It’s Got Me By The Baby Hairs and I Am Loving It

As an indie author writing a dark YA novel, I've immersed myself in the genre's best books, and this one is truly gripping. It’s got murder, mystery, a little sapphic romance, and a phenomenal cast of character. I’m going rabid devouring this book.

Laura Pohl's "The Grimrose Girls" follows a group of girls after a close friend mysteriously drowns before the school year starts. Officially, authorities ruled the friend's death an accident, but our diverse group of protagonists suspects otherwise.

It’s giving me everything I want—and everything I want to write.

Dark Academia: The gothic boarding school vibes and the isolation that comes with being that is the perfect breeding ground for dark and perilous secrets

Murder + Magic: The characters unraveling long buried conspiracies and supernatural patterns.

Trauma Bonding: Both have a group of determined people bonding and growing together as the most unhinged crap happens to them.

But what made me fully commit into buying the book would be this-

Resisting the Narrative: That is at the heart of “The Institute for the Unruly”. Do you let your future be dictated by someone else, or do you stand up and take control of your life?

I am loving Laura Pohl’s diverse characters. She really has a way of making the student body feel like something more than something that occasionally comes in and interacts with the plot. The other students within the Grimrose Academie feel full of individuals, and not like a sea of NPC’s.

What I am learning so far is how to craft that inner central conflict for a character. Outside the existential threat of the book, my main protagonist, Natascha Griggs, doesn’t really want anything.

She’s missing her Arc.

Does Natascha want safety? Revenge? Maybe just to be left the hell alone? At first, I thought she didn’t want anything—but now I’m realizing she does. She just doesn’t believe she’s allowed to want it yet. That’s the thread I’m tugging on, and I think it might lead somewhere real.

I am hoping by analyzing this book, I can clarify her out what my character wants, what her goal is after being placed in the Institute.

I can’t wait to see where this book takes me—or what twisted little turn it throws at me next.

After I have finished this book, I will move on to “An Academy for Liars” by Alexis Henderson.

If you have any books you like to recommend for my comp book TBR, please leave it in a comment.

With love and literary nonsense,

Katy O’Hera