected. The book is well written. The characters are messy. I did like this book but I also found myself wanting more. I will read more from this author in future.
I would like to thank NetGalley, Bloomsbury Publishing Plc (UK & ANZ) and the author Kate Weinberg for my ARC in exchange for an honest review.
The concept sounded just right. Young people trying to find themselves in each other. The book is told from Jess's point of view. There is the usual mix of campus stuff going on but some of it was not what I expected. The book is well written. The characters are messy. I did like this book but I also found myself wanting more. I will read more from this author in future.
I would like to thank NetGalley, Bloomsbury Publishing Plc (UK & ANZ) and the author Kate Weinberg for my ARC in exchange for an honest review.
August 9, 2019
I had been saving this for a sunny day, and I read it on a sunny day, and it was perfect; my memories of it will forever be infused with a sort of glow that could've come from the weather or from the story – perhaps a combination of both. The Truants is another Secret-History-esque campus novel, this one set at the University of East Anglia, where deliberately bland protagonist Jess gets close to a lecturer she idolises and becomes embroiled in a thorny love triangle. (You know the drill, and you probably know from that sentence whether you'll want to read this or not.) It's a formula that rarely fails to engage me, and this is a good treatment of it, following the tried-and-tested beats and adding just enough spikes of excitement to keep you guessing. Reading it in one long, glorious gulp is the best way to go: it's difficult to believe in some of the characters and their behaviour, but for a few engrossing hours I was able to set all that aside and just soak up the fantastic storytelling.
I received an advance review copy of The Truants from the publisher through Edelweiss.
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I received an advance review copy of The Truants from the publisher through Edelweiss.
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August 30, 2024
‘Who,’ Lorna asks, her voice suddenly a challenge, ‘should we call the criminal? The person who commits a crime, or the one who tricks another into doing so? Is it ever valid to take justice into one’s own hands in order to prevent other, more dreadful crimes from happening? Could you, if the right sort of pressure was applied, kill someone?’
The tragedy of this book, if I were to ascertain from its rather measly average rating, would be its misbranding as a thriller. I wouldn't go so far as to call it deceiving, but if you went into this book thinking about murdered people, a generous sprinkle of red herrings, and some gut-churning revelations at the end, there's a good chance you'd end up dnfing it halfway through.
‘The Truants’ is an amazing portrayal of the sheer complexity of human mind. Its pacing is like a slow stream—not stagnant, not a case study on criminal minds per se, but pensive in an alluring way. Once you get into it, if you manage to hold your breath until you've become one with the characters, you'll find it a worthy addition to the horde of Dark Academia fiction.
Narrated in first person, Truants is the Bildungsroman-ish tale of Jessica Walker, a nineteen year-old girl who winds up, in an unconventional turn of events, at a mediocre university as an English lit student after getting utterly captivated by a much-celebrated, if a tad eccentric, author-professor Lorna Clay. On her very first week, she meets smart, charismatic, pill-popping aristocrat Georgie, which blossoms into a deep friendship in no time. Then comes Alec, Georgie's older, journalist boyfriend from South Africa, and it all boils down to a delicious blend of fifty shades of mess.
Reading Jess's account of her life is no trouble, mostly because she herself is a voyeur to her own life; she's a mere bystander to all the fun, taking turns between idolising Lorna, envying Georgie, and desperately wanting to get hold of the enigmatic Alec. Weinberg's gorgeous writing takes its sweet time to build up whatever mystery it claims to be, but my litfic-loving soul had no problem with the pacing at all.
And then, off course, comes the inevitable comparison with The Secret History, with the enticing professor who carelessly breaks the conventions of the ideal student-teacher relationship, the tight-knit group of truants, so to speak, and the untimely death of the lodestone of the narrative. Having read a generous amount of books with a similar premise, I would say it's a clever retelling, nowhere near as obvious as some other, much more popular books (ahem, If We Were Villains comes to mind).
The impossible cannot have happened, therefore the impossible must be possible in spite of appearances.
The best thing about the book is the way it pays homage to Agatha Christie. Much as I love the aesthetic of dark academia, and the idea of dissecting author by author, book by book, I've never wanted to engage myself in it. I've never written a single essay in my life for grades; the Indian Education System isn't concerned with making readers out of every student, but possibly for the first time, reading about these characters studying the ever-mysterious life of Agatha Christie made me wistful for studying literature. If only a lit. grad degree could grant you a job here! The Truants, in more ways than not, is a heartfelt dedication to Dame Christie.
Finally, there's a little, apparently inconsequential bit of mystery at the beginning of the book that doesn't come into play until much later. I don't want to spoil the fun, but I am too much of a narcissist to leave it out. I always knew what was going to happen. But it didn't deter me from having a good time, obviously.
TL;DR Book so good, it makes me want to study literature!
June 21, 2020
I always check to see what Waterstones book of the month selections are and there fiction selection for June teally appealed.
The story follows Jess Walker during her first year at university, having enrolled because of her fascination of star professor Lorna Clay.
The course that the literacy professor is teaching focuses on the works of Agatha Christie.
There's plenty of mentions of Christie's most famous stories and they will get spoiled if you've not read them.
Whilst I was hoping for a fun whodunit, this ended up being about the people that Jess meets and how this group are a little more adventurous.
I was a little underwhelmed as even though there are some strong standout moments (especially the choice that Jess has to face), it wasn't really what I was expecting by some of the quotes on the blurb.
The story follows Jess Walker during her first year at university, having enrolled because of her fascination of star professor Lorna Clay.
The course that the literacy professor is teaching focuses on the works of Agatha Christie.
There's plenty of mentions of Christie's most famous stories and they will get spoiled if you've not read them.
Whilst I was hoping for a fun whodunit, this ended up being about the people that Jess meets and how this group are a little more adventurous.
I was a little underwhelmed as even though there are some strong standout moments (especially the choice that Jess has to face), it wasn't really what I was expecting by some of the quotes on the blurb.
April 1, 2020
There is a group on Goodreads devoted to discussing books like Donna Tartt’s The Secret History. Some of us are so taken with the species that we have even written our own novels in imitation. Basically the plot unfolds in a school or university setting with a small group of student acolytes forming a cult surrounding a charismatic teacher. In the original it’s Julian, the professor of Greek. The students not only study Greek literature, they live it; in TSH it’s Euripides Bacchae, most appropriate on a drug-fuelled campus. Invariably betrayal and death follow.
With The Truants Kate Weinberg gives us a version set in Norwich. As a few years ago I had the pleasure to visit the University of East Anglia, where my brilliant niece Violet Kupersmith was a fellow in creative writing, I was entranced with the setting. The UEA campus is probably the most striking specimen of the British Brutalist school of post-World War II architecture to be found. The jarring ziggurat shaped university buildings are a perfect representation of the clashing relationships and plot twists in this novel. Here the teacher, Lorna Clay, is an expert of Agatha Christie. The narrator, the 18 year-old Jess Walker, adores her and becomes close to three other students, Georgie, a posh-girl druggie, Nate an Indian reading geology, and Alec, a somewhat older South African investigative journalist with tales of covering violent miners’ strikes in his homeland. He owns a hearse which he uses not only for transportation; when Jess first sights him he is having vigorous sex with someone in the back. (Someone very much alive, we should make clear.)
Only the first half of the book is set in Norfolk and England. Later Jess goes to join Lorna on her hideaway island off the coast of Sicily. The student friends become sexually involved amongst each other, with the usual consequences of deceit and betrayal, pregnancy, overdoses, and death. We are not surprised to discover some of them weren’t what they appear.
I quite enjoyed the first part, but I found the changes in setting and plot rather too abrupt in the second half, especially the South African allusions. As a flight from London to Johannesburg takes nearly twenty hours, it not somewhere you think of jetting off to for a weekend. In the final third a lot of backstory is dumped onto the reader where we find out what was really going on (much we suspected). And we discover there really is a murder mystery in the manner of Agatha Christie (literally). I confess to finding the method much too complicated and unlikely to work in real life.
That was my principal disappointment. But a more serious shortcoming was the failure of Lorna to be quite charismatic enough, especially as from a literary point of view Agatha Christie’s oeuvre does not give one very much for the little grey cells to work on. But as a first novel The Truants was impressive and I look forward to Kate Weinberg’s further efforts.
With The Truants Kate Weinberg gives us a version set in Norwich. As a few years ago I had the pleasure to visit the University of East Anglia, where my brilliant niece Violet Kupersmith was a fellow in creative writing, I was entranced with the setting. The UEA campus is probably the most striking specimen of the British Brutalist school of post-World War II architecture to be found. The jarring ziggurat shaped university buildings are a perfect representation of the clashing relationships and plot twists in this novel. Here the teacher, Lorna Clay, is an expert of Agatha Christie. The narrator, the 18 year-old Jess Walker, adores her and becomes close to three other students, Georgie, a posh-girl druggie, Nate an Indian reading geology, and Alec, a somewhat older South African investigative journalist with tales of covering violent miners’ strikes in his homeland. He owns a hearse which he uses not only for transportation; when Jess first sights him he is having vigorous sex with someone in the back. (Someone very much alive, we should make clear.)
Only the first half of the book is set in Norfolk and England. Later Jess goes to join Lorna on her hideaway island off the coast of Sicily. The student friends become sexually involved amongst each other, with the usual consequences of deceit and betrayal, pregnancy, overdoses, and death. We are not surprised to discover some of them weren’t what they appear.
I quite enjoyed the first part, but I found the changes in setting and plot rather too abrupt in the second half, especially the South African allusions. As a flight from London to Johannesburg takes nearly twenty hours, it not somewhere you think of jetting off to for a weekend. In the final third a lot of backstory is dumped onto the reader where we find out what was really going on (much we suspected). And we discover there really is a murder mystery in the manner of Agatha Christie (literally). I confess to finding the method much too complicated and unlikely to work in real life.
That was my principal disappointment. But a more serious shortcoming was the failure of Lorna to be quite charismatic enough, especially as from a literary point of view Agatha Christie’s oeuvre does not give one very much for the little grey cells to work on. But as a first novel The Truants was impressive and I look forward to Kate Weinberg’s further efforts.
Read
July 26, 2025Source of book: Bought for myself
Relevant disclaimers: None
Please note: This review may not be reproduced or quoted, in whole or in part, without explicit consent from the author.
And remember: I am not here to judge your drag, I mean your book. Books are art and art is subjective. These are just my personal thoughts. They are not meant to be taken as broader commentary on the general quality of the work. Believe me, I have not enjoyed many an excellent book, and my individual lack of enjoyment has not made any of those books less excellent or (more relevantly) less successful.
***
God, I am eighty million miles behind on my reviewing. Let’s see if I can be deploy some kind of … like … brevity? Somehow?
This is a brisk, competent campus novel that explicitly pays homage to Agatha Christie (and, to its credit, successful homage). I enjoyed it--especially in the final third when the pace slows but the tension mounts--but it didn’t, like, completely knock my sock offs. This is probably as much about my socks as the book itself.
For a campus novel, though, I will say that it manages to sidestep the shadow of The Secret History, maybe because of the Christie influence, maybe because it’s set in Norfolk, and you can’t get less academic (dark or light) than Norfolk. That’s not a diss on Norfolk, I love Norfolk, it’s just Norfolk is kind of the opposite of Oxford.
Anyway, middle-class, middle-child Jess Walker comes to Norfolk University and falls in with a smallish crowd of intriguing types: posh, beautiful, self-destructive Georgie, Nick the nice, sexy South Asian geologist, and Alec, the uniquely fascinating South African journalist she immediately falls for (despite the fact he’s fucking random women in hearses and dating Georgie). Not-quite-uniting them is Lorna Clay, who teaches at the university, having written a book about literary mavericks called The Truants. Jess comes pre-obsessed with Lorna, having read the book and is desperate to be taught by her. Thus the scene is set for love, obsession, betrayal, death, and potentially murder.
And, yeah, it’s fine. And I feel bad saying that. But we’ve all read this book before. In some ways, I almost feel the Christie influence was a detriment because Christie is herself such a sparse writer and dark academia (not that this was necessarily pitching itself into the dark academia space) is such an indulgent subgenre. In a book about obsession and destruction, you have to be--as the reader--destructively obsessed. The Secret History works, for me at least, because those characters are easy to be obsessed with, and you’re given plenty of space to nurture that obsession, even when you begin to see through them (or get to the point of being old enough to know better). I liked the characters, and I though they were well-drawn, but I never felt more than that for them. If the central foursome (inspired by Lorna) were meant to see themselves as truants, in some way, I never saw it myself. The worst they did was take mushrooms at a country pub. I mean, that’s no bacchanal is it?
That said, I did enjoy the various twists and revelations of the final third of the book. They felt Christie-esque in the best possible way and--much like Christie’s own work--didn’t really require a deep investment in character to pay off. I was also happy to see a reference to Absent in Spring, one of my favourite of Christie’s books, which tends to get overlooked because it was written under her Mary Westmacott pseudonym.
In any case, I found plenty to appreciate here, even if nothing to significantly love.
Relevant disclaimers: None
Please note: This review may not be reproduced or quoted, in whole or in part, without explicit consent from the author.
And remember: I am not here to judge your drag, I mean your book. Books are art and art is subjective. These are just my personal thoughts. They are not meant to be taken as broader commentary on the general quality of the work. Believe me, I have not enjoyed many an excellent book, and my individual lack of enjoyment has not made any of those books less excellent or (more relevantly) less successful.
***
God, I am eighty million miles behind on my reviewing. Let’s see if I can be deploy some kind of … like … brevity? Somehow?
This is a brisk, competent campus novel that explicitly pays homage to Agatha Christie (and, to its credit, successful homage). I enjoyed it--especially in the final third when the pace slows but the tension mounts--but it didn’t, like, completely knock my sock offs. This is probably as much about my socks as the book itself.
For a campus novel, though, I will say that it manages to sidestep the shadow of The Secret History, maybe because of the Christie influence, maybe because it’s set in Norfolk, and you can’t get less academic (dark or light) than Norfolk. That’s not a diss on Norfolk, I love Norfolk, it’s just Norfolk is kind of the opposite of Oxford.
Anyway, middle-class, middle-child Jess Walker comes to Norfolk University and falls in with a smallish crowd of intriguing types: posh, beautiful, self-destructive Georgie, Nick the nice, sexy South Asian geologist, and Alec, the uniquely fascinating South African journalist she immediately falls for (despite the fact he’s fucking random women in hearses and dating Georgie). Not-quite-uniting them is Lorna Clay, who teaches at the university, having written a book about literary mavericks called The Truants. Jess comes pre-obsessed with Lorna, having read the book and is desperate to be taught by her. Thus the scene is set for love, obsession, betrayal, death, and potentially murder.
And, yeah, it’s fine. And I feel bad saying that. But we’ve all read this book before. In some ways, I almost feel the Christie influence was a detriment because Christie is herself such a sparse writer and dark academia (not that this was necessarily pitching itself into the dark academia space) is such an indulgent subgenre. In a book about obsession and destruction, you have to be--as the reader--destructively obsessed. The Secret History works, for me at least, because those characters are easy to be obsessed with, and you’re given plenty of space to nurture that obsession, even when you begin to see through them (or get to the point of being old enough to know better). I liked the characters, and I though they were well-drawn, but I never felt more than that for them. If the central foursome (inspired by Lorna) were meant to see themselves as truants, in some way, I never saw it myself. The worst they did was take mushrooms at a country pub. I mean, that’s no bacchanal is it?
That said, I did enjoy the various twists and revelations of the final third of the book. They felt Christie-esque in the best possible way and--much like Christie’s own work--didn’t really require a deep investment in character to pay off. I was also happy to see a reference to Absent in Spring, one of my favourite of Christie’s books, which tends to get overlooked because it was written under her Mary Westmacott pseudonym.
In any case, I found plenty to appreciate here, even if nothing to significantly love.
February 22, 2020
I'm too old for this.
January 18, 2020
2.5 rounded up
The Truants refers to a book written by a somewhat mysterious professor at a British university. The main character is determined to get into the course taught by the professor, no matter the cost. It is also a nod to the students themselves and their exploration into "things forbidden." They will learn much about desire, obsession, and life as they explore these things and each other.
I wanted to like The Truants more than I did, sadly. There were portions of the book that were outstanding, very well written, and portions that were just too unoriginal. The theme of having a main character and their surrounding cast of characters having a deep dark secret that ultimately will be revealed to all is just rather old. Or, conversely, I am not the target audience for this book and it was written solely for YA. Pity.
The Truants refers to a book written by a somewhat mysterious professor at a British university. The main character is determined to get into the course taught by the professor, no matter the cost. It is also a nod to the students themselves and their exploration into "things forbidden." They will learn much about desire, obsession, and life as they explore these things and each other.
I wanted to like The Truants more than I did, sadly. There were portions of the book that were outstanding, very well written, and portions that were just too unoriginal. The theme of having a main character and their surrounding cast of characters having a deep dark secret that ultimately will be revealed to all is just rather old. Or, conversely, I am not the target audience for this book and it was written solely for YA. Pity.
March 3, 2020
Characters: shallow and unrealistic. It’s impossible to care about any of them.
Pacing: slower than frozen molasses.
Dialogue: trite and pretentious.
Plot: insipid and horribly executed.
Ending: laughable and unbelievable. If it were a good novel, one might care about how stupid the ending is, but since it's so bad, one is not remotely surprised that the ending is commensurately awful.
Worst of all, this novel is just boring. It’s supposed to be a thriller. It is the exact opposite.
Pacing: slower than frozen molasses.
Dialogue: trite and pretentious.
Plot: insipid and horribly executed.
Ending: laughable and unbelievable. If it were a good novel, one might care about how stupid the ending is, but since it's so bad, one is not remotely surprised that the ending is commensurately awful.
Worst of all, this novel is just boring. It’s supposed to be a thriller. It is the exact opposite.
June 30, 2021
I enjoyed this literary thriller, but I wanted more from that rather unresolved ending.
We are pretty sure "whodunnit" but we can't PROVE IT!
As the author, through Jess, herself put it:
Jessica Walker, the first person narrator, has always felt overlooked - like an outsider - in her large, middle class family. Her relationship with her family is strained: there is a seemingly unbridgeable distance between herself and her parents, siblings and friends back in her home town of Milton View.
When she escapes to Norwich College in Norfolk, Jess admits to falling in love with both Lorna and Alec: two loose cannons of unapologetic narcissism. Lorna Clay is her English Lit professor and academic supervisor, and Alec Van Zanten is a Fellow from South Africa who holds a fatal attraction for just about every woman who comes into contact with him. He is the proverbial cunning, good-looking bad boy who denies himself nothing and no one. He really needed killing - except that you kind of enjoyed his company a bit too much! Life was more exciting with him in it, and all the women around him ate their hearts out whether they had his attention or not.
Alas, Jessica's observant, analytical brain was no match for Alec's charisma: she was in thrall to Alec's power of seduction just like everyone else -with dreadful consequences. No spoilers here, but after a while you start to guess that Alec has been playing a rowdy game of musical chairs with quite a few women! What a master manipulator!
The strange thing is that even after his "women" discover his infidelities, they make excuses for him- his tortured past, his tragic inability to commit, etc. Denial and the Nile... whatever! Been there, done that: turn the page, for heaven's sake. All these intelligent women, brought to their knees by a good-looking, charming bounder!
Was there "feminist justice" - as Jess put it - in the end? Was the culprit in this bawdy farce publicly exposed as a fraud and a selfish cad? Did this marauding male finally get his just deserts?
The author leaves it up to you to decide. Harking back to the quote above: you, the reader, must determine the guilt or innocence of the alleged perpetrator - and even whether there had been a crime at all!
This clever tactic may be the reason that this very well written literary thriller got such mixed reviews. I enjoyed it. The story held my attention, it was suspenseful, and it was a bit of a trip down memory lane: if you play with the good-looking bad boys, you will get burned! I'm rating this one a 4 out of 5 stars because the ending and the summing up left me wondering about Jess: would she finally break free from her fixation on Lorna and Alec and give life (and maybe even love) a chance? And that career choice Jess made: darn right Lorna would have killed her if she knew!
We are pretty sure "whodunnit" but we can't PROVE IT!
As the author, through Jess, herself put it:
What is it about an unsolved mystery, Lorna had once asked us in class, that captures us so, that makes us lean forward, looking for an answer? Is it just the challenge of cracking it ourselves or do we rather hope that it will never be solved? Because in solving something, in pinning it down, in reducing it to one reality, something of the magic is lost. Don't we all hope, even the fiercest realists among us, that there is another answer that transcends our understanding? A heaven above us, after all.
Jessica Walker, the first person narrator, has always felt overlooked - like an outsider - in her large, middle class family. Her relationship with her family is strained: there is a seemingly unbridgeable distance between herself and her parents, siblings and friends back in her home town of Milton View.
When she escapes to Norwich College in Norfolk, Jess admits to falling in love with both Lorna and Alec: two loose cannons of unapologetic narcissism. Lorna Clay is her English Lit professor and academic supervisor, and Alec Van Zanten is a Fellow from South Africa who holds a fatal attraction for just about every woman who comes into contact with him. He is the proverbial cunning, good-looking bad boy who denies himself nothing and no one. He really needed killing - except that you kind of enjoyed his company a bit too much! Life was more exciting with him in it, and all the women around him ate their hearts out whether they had his attention or not.
Alas, Jessica's observant, analytical brain was no match for Alec's charisma: she was in thrall to Alec's power of seduction just like everyone else -with dreadful consequences. No spoilers here, but after a while you start to guess that Alec has been playing a rowdy game of musical chairs with quite a few women! What a master manipulator!
The strange thing is that even after his "women" discover his infidelities, they make excuses for him- his tortured past, his tragic inability to commit, etc. Denial and the Nile... whatever! Been there, done that: turn the page, for heaven's sake. All these intelligent women, brought to their knees by a good-looking, charming bounder!
Was there "feminist justice" - as Jess put it - in the end? Was the culprit in this bawdy farce publicly exposed as a fraud and a selfish cad? Did this marauding male finally get his just deserts?
The author leaves it up to you to decide. Harking back to the quote above: you, the reader, must determine the guilt or innocence of the alleged perpetrator - and even whether there had been a crime at all!
This clever tactic may be the reason that this very well written literary thriller got such mixed reviews. I enjoyed it. The story held my attention, it was suspenseful, and it was a bit of a trip down memory lane: if you play with the good-looking bad boys, you will get burned! I'm rating this one a 4 out of 5 stars because the ending and the summing up left me wondering about Jess: would she finally break free from her fixation on Lorna and Alec and give life (and maybe even love) a chance? And that career choice Jess made: darn right Lorna would have killed her if she knew!
June 15, 2020
The book The Truants is a Christmas gift to Jessica Walker from her uncle and this book changes her life irrevocably. Smitten with the authors work, Jess applies to the University of East Angelia so she can take the courses run by Professor Lorna Clay. These are based on the life and works of Agatha Christie which inspires Jessica and Lorna becomes her muse. Jessica makes friends with Georgie Duncan who is dating South African journalist in exile Alec Van Zanten. All these characters are misfit rule breakers and the unfolding story is of ever changing love triangles in this novel of infatuation and obsession.
The story is narrated by Jess which is an interesting choice as she initially observes life rather than partakes but through the other characters she learns to take risks which is almost her undoing. She is probably the most naive of the characters and is therefore more easily duped. At first Alec and Lorna seem likeable but as the truth becomes clear much less so, indeed Lorna seems golden but that gilding tarnishes. Alec’s journalistic stories of South Africa are shocking and demonstrate he can be very brave.
I love the Christie discussions and it makes me want to delve into her life more deeply but if you are looking for a Christie style mystery then this isn’t it. There is a mystery element for sure but this is more about the relationships between the protagonists and the intrigue therein. This is a very well written book, it’s very carefully observed and I enjoyed the journey. There are some vivid descriptions, there’s plenty of drama, a lot of heartbreak, some shame and humiliation for some characters and illusory scales that fall from eyes to see the truth beneath the lies. We learn that there are fantastical storytellers and masters of manipulation as the novel progresses. The finale is very clever and ‘Christie-esque’. My only negative is that it becomes a bit drawn out towards the end and hence four stars rather than five.
Overall, this is a book that demonstrates the dramatic consequences of recklessly crossing lines, of deceit and lies, of love and obsession and just how deadly that can be. Highly recommended.
With thanks to NetGalley and Bloomsbury Press PLC for the ARC.
The story is narrated by Jess which is an interesting choice as she initially observes life rather than partakes but through the other characters she learns to take risks which is almost her undoing. She is probably the most naive of the characters and is therefore more easily duped. At first Alec and Lorna seem likeable but as the truth becomes clear much less so, indeed Lorna seems golden but that gilding tarnishes. Alec’s journalistic stories of South Africa are shocking and demonstrate he can be very brave.
I love the Christie discussions and it makes me want to delve into her life more deeply but if you are looking for a Christie style mystery then this isn’t it. There is a mystery element for sure but this is more about the relationships between the protagonists and the intrigue therein. This is a very well written book, it’s very carefully observed and I enjoyed the journey. There are some vivid descriptions, there’s plenty of drama, a lot of heartbreak, some shame and humiliation for some characters and illusory scales that fall from eyes to see the truth beneath the lies. We learn that there are fantastical storytellers and masters of manipulation as the novel progresses. The finale is very clever and ‘Christie-esque’. My only negative is that it becomes a bit drawn out towards the end and hence four stars rather than five.
Overall, this is a book that demonstrates the dramatic consequences of recklessly crossing lines, of deceit and lies, of love and obsession and just how deadly that can be. Highly recommended.
With thanks to NetGalley and Bloomsbury Press PLC for the ARC.
January 27, 2020
Jess Walker experiences a lot during her first year of college. She has two main focuses - a love interest and a professor she idolizes. The love interest situation is complicated, and it's more of a love triangle than anything. The professor is Dr. Lorna Clay, and she's teaching a class on Agatha Christie that Jess is enrolled in. Jess soon starts to look to Lorna for advice and support.
This is a contemporary novel set on a college campus. There are mysterious happenings in the novel, but I wouldn't consider this a mystery. It's an intriguing read with some interesting elements. My favorite parts were those concerning Agatha Christie.
A promising debut novel. Good for fans of The Secret History. Atmospheric, dramatic, and chaotic.
I received a free digital copy of this book from the publisher via Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review.
This is a contemporary novel set on a college campus. There are mysterious happenings in the novel, but I wouldn't consider this a mystery. It's an intriguing read with some interesting elements. My favorite parts were those concerning Agatha Christie.
A promising debut novel. Good for fans of The Secret History. Atmospheric, dramatic, and chaotic.
I received a free digital copy of this book from the publisher via Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review.
February 16, 2020
I want to preface my review with I really did enjoy this book. The mood of it. The characters. The ending. All of it as a whole. I also recognize I am in the minority with my enjoyment of it.
I also really wanted to review this without even mentioning “The Secret History” but to give a honest review with my genuine thoughts I just can’t. It is almost the cousin to “The Secret History”. Most praise for this book, even on the jacket cover, mention it. To me TSH is off the charts and it’s super hard not to compare. I think if I had not read TSH I would have rated this higher. But it’s hard to have such a similar theme and not compare. There are so many parallels. The dark moody academia style. A professor that is focused on above all others. A small group of students as the primary characters. I won’t go too much into detail because while I do think from afar there are a lot of general similarities there are also a lot of differences within the characters story lines. I don’t typically read spoilers so this had some unexpected events in it that kept me interested. I thought a bit about consequences of actions and what to do when those are too much to bear but you can’t go back.
I am curious if anyone else has noticed the abundance of commas. I am for sure not a pro at punctuation. I use way too many commas and most likely not in the correct context and places. Most of the time while reading this the endless commas kept jumping out at me. I found myself rereading sentences and random words and this doesn’t typically happen to me when reading. I understand everyone’s style of writing is unique and that’s what makes so many different styles. It was just noticeable enough to make note of while I was reading.
All the Agatha Christie references have me interested in picking up an AC book. Admittedly I have never read one and I would probably feel intimidated at the sheer number to choose from.
I do think this is worth reading if you enjoyed TSH or similar books but are also open to similarities and parallels. I think my rating is skewed only because of reading the other first. If this had been first i think I would rate it higher quite honestly. I would also gladly read other pieces of work by this author.
I also really wanted to review this without even mentioning “The Secret History” but to give a honest review with my genuine thoughts I just can’t. It is almost the cousin to “The Secret History”. Most praise for this book, even on the jacket cover, mention it. To me TSH is off the charts and it’s super hard not to compare. I think if I had not read TSH I would have rated this higher. But it’s hard to have such a similar theme and not compare. There are so many parallels. The dark moody academia style. A professor that is focused on above all others. A small group of students as the primary characters. I won’t go too much into detail because while I do think from afar there are a lot of general similarities there are also a lot of differences within the characters story lines. I don’t typically read spoilers so this had some unexpected events in it that kept me interested. I thought a bit about consequences of actions and what to do when those are too much to bear but you can’t go back.
I am curious if anyone else has noticed the abundance of commas. I am for sure not a pro at punctuation. I use way too many commas and most likely not in the correct context and places. Most of the time while reading this the endless commas kept jumping out at me. I found myself rereading sentences and random words and this doesn’t typically happen to me when reading. I understand everyone’s style of writing is unique and that’s what makes so many different styles. It was just noticeable enough to make note of while I was reading.
All the Agatha Christie references have me interested in picking up an AC book. Admittedly I have never read one and I would probably feel intimidated at the sheer number to choose from.
I do think this is worth reading if you enjoyed TSH or similar books but are also open to similarities and parallels. I think my rating is skewed only because of reading the other first. If this had been first i think I would rate it higher quite honestly. I would also gladly read other pieces of work by this author.
Read
September 20, 2020The Truants is a slow-moving, atmospheric, introspective read that gripped me from the beginning. Full of morally grey characters whose obsession with each other fuels their rashness, unfolding secret upon secret before our eyes, I could not get enough of this story full of twists and turns that I did predict but still was completely shocked by each reveal.
While it is incredibly slow-going— which may turn many people off from picking this up— I was invested with Jess’ infatuation with black hearted people who were no good for her, or was she also no good for them (something to muse over).
It was atmospheric, intriguing, pretentious, and everything I want and more from a dark academia story, but I do have to say this centers more around a group of people who met in an academic setting where their lives interconnect and secrets are revealed, rather than the story centering around the academic institution and their studies. So I’d keep that in mind, if you’re looking for a dark academia read.
TW: Blood, overdose, death, drug use, abortion
While it is incredibly slow-going— which may turn many people off from picking this up— I was invested with Jess’ infatuation with black hearted people who were no good for her, or was she also no good for them (something to muse over).
It was atmospheric, intriguing, pretentious, and everything I want and more from a dark academia story, but I do have to say this centers more around a group of people who met in an academic setting where their lives interconnect and secrets are revealed, rather than the story centering around the academic institution and their studies. So I’d keep that in mind, if you’re looking for a dark academia read.
TW: Blood, overdose, death, drug use, abortion
July 19, 2019
This is my ideal summer/beach/switch-off reading: it's literate without being literary and has enough love, sex, desire, secrets, death, grief and obsession to keep the pages turning rapidly. Essentially this is a campus novel and a tale of growing up, and is excellent on depicting sexual chemistry and friendship.
There are lots of implausibilities most obviously the idea of a university lecturer becoming best friends with an 18 year old undergraduate she teaches so that they socialise and holiday together. But if you can swallow this, then you're in for a satisfying read that is both warm and compelling.
There are lots of implausibilities most obviously the idea of a university lecturer becoming best friends with an 18 year old undergraduate she teaches so that they socialise and holiday together. But if you can swallow this, then you're in for a satisfying read that is both warm and compelling.
February 4, 2020
I just turned the final page of this novel, closed my Kindle and breathed deeply the sharp night air snaking in from the open window, under and around my blinds. For the past six hours, and for an hour last evening, I had been shrouded in the blanket of oppressive closeness created by this author—an absolute heaviness that enveloped me and pressed down while chapter after chapter reeled out as if behind a gauzy curtain, just slightly out of focus. The effect is at once unsettling and alluring.
This magnificent book, Weinberg’s first, is tragically beautiful. The story is one that has been told a thousand times over—the exploration of self that is part and parcel of a first year college student caught in the romance of the experience. Never before, however, has the story been told with such poignant and exquisite language. Weinberg’s prose is absolutely captivating as she unfolds each character, encouraging us to fall in love with each of them even while exposing the tragic flaws that simmer just below the surface.
The story is linear, but insights are always hindsight and aspects of the tale are revisited and turned over to reveal hidden intent. It’s an engaging approach, though it does have its limits. The final pages that complete the journey to the conclusion meander and sometimes read like a stream of consciousness. It is here that the reader is shaken and forced to pay close attention, to activate prior knowledge gained in early pages and to keep up with the overactive thought processes of the narrator. As such, this is not a beach read, but rather a deep dive that requires a great deal of concentration to achieve a satisfying payout. This forced focus adds to that feeling of an elephant sitting on your chest as you read—you desperately want him to move so that you can breath again, but in this case, moving the beast means ending the novel. The reader is faced with a dilemma of wanting to emerge from the suffocating tone, where the cruelty of truth lays bare betrayal and deceit, and yet wanting to remain in a drowsy, romantic state, where the wine flows freely and the possibilities are endless; where that fine line between love and lust is obliterated.
I hope that this isn’t the last we hear of Weinberg. Her ability to manipulate language so that it, in turn, fully immerses the reader is unparalleled. It’s only January, and I’m sure beyond a shadow of a doubt that this will feature in my top reads of the year. Right now, it’s at number one and has set quite the bar!
This magnificent book, Weinberg’s first, is tragically beautiful. The story is one that has been told a thousand times over—the exploration of self that is part and parcel of a first year college student caught in the romance of the experience. Never before, however, has the story been told with such poignant and exquisite language. Weinberg’s prose is absolutely captivating as she unfolds each character, encouraging us to fall in love with each of them even while exposing the tragic flaws that simmer just below the surface.
The story is linear, but insights are always hindsight and aspects of the tale are revisited and turned over to reveal hidden intent. It’s an engaging approach, though it does have its limits. The final pages that complete the journey to the conclusion meander and sometimes read like a stream of consciousness. It is here that the reader is shaken and forced to pay close attention, to activate prior knowledge gained in early pages and to keep up with the overactive thought processes of the narrator. As such, this is not a beach read, but rather a deep dive that requires a great deal of concentration to achieve a satisfying payout. This forced focus adds to that feeling of an elephant sitting on your chest as you read—you desperately want him to move so that you can breath again, but in this case, moving the beast means ending the novel. The reader is faced with a dilemma of wanting to emerge from the suffocating tone, where the cruelty of truth lays bare betrayal and deceit, and yet wanting to remain in a drowsy, romantic state, where the wine flows freely and the possibilities are endless; where that fine line between love and lust is obliterated.
I hope that this isn’t the last we hear of Weinberg. Her ability to manipulate language so that it, in turn, fully immerses the reader is unparalleled. It’s only January, and I’m sure beyond a shadow of a doubt that this will feature in my top reads of the year. Right now, it’s at number one and has set quite the bar!
July 8, 2021
i was hesitant to read this one because of the mixed reviews, but i actually ended up really enjoying it! i flew through it in about a day because i couldn’t put it down. it was so enthralling and there was this strange sense of foreboding laced throughout the whole thing which i loved, and i just NEEDED to know what happened to everyone. all of the characters were strange and a bit dramatic and sometimes like caricatures of themselves, but like…..in an entertaining way??? the ending left me a little conflicted; on the one hand i expected a bit more, but on the other i liked how the reader is kind of left to draw their own conclusions, largely contrasting to the neat endings of agatha christie’s novels (which is a big theme throughout this book).
from reading some of the lower rated reviews, i think a lot of people were disappointed by this because they went into it thinking it’d be like the secret history (which in my humble opinion, can’t be topped) but i had been told beforehand that it was more similar to a ‘ya university campus novel’ type thing, so that probably allowed me to enjoy it more. i could tell that the set up of the novel and some characters had been inspired by the secret history, but i didn’t find the book too similar overall. if anything, the tone and writing reminded me a little of a good girl's guide to murder (perhaps because of the britishness) or maybe even truly devious.
from reading some of the lower rated reviews, i think a lot of people were disappointed by this because they went into it thinking it’d be like the secret history (which in my humble opinion, can’t be topped) but i had been told beforehand that it was more similar to a ‘ya university campus novel’ type thing, so that probably allowed me to enjoy it more. i could tell that the set up of the novel and some characters had been inspired by the secret history, but i didn’t find the book too similar overall. if anything, the tone and writing reminded me a little of a good girl's guide to murder (perhaps because of the britishness) or maybe even truly devious.
February 19, 2020
Imagine The Secret History was written by an author who wrote contemp fiction novels for middle aged housewives and this is that book.
I really really wanted to like this book - I mean she’s in university STUDYING AGATHA CHRISTIE. Hell yes right? Hell fucking no.
SPOILERS BELOW:
- the “omg” moment of her professor fucking Alec? Yeah, I thought that from day one so hardly a “reveal” or shock
- the abortion was the most intense part of this book, there’s no “fade to black” parts of this story it’s there in all its gory glory and detail and that’s hard to read
- I liked Alec and I loved he was a psycho manipulator but I felt pretty grossed out by the affair Jess and Alec started and when he whispered “we’ve already broken some of the rules what’s one more” in her ear? Yuck. I don’t know I just don’t find cheating a turn on.
- I loved the amount of drugs in this book, finally a campus novel that includes a real perspective on campus drugs
All and all though, Jess bored me, Lorna is creepy asf (what professor gets drunk with her students? And we’re all meant to be shocked she sleeps with them.. pfft) and Georgie made my eyes forever roll.
Not the best read I’ve ever had.
I really really wanted to like this book - I mean she’s in university STUDYING AGATHA CHRISTIE. Hell yes right? Hell fucking no.
SPOILERS BELOW:
- the “omg” moment of her professor fucking Alec? Yeah, I thought that from day one so hardly a “reveal” or shock
- the abortion was the most intense part of this book, there’s no “fade to black” parts of this story it’s there in all its gory glory and detail and that’s hard to read
- I liked Alec and I loved he was a psycho manipulator but I felt pretty grossed out by the affair Jess and Alec started and when he whispered “we’ve already broken some of the rules what’s one more” in her ear? Yuck. I don’t know I just don’t find cheating a turn on.
- I loved the amount of drugs in this book, finally a campus novel that includes a real perspective on campus drugs
All and all though, Jess bored me, Lorna is creepy asf (what professor gets drunk with her students? And we’re all meant to be shocked she sleeps with them.. pfft) and Georgie made my eyes forever roll.
Not the best read I’ve ever had.
February 15, 2021
I loved this.
It is a book with a love triangle at the heart of it, but an unexpected one. It is a coming of age story where age comes upon the characters in darkly observant ways. A page turner that is also a literary delight, multi faceted in character and plot, it engages both in entertaining and intelligent ways.
I fell for Jess, for all the ways life sought to change her and for the edgy, incalculable Georgie, their friendship is utterly compelling even as it is betrayed. Between these two sits, yes, a man, but he becomes ever more irrelevant as the plot moves forward and it is in fact another woman, enigmatic lecturer Lorna, who becomes the pointy end of the aforementioned trio.
The Truants is a mystery that sits firmly in the heart of the characters portrayed on the page, an insightful and subtle friendship drama, a set of women seen through a glass darkly. I adored the whole thing, from first page to last it hooked me in and left me wanting more..to follow these characters through the rest of their lives after the final, thought provokingly ambiguous denouement.
Very good indeed. I definitely want more from this author.
It is a book with a love triangle at the heart of it, but an unexpected one. It is a coming of age story where age comes upon the characters in darkly observant ways. A page turner that is also a literary delight, multi faceted in character and plot, it engages both in entertaining and intelligent ways.
I fell for Jess, for all the ways life sought to change her and for the edgy, incalculable Georgie, their friendship is utterly compelling even as it is betrayed. Between these two sits, yes, a man, but he becomes ever more irrelevant as the plot moves forward and it is in fact another woman, enigmatic lecturer Lorna, who becomes the pointy end of the aforementioned trio.
The Truants is a mystery that sits firmly in the heart of the characters portrayed on the page, an insightful and subtle friendship drama, a set of women seen through a glass darkly. I adored the whole thing, from first page to last it hooked me in and left me wanting more..to follow these characters through the rest of their lives after the final, thought provokingly ambiguous denouement.
Very good indeed. I definitely want more from this author.
December 19, 2020
Когда хочешь написать еще одну "Тайную историю" Донны Тартт, а получается "Стайная истерия" Тонны Тратт.
April 18, 2020
I’m in a bit of a campus novel zone and this one certainly didn’t disappoint. Weinberg delivers everything you want from this kind of novel; there’s just enough academic banter, sex, drugs, moody landscapes, and mystery. What I enjoyed most about The Truants was the bit of extra depth the Agatha Christie angle added. Weinberg doesn’t just write an engagingly plotty novel, she manages to weave into this an interesting exploration of Christie herself and her novels. It’s a novel which is interestingly referential if you like Christie, but stands on its own if you don’t engage at this level. Very clever.
August 8, 2019
The Truants sounded right up my street with a cast of non-conforming rebel students, but I must admit that I was astounded to find this is Weinberg's debut novel as it's such an accomplished, original book. It revolves around main protagonist, Jess, and her current feelings of being the centre of attention when she has only ever blended into crowds seamlessly to become anonymous. Campus novels don't usually work out well for me as I'm not such a big fan but this had everything associated with the subgenre but with more tension and the suspenseful atmosphere Weinberg creates is clearly a rare and raw talent.
The intentional ambiguousness of the cast of characters will not float everyone's boat, however, I thought it made the story more mysterious and intriguing for me. Ultimately, The Truants is a coming-of-age novel that follows a group of youngsters as they navigate their way around their worlds. The characterisation is superb, the plot well constructed and the observations of the author are on point. This is a difficult book to categorise as it has elements of literary fiction, romance, young adult and thriller/mystery, but above all, it's a book that charts the growth of a group of university students who are trying to find themselves in a world where everything seems endlessly chaotic. Many thanks to Bloomsbury Publishing for an ARC.
The intentional ambiguousness of the cast of characters will not float everyone's boat, however, I thought it made the story more mysterious and intriguing for me. Ultimately, The Truants is a coming-of-age novel that follows a group of youngsters as they navigate their way around their worlds. The characterisation is superb, the plot well constructed and the observations of the author are on point. This is a difficult book to categorise as it has elements of literary fiction, romance, young adult and thriller/mystery, but above all, it's a book that charts the growth of a group of university students who are trying to find themselves in a world where everything seems endlessly chaotic. Many thanks to Bloomsbury Publishing for an ARC.
February 21, 2020
Is it possible to read a book and dislike all the characters? If so, I sure did with this book
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