The Thoroughbreds by Elin Hilderbrand and Shelby Cunningham Review: A Five Star Boarding School Read

The Thoroughbreds by Elin Hilderbrand and Shelby Cunningham: A Five Star Boarding School Read

Trigger Warning: This book contains frequent references to suicide and the death by suicide of a student, Cinammon Peters.

There is just something about a boarding school setting that gets me every single time.

Maybe Harry Potter permanently wired my brain to believe that any story becomes 75% more interesting once you put a bunch of teenagers together at a school where they also live. Whatever the reason, boarding schools are one of my absolute favorite settings in fiction. and The Thoroughbreds by Elin Hilderbrand and Shelby Cunningham gave me exactly what I wanted.

A New England boarding school. Fall. Senior year. College applications. Friendships. Secrets. Rich kids bhaving badly. Underdogs tryingto find their place.

I gave The Thoroughbreds five stars and while I definitely enjoyed all of the drama happening at Tiffin Academy, what made me love this books so much were the quieter themes underneath it-especially friendship, acceptance, and the idea that the people we underetiamte sometimes end up surprising us the most.

Back to Tiffin Academy

The Thoroughbreds returns to Tiffin Academy, an elite boarding school in New England, as the senior class begins its final year.

And I absolutely loved being back.

There is something inherently interesting about a boarding school because it becomes its own little universe. The students aren't simply going to class together and then disappearing into their separate live at three 'o clock. They eat together. They live together. They party together. They fall in live with each other. They fight with each other.

And, of course, they know everybody else's business.

Tiffin feels like its own character in the novel.

There are traditions, expectations, social hierarchies, gossip, privilege, academic pressure, and the looming questions hanging over every senior:

What happens after this?

That made the setting feel nostalgic even though these characters are much younger than I am. There is something universal about reaching the end of one phase of your life and realizing that everything is about to change.

The Friendship Was What Really Got Me

For all the romance, secret, scandals, and drama in The Thoroughbreds, I actually think friendship is one of the strongest themes in the book.

These characters are messy.

They hurt each other.They misunderstand each other. They keep secrets. They make terible decisions.

Basically, they're teenagers.

But there is also genuine affection underneath those relationships.

By the end of the book, I wasn't just interested in who ended up dating whom or who got into college. I cared about these kids as a group.

That surprised me.

The friendships felt just as important-if not more important-than the romantic relationships, and I loved watching certain characters realize who was actually going to stand beside them when things became difficult.

I Will Always Root for the Underdog

Another reason this book worked so well for me is that I am apparently genetically incapable of not rooting for an underdog.

Give me the person everyone overlooks.

Give me the awkward kid.

Give me the reader.

Give me the person who isn;t necessarily the richest, coolest, most popular, or most obvious choice.

That's who I want to win.

And The Thoroughbreds gave me several moments where I velt like the underdogs finally got their flowers.

There is something deeply satisfyung about watching people who might have been overlooked at the beginning of a story eventually prove that they belonged there all along.

And YES to the Reader Becoming Valedictorian

This was one of my favorite details in the entire book.

The girl who loves to read becomes valedictorian.

As someone who has spent a significant portion of her life happily disappearing into books, I loved ths so much.

There are plenty of glamourous characters at Tiffin. There are athletes, welathy students, popular kids, influencers, ad people whose futures seem predetermined simply because of the families they were born ito.

But the reader?

She wins academically.

I loved it.

There was something wonderfully satisfying about seeing intelligence, curiosity, and a genuine love of reading rewarded. Maybe I'm biased but I was cheering.

Book girls forever.

Dub's Story Was One of My Favorite Parts

One of the storylines I appreciated most involved Dub coming out as gay..

What I especially loved wasn't simply that Dub came out. It was the reaction from the other students.

I kept waiting for cruelty.

I kept expecting the gossip to become vicious or for his popularity to disappear overnight.

Instead, the student body embraced him.

And I loved that choice.

Tiffin is certainly not some perfect utopia. These students can be judgmental, petty, privileged, dramatic, and downright ruthless about plenty of things.

But Dub being gay?

That wasn't treated like something that suddenly made him less worthy of their respect.

It showed that these kids could surprise you. A community that spends an extraordinary amount of time gossiping about one another could still collectively decide, essentially "Okay You're still Dub."

I found that genuinely touching.

Cinnamon Peters is Still Everywhere

I do think this books deserves a significant content warning regarding suicide.

Cinnamon Peters died before the events of the novel, but her presence hangs heavily over the story. Her death by suicide is mentioned repeatedly, and they mystery surrounding the message she left behind remains an important thread throughout the book.

For some readers, that could be difficult.

At the same time, I thought the authors handled Cinnamon's continued presence in an interesting way.

She isn't physically at Tiffin anumore, but she hasn't disappeared from the lives of the people who knew her.

Her death affected friendships, relationships, guilt, grief, and the way certain characters see themselves.

In that sense, Cinnamon remains one of the most important characters in the story despite being absent from it.

More Than Boarding School Gossip

Don't get me wrong.

I LOVE the gossip.

Give me the secret relationships. Give me the rich parents behaving badly. Give me the parties and scandals and questionable teenage decision making.

I am seated.

But The Thoroughbreds worked for me because underneath all of that drama was a surprisingly heartfelt coming-of-age story.

These characters are standing at the edge of adulthood, and suddenly all of the things that seemed enormously important insidethe Tiffin bubble are being put into perspective.

Who are your real friends?

Who are you when you aren't trying to impress anyone?

What happens when the future you imagined doesn't happen?

What do you do when someone disappoints you?

And perhaps most importantly: Who do you want to become once nobody else is deciding for you?

Those questions gace the book much more emotional depth that I expected.

Final Thoughts

I absolutely loved The Thoroughbreds.

The New England boarding school setting alone was probably enough to get me through the door, but the characters and themes are what made me stay.

I loved the friendships.

I loved the underdogs.

I loved watching the book-loving girl become valedictorian.

I loved seeing Dub's classmates embrace him when he came out rather than turning against him.

And I loved the bittersweet feeling of watching these characters prepare to leave Tiffin and move into the next stage of their lived.

There is drama here-PLENTY of drama-but there is also a lot of heart.

Apparently my literary weakness remains complicated people trapped togeher at boarding schools, and honestly?

I'm fine with that.

My Rating: 5 ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Contact

Reach out with your gothic tales and thoughts.

Email

thegothicrasta@gmail.com

Midnight Margians from Savannah, GA

A GothicRasta Blog

© 2025. All rights reserved.