Reviews with content warning for Sexual content - The Truants

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The Truants by Kate Weinberg

7 reviews

minimicropup's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

The Energy: Facetious. Fretful. Precarious.
The Scene: 🇬🇧 University in Norfolk England. 🇮🇹 Remote Italian island village.
The POV: We follow a lonely University freshman hoping to reinvent themselves, find their people, and impress the professor they were stanning in their senior year of high school.

🎬 Tale-Telling: This book threw me into Jess's world with chunky chapters; I felt like I was snooping through her life with no clear direction—I love that style. It's an immersive character-driven story with an underlying plot. There’s no holding back on all the ‘ick’ moments from the present and past and I was grimacing as I read.

👥 Characters: Jess is... a lot. She's got this unhinged, obsessive vibe, mixed with social awkwardness and "I'm not like other girls" energy. Her journey from a sheltered life to seeking friends that are also A Lot, while trying to gain the attention of the prof she’s fangirling over was a dumpster fire I couldn’t look away from. The inclusion of consequences and consistent personality traits + gradual self-discovery had me enjoying the story even when I didn’t enjoy Jess or the people she chose to surround herself with.

🤓 Reader Role: Jess's confidant, listening in as she tells us about her freshman year with the wisdom of hindsight. It's intimate, revealing, from a front-row seat.

🗺️ Ambiance: The setting is secondary to the juicy drama, but it's there, and sometimes felt cinematic. The author lets your imagination run wild without clobbering you with unnecessary details.

🔥 Fuel: Mainly psychological suspense, both toxic and transformative. How will the friend group handle scandals and betrayals? What’s the deal with Lorna, the love-her-or-hate-her professor who seems too invested in her students’ lives? Was a mysterious death for a noble cause or from keeping secrets? How will the decisions Jess makes affect her and her future?

🚙 Journey: Slow and suspenseful but the ending was unconcluded, idealistic in a disappointing way, and the fate of a character is left unknown. The plot is based on the vulnerabilities that draw some people together and push others apart. Sometimes the plot should have taken centre stage as it got interesting, but it felt like we were missing out because we're stuck listening to Jess overthinking.

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🐕 Howls: The reflective commentary of Jess becomes distracting when it carries on for too long sometimes (like it's used to prolong plot suspense). The ending leaves you hanging with more questions than answers in an unsatisfying way.
🐩 Tail Wags: The 'off' vibes and character dynamics. The small mysteries and vulnerabilities among the characters. The handling of over-the-top situations with realism.

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Mood Reading Match-Up:

Insular friendship drama and toxic dynamics
Contemporary psychological character and ‘ship study using hyperbole and stark realism
Academia off the rails, new adult stories with critiques of mentorship and influence
Exploring themes and commentary on self-discovery, vulnerability, attachment, childhood, responsibility, charm, difference and pressures to merge motherhood with womanhood, unwanted children and families, identity, betrayal, and generational trauma

Content Heads-Up: Infidelity (graphic, on page). Sexual content (consenting; descriptive on page). Alcohol use. Substance abuse. Intoxication (partying, parenting, self-medicating). Suicide, suicide attempts (discussion, happening of page). Abortion (graphic; experience during and after on page, descriptive). Incest (brief recall; off page).

Rep: Diverse skin colours. Indian and White British, White South African. Heterosexual. Questioning.

👀 Format: Paperback

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Content Warnings

redhare's review against another edition

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dark mysterious reflective sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

Content Warnings

theelliad's review against another edition

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3.0

The Truants is a dark academia (adjacent) novel set between Norfolk (East Anglia) and a hideaway in Italy following Jess’s study of Agatha Christie, whose fiction and mystery structures the peice. While I am an absolute sucker for an academic based mystery fiction, this fell a little flat for me. The characters felt as though they lacked development, it was easy to consider them characters rather than humans, and the plot twists weren’t overly surprising. While passages of this book were breathtaking and immersive, I on the whole felt elements I wanted to know were glossed over! I also think Nick was such a slept on character- I know that’s partially the point but i wanted to know about him and the romanticised descriptions of Lorna and Alec became old quickly! That said, I think there is much to be said about meeting your idols, friendship and betrayal, and the politics of learning from this book (also perhaps the lack of safeguarding- for real why are these tutors at uni parties?) and I enjoyed these elements! This was an enjoyable early new year read and despite its flaws, I can’t fault it TOO much overall for the pleasant distraction from my essay it offered!

Content Warnings