The Girls Are All So Nice Here

Chapter 1: Now

NOW
To: "Ambrosia Wellington" a.wellington@wesleyan.edu

From: "Wesleyan Alumni Committee" reunion.classof2007@gmail.com

Subject: Class of 2007 Reunion

Dear Ambrosia Wellington,

Mark Your Calendar!

The Wesleyan University Ten-Year Reunion for the Class of 2007 will take place May 25-28, 2017. Join us for a weekend of catching up with former classmates and attending exciting events, including the All-Campus Party and formal class dinners.

Online registration is available through May 1.

If you're planning to attend, a full list of area hotels can be found on Wesleyan's local accommodations page. A limited amount of on-campus housing in our dorms is available. Most rooms are doubles-perfect for reaching out to your old roommate to relive some memories!

Sincerely,

Your Alumni Committee

I delete it instantly, just like I do the sale emails from Sephora and Michael Kors and the reminders from Fertility Friend that ovulation is right around the corner. Then I empty my recycling bin, because I know better than to think anything is ever really gone.

Two weeks later, a second email arrives. We haven't received your RSVP! We really hope you're joining us. It's the written equivalent of a wagging finger. I delete that one, too, but not before scrolling down far enough to see her name, bolded, right under the list of Alumni Committee members. Flora Banning.

I forget about the two emails, because out of sight really is out of mind. It's easy when each day is a variation of the same-taking the N from Astoria to Midtown; stopping at Key Food for groceries, reusable cloth bags cutting into my forearms. Happy hour shouldered in with hipsters at the Ditty, a second glass of wine, despite Adrian's half-teasing Maybe you shouldn't. But then I come home from work on Friday, shoulders sagging from the weight of the week, and there's an envelope on the counter addressed to me.

"Hey, babe," Adrian shouts from his

Laurie Elizabeth Flynn is a former model who lives in London, Ontario, with her husband and three children. She is the author of three young adult novels: Firsts, a YALSA Best Fiction for Young Adults pick, along with Last Girl Lied To and All Eyes on Her, under the name L.E. Flynn. Her debut novel for adults was The Girls Are All So Nice Here.

"The Girls Are All So Nice Here" kept me up all night - literally. I tore through the book in less than 24 hours, forcing my eyes to stay open as if the remaining pages wouldn't be there in the morning."-USA Today

"A college reunion. A toxic friend group. Revenge. All the makings of a page-turner are here in Flynn's book." -Entertainment Weekly

"This chilling and twisty thriller centers on two former best friends who return to their alma mater for a college reunion. Once there, they quickly realize someone is targeting them for revenge for what they did ten years ago. Devastatingly dark and thrumming with tension, The Girls Are all So Nice Here offers a juicy, unflinching portrait of the complexities of friendship and social ambition."-Book Riot

"The story takes place in two alternating time periods: the freshman year for the girls of the story, and the ten-year reunion for the same bunch. Somewhere back in the early times but not revealed until much later, terrible things have happened on campus, and somebody's going to pay a penalty. Many secrets are withheld until late in the story, and while this is a familiar device, Flynn makes it work with special power by piling on the details in numbers and in specificity. Sex, betrayal, scheming - all come into play in dark and heavy loads. Is there someone to root for in all of this? Only at the reader's peril."-The Toronto Star

"A sharp, pitch-black thriller that takes the mean-girls trope to another level." -KIRKUS

"With The Girls Are All So Nice Here, Flynn takes the insecurities that come with being a young woman and sharpens them into a deadly point. I read open-mouthed as Amb navigated the complex social calculus of her worlds right up until that stinging kick of a final chapter left me breathless."-Chandler Baker, New York Times bestselling author of Whisper Network

"Laurie Flynn smartly examines the darker complexities of friendship, ambition,