I do love YA, though I was initially unsure if the book would be too youthful for my taste, but it pleasantly surprised me. The storyline kept me completely captivated, and the ending caught me off guard, which always enhanced my reading experience. The story follows Jess, a high school student whose murder is depicted in her short story. I was hooked throughout the narrative as she tried to unravel the mystery surrounding her death. I wholeheartedly recommend this book!

Fish-Out-Of-Water meets Dark Academia - you get This Book Kills.

This Book Kills is the story of Jess, a scholarship student at an elite academy. When one of the richest students is killed all fingers begin to point to the outsider, they point to Jess. Jess has to help solve the mystery of the murder to clear her name.

This Book Kills is such a good story that shines a light on the pressure for elite academies to maintain a reputation but who are also at the whim of those paying for the education. Having a stark contrast between the rich and the poor highlights just how systemic prejudices can be.

What is truly great about This Book Kills is the pay off. I suspected everybody and I did not figure out who the actual culprit was until the very end. This Book Kills is a great YA Mystery.

This Book Kills by Ravena Guron is available now.

For more information regarding Ravena Guron (@RavenaGuron) please visit her Twitter page.

For more information regarding Usborne Publishing (@Usborne) please visit their Twitter page.

Gripping thriller for YA readers! Well written, great characters... There was nothing I didn't like about this book.

a new favourite YA thriller of mine. the suspense, the twists & turns, cleverly leading the reader to believe something then throw it back in their face - it had me in a cholkhold and also extremely frustrated when i kept getting excited i’d guessed things correctly! fab writing and a fab plot!

Set in an elite English boarding school, Ravena Guron's YA thriller, "This Book Kills," weaves a clever Agatha Christie-style murder mystery around scholarship student Jess Choudhary. As bodies pile up and the killer targets Jess and her friends, she must solve the crime to protect her scholarship. The story, narrated with a self-aware tone, follows Jess's transformation from a wallflower to a self-assured young adult. Guron's fresh and fun approach, coupled with a well-plotted mystery, keeps readers engaged, offering surprises even for those who guess the killer early on.

4.5/5

This Book Kills is a well-told murder mystery set in a boarding school. I've read a few of these, so I did wonder if it would just be the same thing regurgitated, but that's kind of what most books are these days. I did see the ending coming, but the storybuilding and the characterisation made all the build up worth it. I enjoyed all the characters and the way the story was wrapped up nicely for all of them.

Definitely something I would recommend for fans of The Promise Boys and A Good Girl's Guide to Murder.

Another fun and twisty book from Ravena Guron. Much in the vein of many trendy YA murder books (rich kids, poor kid, bad thing happens, poor kid is blamed, rich kids gonna rich kid), I did enjoy the plot overall, and I find Ravena's twisty writing really gripping. Thank you for the opportunity to read this book! I look forward to more.

I seem to be going through a phase for murders set in schools so it was perfect timing when I logged into my NetGalley account to find out I didn't review 'This Book Kills' from late last year. I am so glad I caught up because I really enjoyed this book. Once you get over being introduced to the characters and their unnecessarily complicated names there was plenty of mystery and misdirection to keep me turning the pages.

I know that I am a little more than just out of the age bracket for a young adult triller now but the ending still surprised me. I would have loved this book as a teenager reading on the school bus then well into the night to finish it.

Thank you, NetGalley and the publisher for this copy of the book.

It wasn't a bad book, it just felt like something I should have read while I was younger

A great YA thriller! The characters were very fun.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing an e-ARC copy of this book, in exchange for this honest review.

This Book Kills checks all the boxes for a YA thriller.

Written in the form of a notebook from Jess's POV, This Book Kills immediately captures the attention of the reader as it starts off with a statement that makes the reader wonder what happened. With the murder of one of the students, mysterious texts and pranks from a secret society, Jess also has to deal with being a scholarship student and meeting the expectation at Heybuckle School.
I felt Guron touched on different societal themes and did a great job with the pacing of the story. Just when I thought I nailed the suspect, I was thrown a curve ball and proven wrong.

I loved that a map of the school was included at the beginning of the book. This gives the reader a feel of the setting. Set at a boarding school with a secret society is already a recipe for success, but add mystery and tension, and the story takes on a whole new level.

This book exceeded all my expectations! I did not see that ending coming and was shocked at the final reveal. I liked the friendships that developed throughout the story and loved Jess's character.
This book is perfect for fans of Ace of Spades and One of Us is Lying.

Many thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for gifting me a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Jess a scholarship student at a prestigious private school needs to keep her record clean. But when Hugh Henry Van Boren one of the richest most popular kids at school is murdered in the same way as a character in an essay she wrote Jess finds herself at the centre of a murder investigation.

I really enjoyed this book - the pacing, the voice and the intrigue. This is definitely a book I would have loved as a teenager.

Loved, loved, loved this book!! It kept me guessing until the very end.

It reminded me a lot of the Bayside books by Karen M Mcmanus, although none of the characters felt like stereotypes at all - I really identified with the protagonist as someone who found making friends at school quite difficult.

I finished this book so quickly as I needed to find out the solution to the puzzle - I would highly recommend it.

Younger YA readers will adore this novel.
The highschool setting feels real, nightmare induce-ingly real!

Easy to read, mid paced and great characters

Unfortunately, this was very unsatisfying read. There was zero character progression and serial killer AND a secret society was a bit too much for a one book, imo

This was such an interesting read! I found myself so engrossed in the story, the characters had such incredible arcs, and I can't wait to follow this author's journey!

I really enjoyed this fun YA murder mystery. The premise was great and stood out from some of the other boarding school based murder mysteries in the bookshops right now. I loved the twists and turns, and the interesting array of characters.
As a school librarian, it's so great to have a proper murder story that is not full of more "grown up" content, which means it has to be restricted to older students only.

I don’t read a lot of this genre of books, but it’s still a good one.
I like young adults in general anyway, but being in my twenties I think I probably would have liked it more some years ago.

I am not sure what exactly had me reaching for this book. I am not always a fan of young adult thrillers, and at the time of picking this up, it had been a long while since I had done so.
This is a simple setup. You have a scholarship girl in a fancy school, and she excels at English. She has made only one great friend early on, one who does not seem to care about her background, and they have shared a lot up until the point the story begins - the others seemed to hold her at arm's length.
We find out that the golden boy in the school has been two-timing. This becomes a very dramatic scene in front of everyone, and soon after, he ends up dead. The death occurs exactly the same way as part of a story that Jess (our main protagonist) wrote. The original document seems to be missing as well. To top things off, the secret club in the school seems to have started to amp up its antics.
Under pressure, the school does the thing they find easiest, pick on the scholarship girls. Both of whom were part of the story-writing fiasco.
This spurs Jess into action as she digs into every nook and cranny she can find. In the process, she finds a lot of information on her fellow classmates that she would never have believed, even after all the years they have all been living and studying together.
The ending was unexpected and well-explained. The slow build-up to that point had me wondering a time or two about the possibility, but it was a believable twist.
I liked the author's style of narration and would recommend this to people who appreciate this genre. I would like to try more of her work.
I received an ARC thanks to Netgalley and the publishers, but the review is entirely based on my own reading experience.

I loved this, it was a real page turner and I already have a number of students in mind who will be queuing up for a copy. The gorgeous and poplura Hugh Henry Van Boren is killed at school exactly as outlined in an essay written by fellow students. The essay authors come under suspicion and have to prove themselves by finding the real killer or they lose their scholarship. Throw in a secret society, female antagonism amongst friends and a hint of romance and you'll be reading until 3am..