REVIEW: Most Likely to Murder by Lish McBride
Yearbook superlatives turn deadly in this darkly funny young adult thriller.
The rumor mill has never been kind to Meadowvale High seniors and best friends Rick and Martina, labeling them outcasts (sure), stoners (no comment), and pranksters (okay, this one’s fair). But for the most part, they have successfully flown under the radar.
That is, until they’re targeted in a prank that replaces yearbook superlatives with grisly forecasts of student and faculty deaths. Sure, Rick and Martina were never going to be voted Most Likely to Succeed . . . but Homecoming’s Cutest Corpses? Thanks for the cute, no thanks on the corpse.
At first, the senior class is annoyed by the prank. But when the body of Mr. Stephens, Most Likely to Sleep with the Fishes, is dredged from the bottom of a lake, suspicions arise that something truly sinister is going on. And as more people turn up dead in the exact ways the yearbook promised, it becomes clear someone’s killing off the student body one page at a time.
Now Rick and Martina must find the yearbook killer before their vicious superlative comes true. So much for surviving high school without drawing attention. Now Rick and Martina just want to survive.
TW/CW – two characters discuss their mental health issues and therapy, parents worry about their children in danger, two characters had a parent abandon the family, dead bodies are described.
Dear Ms. McBride,
Yikes, it’s been awhile since I read your Uncanny duology about paranormals in Washington State. That series is mainly about adults but I dove into the chance to read your YA book with absolutely no fantasy or paranormal in it. It did vaguely remind me of long gone high school days and, now that I’ve finished it, if I have a dream tonight about walking into class and realizing I haven’t studied for the final exam, it’s all on you.
Rick and Martina are “enjoying” eating lunch when a kerfuffle erupts in the lunchroom while yearbooks are being handed out. When people start looking at R&M, they take more notice. They have a history of pulling pranks at school and someone has switched out the captions of some photos. You know – “the most likely” predictions. Only these predictions aren’t who’s going to be famous. They’re ones about who’s going to die and how.
When first one and then another person on the page dies, Martina and Rick feel like they’ve got bullseyes on their backs and accusing faces glaring at them while they walk down the halls at school. Most of those with the ‘honor’ of being on the hit list band together in a chat and meet to discuss “WTH?” and “who’d want to kill me??” Then another student dies. And then another. They’ve got to figure out who, what, where, when, and most importantly why before they’re all dead.
Yes, yes it’s high school again. The lingering smells down the hall, the lockers crammed with textbooks, beating the bell to class, good teachers, bad teachers, ducking out to the parking lot to escape. Ah, I remember it – a little. But thankfully no one ever pulled a prank like predicting how I was going to die. It’s too weird, right? No one would … only someone does.
Martina and Rick are wonderful besties only there’s no romance as Martina has her eyes fixed on someone else and Rick secretly longs for brainiac Nika. I loved M&R’s kidding, teasing, and having each other’s backs. Their families are also fantastic although no one is perfect and Rick has had to take on far more responsibility than he should since his *&%$ father skipped out, taking all the family savings. The Beast is a character in and of itself.
Some of the named students play smaller roles than others. At first a few try to brush off the whole thing. Not all of them get along and one, he’s a downright #$!#%. But when things get scarier, they decide to look into things on their own rather than just waiting for the next shoe to drop or for the police to figure things out. After all, the ones in danger know the school, know the students, know the gossip, know the history.
I did kind of wonder how all this would be handled in real life because the police don’t really figure much into the investigation. With transportation and phones, the students communicate, travel together, and use their knowledge of the school to reasonably try to get to the bottom of all this. There are things that need to be pointed out to them by adults but they don’t do stupid things. Until at the very end, when I wondered why not one of five students with a phone bothered to call 911. Okay so it did heighten the suspense and gave the villain some monologuing time.
After a fast start, the pace slows somewhat in the middle. And though I liked the initial banter, the scenes with the students bonding, Rick and Nika gradually working out their mutual interest even though a lot of time is spent with Rick getting dating lessons, and watching Martina give no fucks, some of the investigation felt scattered and a bit like fluffy page count. The final reveal, while ultimately understandable and not that far out of the blue, still felt like a bit too much of a surprise. But I still wanted to know who dunnit and why and enjoyed watching all the family dynamics. B-
~Jayne
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