Name: Without Annette
ISBN: 9780545819954

Jane B. Mason

Josie Little and her girlfriend Annette Anderson have traveled halfway across the country to attend Brookwood Academy, a prestigious boarding school in Connecticut, and get away from Annette's abusive mother, but as soon as they get there things begin to unravel--the undercurrents in the school are poisonous, Annette seems more interested in drinking with the in-crowd, and a boy declares that he is in love with her.

Without Annette

jess

This book was weird, seeming to head in two different directions that completely contradicted each other. It was part boarding school mystery (that reminded me a bit of The Secret History) and part relationship drama, and I feel like the boarding school mystery outshone Josie's struggle with Annette. It definitely wasn't what I was expecting from this book. 

I think one of the biggest problems was that Annette wasn't a developed character and their relationship wasn't fleshed out either. I love girl/girl relationships, but this one wasn't well-written and mildly disappointing. I'm also kind of disappointing about how the subplot with Penn ties in to their relationship as well, because it's made clear that Josie is gay and Penn will never be a romantic interest, yet so much drama focused on their relationship. I think it would have been much better if Penn had never had romantic feelings for Josie, because it was entirely unnecessary. (view spoiler)[I also don't like how Penn was presented at the very end of the book as similar to a romantic interest, while making it clear that Annette and Josie were not together and were not going to be for a while, especially when the book keeps repeating that Josie is gay. It's Unfortunate Implications. (hide spoiler)]

I did like Penn himself, and the boys. All of the girls except for Roxanne were presented as shallow, which was disappointing. And wish the book had been focused more on the mystery, because that was intriguing, and I didn't get what I wanted out of that. The mystery was definitely one of the strongest parts of the book and I feel like a lot of that was glossed over in favor of the Penn/Josie subplot.