I’m sharing another instalment of my Mini Review Mondays, the most recent of which was just over a week ago. I was busy this Monday, so it’s a schedule change to Wednesday instead!
In case you haven’t seen any of my previous posts, I do ‘mini’ reviews of books that I’ve previously read and am now ready to share my full thoughts about.
First up, I’d like to talk about Getting Away With Murder by Kathryn Foxfield. Thank you to Stephanie Lee at Scholastic Children’s Books for sending me a copy in exchange for an honest review.
Walking disaster Saffron and her perfectionist twin sister Georgia have only one thing in common-they are both obsessed with battle royale video game Sole Survivor. While working at a brand new, high tech escape room complex, Saffron poses a question to the resident AI: which high school stereotype would survive the longest in a real life version of Sole Survivor? She is convinced a rebel like her would beat a know-it-all like Georgia. Unbeknown to her, the AI decides to determine the answer to her question by testing it out for real.
It invites Saffron and Georgia’s gamer friends to a preview of the escape rooms, but then it locks the doors and turns the rooms into a life-or-death battle to be the last player standing. The rebel, the know-it-all, the princess, the jock, the geek, the weirdo, the star, the artist and the criminal. Just like in Sole Survivor, only one can survive the night…
Publication Date: 6th July
TW: death, murder, violence, gore, stabbing
My Thoughts:
Getting Away With Murder mashes The Breakfast Club with a horrific and timely look at AI, the price of fame and the horror genre as a whole.
At this point, Kathyrn Foxfield is just a staple of UKYA horror for me. Her books are always twisty little gems, with devious secrets to uncover, excellent characters and atmosphere that are totally enrapturing. Getting Away With Murder is no exception to this rule, with a fascinating concept.
I mean, it takes those standard horror stereotypes of characters and dials it up to eleven. It is a very meta and ironic take on the horror genre which perfectly lives up to its tagline as Cabin in the Woods meets Squid Game. That first comparative is particularly resonant to me, with plenty of moments of dark humour and actively playing with these character types and tropes. Foxfield is clearly an avid lover of the genre, well-versed in the lore of horror and able to manipulate readers’ expectations just so.
As well as being a hugely character-driven reader, I am also always on the lookout for good atmospheric writing. Foxfield has that in spades here, with a truly claustrophobic and chilling story. The setting is spine-tingling, with that whole saccharine horror of a place of entertainment gone horribly wrong. I was just enamoured with the concept of escape rooms becoming literal traps. There are intercuts from characters and timelines that serve to give crumbs of the overall mystery away, but there are a myriad of twists and turns ahead before you get to the big reveals. This is narratively interesting, as you get a sense of who these characters used to be before they were placed within this pressure cooker. There is also a tension between their Internet personas, horror character types and the people they truly are beneath.
Getting Away With Murder takes everything you know about horror and places it in a blender, generating a clever, meta and endlessly captivating story.
Next up, I’d like to talk about Murder in the Family by Cara Hunter. Thank you to HarperCollins for sending me an eARC in exchange for an honest review.
It was a case that gripped the nation. Luke Ryder’s murder has never been solved.
In December 2003, Luke Ryder was found dead in the garden of the family home in London, leaving behind a wealthy older widow and three stepchildren. Nobody saw anything.
Now, secrets will be revealed – live on camera.
Years later a group of experts re-examine the evidence on Infamous, a true-crime show – with shocking results. Does the team know more than they’ve been letting on?
Or does the truth lie closer to home? Can you solve the case before they do? The truth will blow your mind.
Publication Date: 20th July
TW: death, murder, violence, bombing, racism, police brutality, institutional racism, hit and run
My Thoughts:
Murder in the Family was one of the most addictive reads of the year so far. It was so tightly plotted as Hunter masterfully leads you down her dark and twisty path.
This book is easily one of the best crime books I have read this year. I loved the writing style, through the transcript of the TV episodes, interviews and reactions via Reddit and newspaper reviews. It was such a complex, layered and thrilling story that I devoured. Hunter is onto a winner here.
This is genuinely one of the best mysteries I have read for a while. I was just completely reeled in from the very first page and could not put it down from there, which made my train journey seemingly disappear. Hunter just creates such a tense atmosphere and the narrative choice of telling the story through snippets is incredible. These come in the form of television episode transcripts, interviews and overheard conversations that you feel like you are snooping in on and the live reactions to the television show through newspaper columns and online forums. This makes you feel like you are watching right along with them, giving it an intensity and timeliness that I do not feel like I have ever had from a book before. It feels like binge watching the latest Netflix obsession and discussing it with everyone you know.
The central mystery is fascinating, with so many evil twists and turns. I did not see many of them coming and Hunter always reveals them with such showmanship. It plays into the salacious drama of it all with the television format. These reveals are positioned as dramatic highlights or cliffhangers for the episodes, but also as jaw-dropping moments for readers. Hunter seems to use this form to examine our modern relationship with these kinds of crimes. There is a real debate to be had around the ethics of this and how often the victim is forgotten in favour of the headline-grabbing details of it all. This is a devastating family tragedy, blown up and captured in high definition. For me, it reminds me of my favourite episode from the latest series of Black Mirror. Hunter has her finger just so on the pulse, able to blend that social commentary with the very same style of crime narrative she is critiquing.
For me, Murder in the Family is the crime release of the summer. I will be enthusiastically recommending it to everyone I know.
Finally, I’d like to delve into The Legacies by Jessica Goodman. Thank you to Razorbill for sending me an eARC in exchange for an honest review.
Scoring an invitation for membership to the exclusive Legacy Club in New York City is more than an honor. It gives you a lifetime of access to power and wealth beyond any prep school doors and guaranteed safety and security as Legacy Club members always look out for their own. That is, after you make it through a rigorous week of events and the extravagant gala, the Legacy Ball.
So it’s not surprising when Excelsior Prep seniors Bernie Kaplan, Isobel Rothcroft, and Skyler Hawkins are nominated as Legacies; their family pedigrees have assured their membership since birth—even if they’re all keeping secrets that could destroy their reputations. But scholarship kid from Queens Tori Tasso? She’s a surprise nominee, someone no one saw coming. Tori’s never fit in this world of designer bags, penthouse apartments, and million-dollar donations. So what did she do to secure her place?
The night of the Legacy Ball is supposed to be the best night of these seniors’ lives, a night of haute couture, endless champagne, and plenty of hushed gossip.
Everyone expects a night of luxury and excess.
No one expects their secrets to come out.
Or for someone to die trying to keep them hidden.
Publication Date: 25th July
TW: parent loss, drug abuse, alcohol abuse, death, murder, violence, loss, gore, grief, blackmailing, sexism, cheating
My Thoughts:
The Legacies peels back the gilded curtain of wealth and privilege to expose the sickening belly of secrets and scandal lying beneath. It is a delectably dark and bingeable read, perfect for summer.
Jessica Goodman just hits the spot for me with her mysteries – they’re slick, salacious beasts that I just race through. Yet again, the intrigue and pacing were perfect and the characters were deliciously flawed. There is such a gloss of perfection over all of them initially, enshrined in positions of wealth and luxury. They have everything you could ever dream of, or so it seems? As to be expected with Goodman, she breaks down that veneer and every layer beneath it to show them as the complex, charismatic and often cruel people they are beneath. There is so much manipulation and deception going on, with games within games that only become fully transparent by the end of the book. These are people set on destructive paths, with secrets ready to blow up at any given point. However, they are still vulnerable and often relatable, with Goodman allowing them fallibility and nuance. After all, they are still teenagers trying to fully find their place in the world.
The central mystery is also well-crafted and tantalising. You cut between different viewpoints and timelines, trying to establish what has actually happened and slowly uncovering clues from each side of the story. Goodman often contrasts a shocking reveal from the present with some information from the past, which suddenly takes on a whole new significance. In a split second, everything changes. I love books that keep you on your toes like this and Goodman constantly keeps you guessing.
The Legacies breaks down the ivory towers to show a messed up bubble of gilded cages and perfect veneers that mask a world of pain and pretty complicated people.
A Short Book Lover 
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