Messy and unsatisfying.
A group of unlikely friends exacts their revenge on an entitled lacrosse bro.
Troy Richards is a jerk. A senior on Hancock High’s lacrosse team, he seems untouchable: He’s handsome, manages to evade accountability for his numerous wrongdoings, and has been admitted to Harvard. But Troy isn’t universally loved by his classmates. Troy’s ex-best-friend and former lacrosse bro Andrew Garcia, ambitious perfectionist Sassi DeLuca, bad girl with a heart of gold Tatum Stein, and quiet freshman Naomi King all have reasons to resent him. The teens devise a series of vengeful pranks on Troy, but when he ends up dead at a senior night lock-in, any one of them may be the culprit. Balogh’s debut, set in the late 1990s, has an alluring plot with a quasi-locked-room concept but leans heavily on nostalgia and eventually collapses under its overly ambitious bloat. The narration rotates among the perspectives of Troy, Jennifer, Andrew, Sassi, Tatum, and Naomi, whose voices are difficult to distinguish. These shifting points of view are set against a jumpy timeline, further adding to the confusion, and a scattering of red herrings frustratingly leaves readers with more questions than answers. The examination of toxic masculinity and accountability is intriguing, but the characterization leans heavily on stereotypes and harmful tropes and the story reaches a disappointing conclusion. Andrew is cued Latine and white, Naomi reads Black, and other main characters present white.
Messy and unsatisfying. (glossary) (Mystery. 12-18)Pub Date: June 24, 2025
ISBN: 9780593899274
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: March 12, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2025
Exhilarating, nonstop fun.
A murder on The Escape Game, a popular reality TV show, puts the next round of contestants at risk—can they all get out alive?
The previous season of the show, in which groups of teens race to get through escape rooms, ended in disaster when Sierra Angelos and her team discovered another player lying dead in a coffin—her older sister, Alicia. But the network and ruthless executive producer determine that the show will go on. Prickly, olive-skinned Sierra, whom some suspect of murder, is returning—and she’s determined to find the killer. Her new team includes math whiz Carter Kelly, who’s Black; home-schooled, white-presenting Beck Matheson, who designs his own escape rooms and is trans; and Aditya Parvesh, who’s cued South Asian, has a way with words, and was pushed into auditioning by his movie star mother. At first, Team Helsing struggles to gel, but the teens’ shared desire to prove themselves makes them a formidable powerhouse—even if they’re hiding some of their true goals from one another. As clues to the killer’s identity start appearing, the players must try to make it to the finale before someone else becomes the next victim. This thrilling whodunit moves at a page-turning pace; the occasional reveals for the main mystery are well balanced with the tighter sequences of solving the escape rooms. The narration rotates among the central cast, allowing readers to empathize with each character in turn and be privy to even more intrigue.
Exhilarating, nonstop fun. (Mystery. 14-18)Pub Date: April 7, 2026
ISBN: 9798217006120
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: Dec. 26, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2026
A descriptive and atmospheric paranormal social thriller that could be a bit tighter.
After a Nigerian British girl goes off to an exclusive boarding school that seems to prey on less-privileged students, she discovers there might be some truth behind an urban legend.
Ife Adebola joins the Urban Achievers scholarship program at pricey, high-pressure Nithercott School, arriving shortly after a student called Leon mysteriously disappeared. Gossip says he’s a victim of the glowing-eyed Changing Man who targets the lonely, leaving them changed. Ife doesn’t believe in the myth, but amid the stresses of Nithercott’s competitive, privileged, majority-white environment, where she is constantly reminded of her state school background, she does miss her friends and family. When Malika, a fellow Black scholarship student, disappears and then returns, acting strangely devoid of personality, Ife worries the Changing Man is real—and that she’s next. Ife joins forces with classmate Bijal and Benny, Leon’s younger brother, to uncover the truth about who the Changing Man is and what he wants. Culminating in a detailed, gory, and extended climactic battle, this verbose thriller tempts readers with a nefarious mystery involving racial and class-based violence but never quite lives up to its potential and peters out thematically by its explosive finale. However, this debut offers highly visually evocative and eerie descriptions of characters and events and will appeal to fans of creature horror, social commentary, and dark academia.
A descriptive and atmospheric paranormal social thriller that could be a bit tighter. (Thriller. 14-18)Pub Date: Sept. 26, 2023
ISBN: 9781250868138
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Review Posted Online: June 8, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2023
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