Win Lose Kill Die

Ok so, did I enjoy myself? Yeah, I did. This book was an extremely quick read; I blasted through it in about 3-4 hours I think, and the short chapters definitely help with that. It kept the tension high throughout pretty much the entire story, so it was kinda impossible to stop reading at all. I was entertained throughout the whole thing, no matter what my opinions are on the choices the author made.

I could've gone without all the pop-culture references since I feel like they added a level of cheesiness the book really didn't need. I think they were included to play up the whole teenager aspect (since this book is YA) but we could've gone without it with no effect on the story.

Now, as for my gripes with the story. This is all gonna be spoilers.

In the final confrontation with Dr. Patel, I think she was written way too juvenile for how old she was. No adult talks the way she talks; the author transferred over the way the teenagers we speaking to this adult woman and she started coming off as a cartoon villain.

In regards to the whodunit, I don't like that it was Liz. I especially don't like that the main reason she did is because ‘she was crazy!!11!!'. I think that's a tired motivation that's been overused so many times it just doesn't work anymore. Yes, part of her motivation was that she wanted to be Head Girl because she had her own ambitions, but I would've liked it better if they leaned into that rather than ‘ooo she's not right in the head!'

There was also absolutely no indicators or little clues that Liz was the murderer throughout the entire book. I understand wanting to keep the twist a surprise but with this kind of plot device you need to do SOME sort of foreshadowing for it to be truly effective. To think Liz is good the entire book only to plot dump in one of the final chapters and having a quick villain reveal just leaves your readers going “...ok?”. It takes away almost all of the impact.

Overall I had a good time reading this but there were a lot of things it could've done better.