All Girls

A Novel

By: Emily Layden

Narrated by: Ali Ahn, Caitlin Davies, Carlotta Brentan, Cheryl Smith, Chloe Cannon, Dylan Moore, Emily Shaffer, Imani Jade Powers, Jesse Vilinsky, Kristen DiMercurio, Natalie Naudus

Length: 11 hrs and 40 mins

Publisher's summary

"A striking debut." (Good Housekeeping)
"Sharp, engrossing." (Town & Country)
"For fans of Gossip Girl and readers of Curtis Sittenfeld and Emma Straub." (Booklist)
"Incisive, astute." (Publishers Weekly)
"An exciting, innovative debut from a fresh new voice." (Taylor Jenkins Reid)

A keenly perceptive coming of age novel for fans of Sally Rooney, Curtis Sittenfeld, and J. Courtney Sullivan, All Girls follows nine young women as they navigate their ambitions and fears at a prestigious New England prep school, all pitched against the backdrop of a scandal the administration wants silenced.

But as the months unfold, and the school's efforts to control the ensuing crisis fall short, these extraordinary girls are forced to discover their voices, and their power. A tender and unflinching portrait of modern adolescence told through the shifting perspectives of an unforgettable cast of female students, All Girls explores what it means to grow up in a place that promises you the world- when the world still isn't yours for the taking.

You grow to love a place... and then you grow up.

This program is read by: Ali Ahn, Caitlin Davies, Carlotta Brentan, Cheryl Smith Franco, Chloe Cannon, Dylan Moore, Emily Shaffer, Imani Jade Powers, Jesse Vilinsky, Kristen DiMercurio, and Natalie Naudus

A Macmillan Audio production from St. Martin's Press

“Diving into the unprocessed underworld of adolescence, Layden creates space for a conversation about feminism and the unsung difficulties of surviving in a male-dominated world. Intelligent, evocative, and empathetic.” (Kirkus)

"[The] girls are complex, compelling and written with incredible tenderness. Layden excels at rendering the everyday details of boarding school life.” (New York Times)

©2021 Emily Layden (P)2021 Macmillan Audio

Too many characters

Great beginning but too many characters too maintain- especially in audio format. Too “busy.” Overall the performance was good, however

Compelling, insightful and flawed

You can’t stop listening to this one. It’s a brilliant look at an girls prep school and a great view of contemporary teen girls, their chatter, private feelings and mores. But the author hops from character to character and in the end you can’t follow anyone very well. In the end it’s a portrait of a school itself under a cloud of minor scandal. Nothing is resolved. Disjointed and fascinating all the same. A moment in time.

The narrators were terrible.

There were a few of the narrators who sounded like Alexa reading a book, and a couple who sound like they’ve never read out loud before. The story itself was fine, but there was no real build up/big event. Kind of just a year in the life of spoiled rich girls.