by Tim Parks
First published 2019
At fourteen, the narrator arrives at a boarding school in the Appenzell region of postwar Switzerland. She becomes fixated on Fréderique, a new student who seems flawless in every way. The narrator begins scheming to capture Fréderique's attention and affection, her plans growing increasingly dangerous as her obsession deepens. She approaches her mission with the calculated coldness of someone who has already lost innocence, describing her potentially deadly strategies without emotion or regret. The school becomes a pressure cooker where adolescent desire transforms into something far more sinister. What starts as schoolgirl infatuation evolves into a psychological study of how love can become indistinguishable from madness. The narrator's pursuit of Fréderique reveals the terrifying lengths to which obsession can drive someone, even a child.
Genres: fiction, contemporary, adolescence, boarding-school, psychological-thriller, dark
Vibes: atmospheric, dark, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: enemies-to-lovers, unreliable-narrator
Setting: Appenzell, Switzerland
Period: Postwar
112 pages · Paperback · New Directions