Hi, today I'm reviewing The Four by Ellie Keel. This is a really good book, very suspenseful and very hard to put down after you get to a certain point.
It deals with four kids in their teens who are going to a private school. They're going based on, I think, a scholarship or some kind of special scholarship for underprivileged, so to speak, kids. You know, kids who are not associated with muckety-muck, higher-up, one-percenter types. So anyway, it goes into, I was a little bit cautious about this book because I don't really like reading about kids bullying other kids. But in this case, I understand why. I understand what's going on. I understand the kids are clique-ish, and there are reasons for that. And that's the thing I like about the book. It sets you up with four protagonists, a group that you're rooting for, one girl in particular who's suffering, and a mass of students who seem to be in the business of just tormenting them.
But there are reasons, again, so psychologically, it's interesting, it's suspenseful. There's an element to it that you reach a point ... I actually reached a point where I wondered, good grief, how can this girl continue to breathe under these circumstances? I won't go into the circumstances because that's saying too much, but I will say that the ending is not wholly unexpected, it is downbeat. [And that's understating things.] But at the same time, there is an element of hope to it in various ways that I don't want to go into because it's really much more interesting to read about.
So I will say that this is a very suspenseful and yeah, I will just parrot what Karin Slaughter said here. "Intensely gripping, thrilling, and darkly beautiful." That really does describe it well. It's a really good book, a really good read. So I recommend it. And that is all. Talk to you later. Be seeing you.
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