This book is about a group of rich pretentious east coast college students who perform an ancient ritual in the woods that causes them to murder an innocent man. Only two members of the group were not there and when one of these people, Bunny becomes aware of the murder he begins to act very erratically. Fearing that he might give them up to the police the group pulls in our main character, Richard into a plot to murder Bunny. They all go through with it due to their selfish nature. The second half of the book is about how they get away with murder and the ways in which it causes their mental health to deteriorate. Some characters turn to alcoholism as a way to cope while others deal with suicidal thoughts and panic attacks. It also allows Richard to fully become a member of this elite group for a time and his illusions about the character of the members are broken as he learns about their dark secrets. In the end the ringleader of the group, Henry commits suicide and the rest of the group drifts apart to live unhappy unfulfilling lives. I personally really love this book because I love dark academia, murder mysteries, and long character studies with a lot of intriguing elements. But if you do not like those things this book is definitely not for you. Another thing that might bother some people is that the main characters besides Richard are from an extremely privileged place in society and in some people's eyes do not get appropriately punished for their crimes due to this. In my opinion, this is unfortunately realistic and provides great commentary on how people in these super privileged positions often manage to avoid appropriately severe punishment.
Risa H.
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