YOU'RE NO BETTER

Determined to prove he’s different from his serial killer father, Morgan hunts for the identity of his father’s 51st (and final) murder victim.

Autistic, transgender high school senior Morgan Slaughter has no choice but to spend one more tortured year pretending to be a girl while cameras invade his life for a docuseries about the family of the infamous serial killer Graham Nathaniel Slaughter. If he cooperates, Morgan gets access to his trust once he turns 18—that’s the deal he made with his controlling, clout-chasing mother. After a prison visit goes badly, Morgan decides he needs to do something his father would never do: find the identity of Jane Doe, the DC Ripper’s last victim, thus proving that he might be “a dangerous child with a proven history of impulsive violence,” but he’s not his father. As he begins his search, Morgan becomes entangled with Felicity Keating, a bisexual nonbinary classmate who threatens to release evidence of Morgan’s involvement in his father’s murders on their true-crime podcast unless Morgan partners with them to release an episode about Jane Doe. White crafts a precise and gripping plot filled with vivid imagery and dynamic three-dimensional characters. Through Morgan, who’s desperate, flawed, empathetic, and sincere, he explores the violent impact of stereotypes that link neurodivergence and mental illness to murderous impulses. The resolution offers a satisfying harmony of realism, catharsis, and grounded hope for healing. The leads are cued white.

A visceral, defiantly vulnerable thriller.