This book wasn't for me. It is a very raw account of disordered eating and unhealthy social structures in a boarding school in London, as seen through the eyes of the daughter of a Russian oligarch. Came off to me as very harsh and difficult to read. ( )

This book may be slim, but honestly it was hard for me to get through, and I almost called it quits. I was expecting something salacious alá “Gossip Girl”, but I’m not sure even the author itself knew what genre she wanted the book to be. At times it seems like satire, but then it takes a serious turn, and then it turns around into teen lit. The characters, save for Tash, are one dimensional and I couldn’t bring myself to care about any of them because of this lack of development. ⁣
Structurally, this book was also a mess. A majority of the story is told through Tash, but then it jumps randomly into the perspective of another character, and then back to Tash. This book is also overflowing with descriptions of eating disorders and dieting tips, which are presented too casually, and is too problematic for my tastes. The murder mystery subplot had potential, but it came across as an afterthought at the conclusion of the book. ( )

A strange, beautifully written, "What am I reading?" book.

A sort of modern-day "Picnic At Hanging Rock" but with eating disorders, trendy-but-hollow therapists and social media.

To enjoy "Oligarchy" I had to repress my urge to tag and classify, set aside the trope library that was unlocked by a blurb that spoke of the daughter of a Russian oligarch arriving at an English all-girl boarding school and then having one of her new friends "mysteriously vanish". The tropes were irrelevant and distracting. The blurb was inaccurate and perhaps deliberately misleading.

Fortunately, I found Scarlett Thomas' writing style and her narration compelling. My curiosity was charmed out of its basked like a cobra in thrawl to a flute.

At the half-way mark, I still had no firm grasp of what the book was about although by then I knew the things it wasn't: a thriller or a mystery or a typical coming-of-age at school story. I didn't mind this. The book felt like being in a dream. The thrust of the narrative came not from "then this happened" but from the evolving perceptions of a fifteen-year-old girl who is bright but whose grasp of the world is slight and semi-magical.

"Oligarchy", is a story about how the malleability of inchoate young girls can be exploited by a powerful few to shape them, figuratively and physically. It's a dark, often unpleasant story, soaked in the hormones and ignorance and group pressure that pervade this third-rate private school, where the lives of the girls are shaped by arbitrary rules and punishments and governed by the shadowy agendas of fathers and headmasters.

The story is told through the eyes of Natasha, a credible fifteen-year-old girl, who has been plucked from poverty in Russia by har newly-discovered oligarch father and dropped into a private school where she is supposed to become someone new.

I was impressed at how authentically adolescent Natasha's point of view was. Sometimes she understands things she should not. Sometimes she surrenders to ideas and behaviours that she knows are fake or wrong. She is always trying to plan who she should be and how she should fit in but often lacks the knowledge or experience to plan well. Natasha's analysis of the world, like those of the girls around her, is a pungent blend of fact, fantasy and magical thinking that heightens their awareness while keeping them vulnerable.

The private school is repulsive, a monument to decay, neglect and meaningless traditions. It is, in part, a metaphor for how those with power over them see the girls: as things to be sequestered, controlled and shaped rather than protected, developed and loved.

The relationship between the girls and food dominates the book. They obsess about diets, adopting them as a collective, collaborative ritual, design to keep them safe by making them desirable. There is a lot about eating disorders; w they manifest, how their caused by a pressure to be perfect and sustained through a social media culture on Instagram and Youtube that elevates anorexia as "Thinspiration".

This is disturbing in its own right but it is made more so by the veneer of concern and the faux science of the anti-anorexia campaigns the school launches. The trendy-five-years-ago-but-still-unchanged therapists are some of the most repugnant adults in the book.

All of this is set against a background of darker threats from the adult world: unexplained deaths in the school that the girls are forbidden to discuss, the odd agenda of the teachers and the headmaster and the shadowy activities of the Russian oligarchs in "Londongrad".

Oddly, the person who treats Natasha with the most compassion is her aunt, a solitary, body-conscious woman running her own cyber-security/hacking business. Her advice to Natasha is mainly always to ensure that she has more than one path available to her.

This is a book of experiences as well as ideas. It's not a comfortable read but it is a fascinating one. ( )

Natasha arrives at an old-fashioned, English boarding school two weeks into the new term and four years after most of the girls on the opening page of Oligarchy by Scarlett Thomas. She quickly learns to navigate this strange new world of girls, dieting, and secrets--if only I understood what was going on as quickly. Readers only get very brief glimpses of Natasha’s past--recently “found” by her rich, oligarch father and sent to the school by him--as the book skims along with no chapters but short sections that just keep coming. There are a lot of pop-culture references, quick flashes of the other girls, teachers and finally a thin plot of eating disorders, suicides and possibly murder. Some of the observations and absurd moments are ridiculously funny, and the relationship with her Aunt Sonja actually feels like the book may scratch below the superficial surface it builds, but mostly it adds up to a strange little mess. A difficult book to recommend, but for the right reader (one who doesn’t mind quirky, widespread profanity, sexual content, and lots of pop-culture) Oligarchy may hit the mark. ( )

The novel focuses on Tash (Natasha), the daughter of a Russian oligarch, who arrives at an English girls’ boarding school. Life at the school seems to revolve around eating or, rather, not eating: “90 per cent of the school has some sort of eating disorder.” One girl dies and her death is ruled a suicide, but Tash suspects she was murdered and sets out to uncover the truth.

The title refers to the school which is a perfect example of an oligarchy, government by the few. In the school, the thin girls, the popular girls, rule. Only those who become obsessed with weight loss and body image are accepted. They even take turns inventing strict diets for the other girls to follow: “On Monday everyone starts a new diet. It’s Lissa’s invention. The diet is this: wholewheat bread and Sandwich Spread only. No butter. Vegetables are allowed but no fruit.”

It is possible to have some sympathy for the girls. They are rich but are virtually abandoned by their parents. Tash, for example, never sees her father; the parental figure in her life is her Aunt Sonja who tells her, “Do everything you can to keep your beauty. Exams are not important” and warns her, “if you put the weight on once you will never, ever take it off. Well, you can do it temporarily, but once it has been there it will always long to return, like a missing lover, like a weed, like a boy gone to the army.”

The problem, however, is that it is difficult to like the girls. They laugh at what they consider to be the pathetic lives of regular people whom they call “plebs”. A teacher tells them, “You’re all so shallow and annoying” and that description is perfect. None of the girls really emerges as a round character with a distinct personality; they are just mean, privileged girls who are fixated on body image and consumerism. As a result, the reader may not feel as much sympathy for them as the author might want.

There are some other aspects that did not appeal to me. The structure is rather choppy with a lack of smooth transitions. The style is emotionless. A plot is almost non-existent. Why is the word “fluorescence” repeated 13 times?

At times, this book seems to read more like Young Adult fiction: “Tiffanie gets out a Sherbet Fountain which she calls a ‘dib-dob’ and “Bianca has secretly joined a Pro Ana WhatsApp group and . . . does not TePe daily.” It is, however, not a book I would want to give to a young person dealing with eating problems or body image issues.

On the other hand, I don’t think I’m the target audience for the book either. Maybe because I’m a “pleb”, I just can’t empathize enough with these uber-wealthy, superficial, nasty girls who are so pre-occupied with false values.

Note: I received a digital galley from the publisher via NetGalley.

Please check out my reader's blog (https://schatjesshelves.blogspot.com/) and follow me on Twitter (@DCYakabuski). ( )