The Tenth Girl

by Sara Faring

[Quirky Cat]

I received a copy of The Tenth Girl and opted to review it. No requirement was made of it.

The Tenth Girl is the debut novel of Sara Faring, and it is a gothic psychological thriller novel deeply rooted in Pantagonian lore. And it’ll send shivers down your spines.
There’s an abandoned finishing school for girls, and a fresh attempt has been made to get it up and running once again. Despite all of the death and disasters that the house has previously seen.
Enter Mavi, a young woman in desperate need of a fresh start. The isolated finishing school seems like the perfect place for her to make an escape and a new life for herself. But nothing is like what it seems, and it isn’t long before Mavi finds herself in a ghost story to end all ghost stories.
The lore and legend of Patagonia comes to life in The Tenth Girl. Here we see a new influence on the specters haunting our leading lady…and how their legend affects the lives of those within these walls.

If I can offer one piece of advice, with The Tenth Girl; be careful when reading about it online. The ending is fragile, in that a single careless placed sentence could ruin the major twist at the end. And trust me; you don’t want to risk that. My review won’t spoil the ending, I promise.

“Something in the atmosphere is wrong here, a something I can’t articulate – I only feel a discomfort in the hollow of my chest, the same one that tells you you are not alone when you want to be, or that you are entirely alone when you shouldn’t be.”

Warnings: The Tenth Girl has some seriously intense plots that it has to handle. There’s child abuse, child death, and sexual assault (on minors) all mentioned within these pages. Most of these scenes aren’t overly graphic, but they are still highly disturbing. Also shown are scenes of self-harm and suicide attempts.

The Tenth Girl was a dark and disturbing read. It wove legends into fiction, and then through in too many knots and twists to count. It made for an utterly unique and unpredictable read – one that will chill its readers even as they rapidly turn the pages.
There was a lot to love about this novel. The characters were rich, with tortured backstories – they were all so varied, yet left us wondering what the common theme was. This little bread crumb became so much more, over time. And it turned into something beyond expectations.
Speaking of expectations; this novel blew all of mine out of the water. I went into it expecting one thing, and I got that. For a time. But I also got so much more. The twists in this novel are completely unpredictable. I certainly never saw them coming (and that is all I will say on that subject).
I adored Mavi’s character and her quest throughout the school. There were times when I wanted to shake her, naturally. But I feel like that’s bound to happen in any psychological horror, right? Her tender nature and harsh backstory made it impossible to do anything but root for the young woman. So root I did.
One thing I noticed, when prepping to write this review; people seemed to either love it or hate it. There doesn’t seem to be much room for middle ground this time around. I imagine that has a lot to do with the reception of the twist ending. I don’t have much advice for figuring out if you’d like it or not, other than to say go into it with an open mind, and try to avoid spoilers online in the meantime.
This was Faring’s debut novel, and I have to say that I’m impressed. I can’t wait to see what else she’ll come up with, given time. I do know that she’s already working on her next novel (according to Goodreads), but I don’t know much more yet. And honestly, given the experience with reading The Tenth Girl, I think I’d prefer to go into the new novel knowing as little as possible about it.

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