#BookReview ‘The Four’ by Ellie Keel

About the book…

Powerful. Sinister. Heart-wrenching. Unmissable. We were always The Four. From our very first day at High Realms.
The four scholarship pupils.

Outsiders in a world of power and privilege.

It would have made our lives a lot easier if Marta had simply pushed Genevieve out of our bedroom window that day.

Certainly, it would have been tragic. She would have died instantly. But Marta didn’t push her then, or – if you choose to believe me – at any other time.

If she had, all of what we went through would not have happened. I’ve told this story as clearly as I could – as rationally as I’ve been able, in the circumstances, to achieve. I don’t regret what we did. And I would do it all again.

Thanks so very much to Harper Collins/HQ Stories for approving my review request for one of my most anticipated 2024 titles, ‘The Four’ by Ellie Keel

Dark academia has to be one of my most favoured genres, obsessed with it since my first read of ‘The Secret History’, which appeared to be the natural progression of things after so many torch light, midnight reads of Mallory Towers, The Chalet School books and St Clare’s series. Schools which you couldn’t leave, and therefore, held their own rules, traditions and culture in check, generally unobserved by the outside world, held an allure of glamour with equal measures of sinister intentions.

Perfect breeding ground for murderous personalities or supernatural elements and endlessly satisfying.

Midnight feasts, playing lacrosse (still not sure what that was), secret societies, sacrifices, an indecent amount of spoken Latin, pet names for teachers, mysterious deaths, secret passages and priest holes-what fun!

In ‘The Four’, a truly astonishing debut novel, Ellie Keel presents High Realms as the peak of achievement, at east to the outside world, of privilege and achievement, The very system designed to make it so exclusive and elite, is the one which necessitates a certain number of scholarship pupils in order to be seen to be ‘fair’, as well as maintaining the very culture that keeps it privileged and behind closed doors. This circuitous process throws up it’s latest sacrificial lambs in the shape of Marta, Rose, Sami and Lloyd, each with an accompanying baggage of parental expectation of success and background trauma.

Arriving in Sixth Form, they have bypassed the indoctrination process by which the rest of the year are already knee deep in their own little cliques, and it is immediately obvious that the Millennials, as they are known, will never be accepted for who they are, at best they will be tolerated, at worst driven out.

Any sign of rebellion is met with brutal punishment, Any digressions from the accepted norms which no one has taken the time to teach them about, is met with disapproval. Between the two, they are both ostracised and stand out as ubiquitous wolves in lambskin, they are absolutely not to be trusted whether they toe the line or not.

Meal privileges withdrawn, mocking , tripping up, imprisonment, detentions, physical and psychological bullying gets more and more violent as the principle antagonists-Genevieve , Sylvia and Shana-ramp up the despicable acts they carry out. Even the teachers seem unwilling-or unable-to help, playing off Genevieve ‘Gin’ as grief stricken after her younger sister’s death at the school.

There is so much foreshadowing that you spend the novel like a keen detective, teasing out the dropped remarks by Rose, the first person narrator, to what will be the end point of her time in high Realms, where her relationship will go with Marta, her much, much more bullied roommate, and what the revenge will be.

As I was reading, I could feel this red mist of anger descend-especially when Sami explains what the boys in his house did to him on discovering his tuck box-at the injustice of it all. Whilst they all have their own issues-parental death, anxiety, self harm and so on-the Four are bound together by the sense that this is an opportunity to leap frog themselves into a society that would otherwise reject them-having High Realms on your CV opens way more doors than the local comp. That’s if, of course, you survive the education process and if you do, what part of yourself do you give up to ‘succeed’?

I found this book to be so engrossing, I literally could not stop once I had started and I can see why the early pre-release buzz is swirling around ‘The Four’.

About the author…

Ellie Keel is an award-winning producer and campaigner. She is the Founder Director of The Women’s Prize for Playwriting, a literary prize and campaign for gender equality among writers for the stage in the UK and Ireland.

Ellie creates critically-acclaimed, fearlessly imaginative theatre and audio productions with her company EKP, often in partnership with organisations including Audible, the Barbican and Southbank Centre. In 2022, she was the youngest producer ever to be shortlisted for Producer of the Year in The Stage Awards. She is a frequent contributor to masterclasses, panel discussions and the media on theatre and wider cultural topics.

In 2017, Ellie collaborated in the founding of Just Like Us, an award-winning LGBT+ youth charity. She is passionate about issues surrounding social justice, inclusivity and access to art and culture.

Ellie studied German and Italian at Brasenose College, Oxford, spending a year in Berlin and Milan. She now lives in East London and in her spare time enjoys road cycling, fitness, literature and films.

Twitter @eliiekeel1 @HQStories @HarperCollinsUK