A Review of ‘They Wish They Were Us’
Sarah Gerovac
College admissions is a part of the high school cycle that seniors struggle through every year, but when the anxiety of hearing back from top colleges is coupled with the drama and bullying that occurs at the east coast, old money feeder school that They Wish They Were Us is set at, it becomes a whole lot more stressful. In this novel, written by Jessica Goodman, our main character Jill Newman is a senior at Gold Coast Prep on a merit scholarship, and as she applies to colleges with hopes of being admitted to Brown University with many fellow classmates from incredibly rich families, this story navigates a realm of privilege and power that simply doesn’t exist in middle-class suburbia of the Midwest.
The main premise of the book is Jill, an incredibly talented and intelligent senior, being a member of the Players, the school’s exclusive group of kids who have constant parties and also do well in school, partly as a result of their club files with answer keys to all tests at the school, as well as ones for college admission and files with connections necessary to get accepted anywhere. This group seems to have some aspects of the cliches of college fraternities and sororities, although the hazing methods the group exhibits towards high school freshmen err on the side of incredibly dangerous, sexist, and borderline psychopathic, and in Jill’s case, her best friend was killed during her initiation their freshman year.
This novel, which intertwines the social makings of a group of the most privileged teenagers in the country and a murder mystery to solve the death of Jill’s friend, Shaila, creates an interesting tale. Shaila’s boyfriend, Graham, who was believed to have been responsible for Shaila’s death since their freshmen year when he admitted to being guilty while extremely drunk and barely conscious, is now, four years later, trying to prove his innocence. When Jill begins working with Graham’s sister to find out who could be guilty, she encounters many issues within the Players as well as Gold Coast Prep itself, and she begins to unravel the unfair social systems that have paved her path to a top school alongside some talented students, but also some undeserving kids who have nothing to offer to colleges other than rich parents.
As the story delves deeper into the social structures of the Players, and Jill and her friends become the leaders of the club themselves with her friend Nikki being the first female in charge ever, it is their turn to bully new freshmen as they are selected to complete ‘pop’ tests throughout the year before they can be admitted. In discussing the insane and sometimes dangerous hazing methods, club member Madison Versh stated, “You would think you would choose your life over peer pressure, but it kind of brings up how strong peer pressure can be… especially between older and younger kids.” On the relationships between the Players, she said, “I thought it was weird how they were all kind of friends… but like not friends… it was all kind of fake… they were all so mean to each other.”
As the story developed, we did notice that there were some inconsistencies and confusing parts about the writing. As it is a murder mystery novel, part of the suspense is generally the twists and turns before the killer is revealed. However, in this book, most of us agreed that the murderer was relatively obvious from the beginning of the book, and the revelation was not particularly surprising although the story itself was still entertaining.
To confirm this idea of the lack of surprise at the killer’s reveal, when discussing whether she preferred other mysteries we’ve read this year to this one, Versh stated, “I liked the other ones more… I feel like they kept me more in the sense that I didn’t know what was going to happen right away… We read others that were more intricately set up and it made this one easier to figure out.” Additionally, one of the continuing tropes was the idea that Jill placed herself above the other Players in the sense that she felt she was the only one accomplishing everything herself, especially as she had received a merit scholarship instead of paying her way in, and she acted as if she was above using the Player files to cheat. However, she still did cheat throughout the novel whenever she needed to, and as our club advisor Gorski stated, “It was sort of important to her that she had this persona of wealth… she had to prove it to everybody… for her to come out and say I did it on my own… I think it was just kind of inconsistent.” Additionally, there were other scholarship students even among the Players, and of course others throughout the school who were not Players and didn’t have access to the files to cheat throughout high school. Jill was right that she did make sacrifices to join the Players and she worked hard to get where she was, but I don’t think it was necessarily fair for her to place herself morally higher than everyone around her.
Additionally, I think that an interesting aspect of the novel was that Goodman was certainly trying to introduce themes of feminism. There was commentary on the issue that in the past, the leader of the Players had always been male, and the hazing was significantly worse for any female freshman than it was for the guys; their quizzes were more difficult and often more sexual. Additionally, the younger girls were sexually assaulted often by the senior guys in charge, and Jill made many comments about general sexism, such as how when rumors go around about students having sex, only the girl who was partaking gets remembered and the guy, who was just as involved, never faces any bullying or backlash because of it. I think that these types of discussions certainly gave the book another layer, and although Goodman didn’t explore this subject too deeply, I think that it definitely hints at ideas that she might be discussing further in subsequent books. For her debut novel, Goodman certainly wrote an interesting one despite its inconsistencies, and I would be curious to see how her writing develops over time. If you don’t mind the cliches of these murder stories, I would certainly recommend They Wish They Were Us as an entertaining, though not particularly mysterious mystery novel.
