Jess, a scholarship student at an exclusive boarding school, writes a short story about a murder. When Hugh, one of the 'popular kids,' is murdered in the same way as the story, it is down to Jess to prove who the killer was, or she'll lose her scholarship.
I really liked this story and it would be suitable from 10 upwards. The concept was well thought out and of course there was a twist at the end. The middle didn't quite maintain the suspense for me but the end made up for that. I loved the QR code to review all the suspects and chance to make your guess before the big reveal.

A fresh YA mystery novel with a cast of wealthy students!
Well paced and kept my attention well, read in one day while on holiday!

This Book Kills is a fun, light (although murderous!) mystery set in an elite boarding school. The kind of elite where not only do they differentiate between rich and poor, but old money and new money. It is a story of power, deception and manipulation. It is such a fascinating premise; the idea of someone staging a murder using a story you wrote as inspiration is truly chilling. Despite this brilliant setup, it didn't fully grip me, mostly due to the characters' behaviour. I understand they are teenagers, but they can be pretty oblivious and frustrating, making me want to roll my eyes on occasion. I enjoyed Jess as our protagonist and the many interweaving storylines.

Recommended for fans of YA mystery.

This book has so many 5* reviews so I was super excited to get going with it.
However, I really did not enjoy it - I know it's not a popular opinion based on the reviews on Goodreads, but this one wasn't for me.

I know that this book is YA, and usually this doesn't deter me, and I can enjoy the books anyway - but this book just felt so so young. The themes the book were so immature and really not a big deal that I found myself rolling my eyes a lot. The students in the book were just too privileged and so wrapped up in their own lives that it made me dislike them and therefore I didn't root for them and didn't really care about the plot and what happened to them.

I was excited by the premise of this book. I loved boarding school stories in my youth, and more recently I have enjoyed Holly Jackson’s ‘Good Girl’s Guide to Murder’ series. I thought this would be in a similar vein.

The novel starts promisingly, and actually the ending is great too! Unfortunately, I did rather lose tension in the middle section. I think perhaps the overlap of mysterious secret society, unsolved hit and run and serial killer was a bit much and led to a rather convoluted web that took way too long to unravel.

Perhaps I’m just not the target audience, but it wasn’t for me.

The wave of thriller/murder mysteries in YA shows no sign of slowing down. This Book Kills has an intriguing idea - Jess has managed to inadvertantly inspire a murder, and now she needs to figure out the murderer quickly before she's killed, too - and the execution mostly holds up.

I loved the group of friends Jess gradually gathered around her as the story went on. Good use of Found Family makes me weak at the knees, and this is a wonderful example of different kinds of people coming together over time.

However, I didn't think the tension was quite what it could have been given what was happening in the story. That's a minor gripe though and I'm sure other readers won't have the same problem.

A great read I will definitely be recommending to other readers.

I received an E-ARC with a request for my honest review.

This YA mystery is set at private school Heybuckle School and follows Jess Choudhary a scholarship student. Along with another student as an assignment she completes a short murder mystery story.

Suddenly Hugh Henry Van Boren, a popular student is found murdered. The killing style is very similar to Jess’s story, which brings her under suspicion but also allows the suspect list to be narrowed for Jess as she tries to work out who is the murderer.

With a secret society in the school adding to the mystery and death threats, Jess starts to turn to some unexpected students to help her solve the clues.

Will Jess solve the murder? Is Jess in danger?

This YA mystery is suspenseful throughout as the likely suspects keep shifting between the students, and the underlying added storyline of the secret society.

I liked that it was in a school setting, and that as it was a private school it also showed the prejudices against the different types of students that attended. There was bullying involved which went too far at times but helped build up the suspense and to the conclusion.

There is also a section where you can have a go at putting your own ideas forward for the murderer, I must admit I didn’t work it out.

Overall, a suspenseful YA mystery where a private school turns deadly.

I liked this. Some of the names were overly ridiculous, but I guess that goes with the private school theme lol.
I think the plot was maybe a bit too misleading at times, there was a lot of info dumping that genuinely had nothing to do with anything. I put in my guess about 1/4 of the way in, and ended up being right which was rewarding lol. I didn’t guess the motives etc so there was still things I was like huh? to in the end.
A fair amount of the ending was a bit far fetched but that is to be expected in most thrillers, not just YA. Overall I enjoyed being along for the ride.

Hugh Henry Van Boren, a popular student at Jess's boarding school is murdered. The weird thing is the way he died matches a short story she wrote! She must uncover the true murderer, sooner rather than later for she is probably next...

The book starts with Jess informing us that this book is her writing what happened in a notebook as instructed by her mother. Her mother threatens her with The Slipper. And with that you get the vibe of Jess's POV. Snarky with an endearing quality, vulnerability with determination. But luckily it doesn't feel like a journal. It feels like we're along for the ride, that it is happening to us along with the protagonist, and that is the magic of the writing here.

The premise is great, and the I-have-one-friend protagonist (always a soft spot for loner characters) caught smack in the middle of it with her proximity to the victim and his circle, plus the anonymous text from the murderer thanking her for the inspiration. These forcing her to deal with the murder of the popular kid is a wonderful storytelling tool cleverly used for themes like prejudice, the trappings of so-called prestige, entitlement, plus emphasizing the major differences with the other students. The haves and have-nots.

Containing the drama you expect and want from a boarding school setting, set on fire by a murder. The growing sensationalism, how everyone suddenly thinks of themselves as top-notch detectives and the rumor mill are depicted quite well. The buildup is superb as the plot unfolds, as is the character development. The investigative prowess shown, or the attempt at it, is realistic, with misfires and awkwardness, wrong trails, right ones, suspense and more than a few suspects.

I have never encountered a book before that gave me the chance to act detective right before the actual solution by presenting a page with a QR code that has a recap and the chance to send in your theories to win swag! Personally, I was on the right track but never could have guessed the whole story.

Ooohh those gasp-inducing twists and OMG revelations, and the honesty of the aftermath that had other of its own discoveries, some even heart-jolting. An amazing murder mystery with an ending that brings everything together so beautifully, you will want to applaud. When you are still smiling silly minutes after you have finished and maybe want to scream with happiness you know you've got a winner.

Are you ready for the twists and turns of this gripping boarding-school murder mystery?

Jess Choudhary feels out of place in her very white, very rich boarding school. She's there on a scholarship, and if she breaks the rules she won't escape with a telling-off – unlike the paying rich kids, she'll lose her funding and be sent home. Jess is determined to succeed, to stay out of trouble, and escape the attentions of the notorious Regia Club, the school's mysterious secret society. But when one of the richest students in school is murdered, Jess finds herself at the centre of the investigation. Whoever killed Hugh Henry Van Boren used one of Jess's short stories as their inspiration, and the crime scene matches her description perfectly. When Jess begins receiving death threats, she realises she needs to figure out who the murderer is before she loses her scholarship, takes the blame for murder – or becomes the next victim.

It's a brilliant premise, and a great way to start a murder mystery. There are plenty of clues woven into the story, and a whole lot of red herrings and missing pieces for Jess and her friends to puzzle over. Jess is a perfect narrator – someone smart enough to figure out what happened to Hugh, but limited in her ability to investigate the murder. She can't afford to break any rules, and she doesn't have many friends among the privileged rich kids. No one is beyond suspicion – staff, students and outsiders all feature in her investigation, and she uncovers plenty of scandalous secrets about her classmates as she searches for the truth.

It's an addictive read – I found it hard to put down, and the more confusing the clues became, the more determined I was to figure out the mystery. I didn't guess whodunnit, even though I was convinced I had solved the murder, but the ending makes perfect sense when you get there. It's a satisfying story with an intriguing and complex setting, and Jess is an interesting and engaging narrator. Perfect if you're looking for a new bookish obsession!

Mystery stories seem to be the current trend in teen and YA fiction so I feel like I've read alot this year. I liked the humour and quirkiness in this one, not to mention the British. Characters felt fresh and I only guessed the twist towards the point in happened. A strong debut that I will be recommending to my students.

This is a corker of a book and I really enjoyed it!. I hardly read YA books but the synopsis on this one sounded so good I had to read it!.
So, we meet the female protagonist called Jess and she's at an expensive boarding school after getting a scholarship to study there. She only has one friend so she's left alone if Clem is busy with her other activities .She tells the reader all about students, good or bad and that made me chuckle but felt immediately deeply involved in the story.
Jess's creative writing class sets an assignment to write a murder story in pairs. She is with a girl called Summer, who isn't her greatest fan, so they argue over content, finer details etc until finally a story is made. Then all is overshadowed by the news that another student from their creative writing class has been murdered. His name was Hugh, and he was Clem's secret boyfriend who also had another girlfriend called Millie, who had just found out about him and Clem. She had a bit of a fight with Clem whilst playing lacrosse. Hugh wasn't bothered one bit it seemed while everyone else watched from the window whilst in class!!. Millie was relentless in letting people see her anger and where it was aimed!!. The finer details.of the murder scene were revealed and it was a complete double of Jess and Summer's story!. Jess then gets a text thanking her from the killer!!. . She's scared of the repercussions from this, and that people may think she's the killer...... The story continues with more events and other characters, some of which are red herrings to make working out the killer a bit harder!.
I did enjoy this story and found all the characters memorable for lots of reasons!!. It was well written and was great at the end as the author asks you if you've worked out who the killer was and tells the story of why this murder happened. Great idea as you really feel more involved with the story. It was really well planned and thought out and made reading it brilliant!!.
I received a free ARC book for an honest review.
#Netgalley, #ravenaguron, #usbourneya..

This novel was great fun and written in a very appealing way. I love murder mysteries and usually fail miserably in finding the murderer, this was directed at teens and young adults, so I thought I might stand a chance, it could possibly be easier, but no, the standard of writing and the scattering of clues was so ingenious, at one stage, you believe all the characters were guilty!!
Hugh Van Boren, a rich and popular student has been found dead at his Boarding school, and Jess Choudhary, a scholarship student falls under suspicion, due to the fact, she wrote a short story as an English project, wherein the victim dies in the exact way as Hugh. Then the murderer sends a message thanking Jess for the inspiration!
The obvious question is, who read the story, and what possible motive was behind this murder? Is the aim to get Jess thrown out of school, or what secrets was Hugh hiding? Being set in a select boarding school, we have secret societies that set challenges and tasks for pupils to perform if they want to join the elite group of students, frankly, these privileged elite, are no better than entitled bullies, but the pressure to be part of the crowd is quite intense. Boyfriend and girlfriend relationships are all encompassing at this stage of life, and the duration can be fleeting, hormones run rampant, throw in some jealousy and envy, and it’s a toxic cauldron of emotions in this school.
When the body count increases, and the Police appear to have no clues, the whole mystery is handed over to the reader! Now that is novel and was rather alarming for me, I panicked when I realised I had no ideas of the killer, I had plenty of clues, and before me were only blank pages!!
I hastily scrolled forward, and found answers and clues I hadn’t recognised, Phew!! Thank goodness for that!
A lovely book to read and participate in, I’m sure teens and young adults will enjoy this. My grandchildren are uppermost in my mind when I read this genre of book, so I will be recommending this to them.
My thanks to Netgalley and Usbourne publishers for this copy, freely given in return for my honest review. I will leave reviews to Goodreads and Amazon when the pages are open. A five star read.

A really enjoyable read where you follow Jess as she tries to figure out who has committed the murder at her boarding school .. and she really needs to find out because they used her story as inspiration!
I thought the story was fast paced and full of little twists and turns. I did figure out who the murderer was but it didn't stop me enjoying the story and I loved that there was a pause and note space for the reader to work out who the murderer was, it makes it so much more interactive which I think younger readers will enjoy.
Overall I thought the story was great, characters developed and the pacing was perfect.
Thank you to NetGalley and Usborne for the early copy!

This Book Kills is an expertly plotted rollercoaster YA debut novel. It is perfect for any murder-mystery loving fans out there. It is packed full of twists and turns, it is incredibly fast-paced and will keep you on the edge of your seat. I cannot recommend it enough.

When Hugh Henry Van Boren, one of the richest and most popular kids at Jess Choudhary’s school, is found dead, the entire school wants to know who the murderer could be. So, when the news comes out that Hugh died in the exact way a character in the short story Jess wrote died, she finds herself at the centre of the investigation. Then, Jess receives an anonymous text thanking her for the inspiration. She needs to solve the mystery urgently or she could end up just like Hugh.

This Book Kills had me hooked within a couple of chapters. It is such an addictive read that I could not put down. I am a big fan of the main character, Jess. She is slightly awkward and shy and often feels like she isn’t worthy of her scholarship place at Heybuckle. I love how no matter what was happening, she stayed true to herself and had a truly refreshing voice. All of this definitely helped her to stick to her goal of uncovering the killer and what their motive for murder was.

I appreciated that Jess isn’t ashamed of her less privileged background and understands the struggles her and her mum have been through. She has a close bond with her mum and clearly wants to make her proud by keeping her scholarship place at Heybuckle. Jess’ relationship with her mum is completely different from the toxic relationships the majority of her peers have with their parents which was lovely to see.

I loved the other characters that Jess teams up with to solve Hugh’s murder. I especially liked Summer who is a fellow scholarship student and her determined personality. Also, Tommy who is Jess’ longtime crush and Hugh’s best friend. I adored reading their sweet little interactions and seeing them grow together.

The mystery in this book is so well done and packed full of twist, turns, secrets and scandals. There are a couple of red herrings in there to throw you off the truth which I appreciated as it kept me on edge. I found myself suspecting every single character in this book. I did figure out who the murderer was before the big reveal. But, I was still hooked and wanted to know the answers to all the little questions I had.

Ravena Guron is definitely an author to watch and one I will be picking up more books by in the future. She had me on the edge of my seat all the way through This Book Kills and I can only imagine her books are going to get better and better.

Overall, This Book Kills is a gripping, fast-paced and thrilling murder mystery. It discusses themes of institutional corruption, elitism and racism whilst providing readers with an incredibly satisfying ending. I cannot recommend this one enough!

I always enjoy reading mysteries since I'm so bad at solving them. This one was really unpredictable too. The mystery was well-held throughout but the reasons felt really petty. It seemed illogical to me for a teenager to murder someone for such reasons. The boarding school was portrayed as an elitist school but even that was more of a tell rather than a show. Unless the writing kept repeating that they were all super rich, the characters would have just come off as snobs. There were a lot of things that seemed forced as well.

Not my fav read but still enjoyable i love a good who done it murder mystery but this did not seem to grip me like others it was fun but took me a while to finish it .... prefer one of us is lying to this but still worth a read if you like that sort of book thanks for letting me review this book.

I really wanted to like this book - from the description it sounded right up my street. Murder mystery, YA, boarding school, secret societies.

Unfortunately, the execution was poor. I found it trite, the writing was disappointing, the theories ludicrous, the ending obvious and the characters two dimensional. I was fairly bored and found I didn’t care whodunnit.

It felt extremely derivative, and there was nothing in it that I’d not seen before. At the end of the day, there are just far far better versions of this story.

Not one for me I’m afraid

Earlier this year I did a Will I Like This Book post on This Book Kills. It was a book that I was curious about, though I wasn’t hugely excited. But when I saw it available to review on NetGalley… Well, I just had to, didn’t I? I knew I wanted to read it for certain, and I wanted to see whether I was right about my opinions.

Jess Choudhary is a scholarship student at a well-esteemed boarding school and is under strict rules to behave herself. Jess always has, but one day when Hugh Henry Van Boren winds up dead, she receives a text message thanking her for the inspiration for how he was murdered. Jess knows she didn’t do it, but she also knows that if she wants to live, she needs to solve this mystery herself.

I said in my sample review that this book started before the murder. And it did, but fortunately, it didn’t take too long for the murder to happen. The story builds up a narrative of who Hugh was and why he might have wound up dead. But the actual reason isn’t revealed in this section. I understand why this was done, and it introduces the characters and story pretty well.

The writing was very much something that I enjoyed. The style is quite chatty, and the reason is that this book is supposed to be Jess writing down the events of what happened. There was one specific paragraph that I can think of where that really shined. But a lot of the time, I did forget that this story was being told that way. Still, I found this book super easy to read when I did pick it up.

But that’s where the problems begin. I didn’t really want to pick this book up during the first half.

The stakes in this book felt so low. Jess was receiving death threats, and yet it didn’t feel like she was really at risk. At least, not during the first half. The reasons for that are explained by who the killer is later on, but that was still a major issue. Thrillers are supposed to be exciting page-turners. They’re supposed to be heavy on intrigue. But it just felt like nothing was happening.

Around halfway through, the book did get better. I found myself wanting to carry on. There was also a pause in the proof, just before the killer was revealed, where you’re encouraged to guess who the killer was. That was a pretty fun addition, and I liked that Usborne did that. You could even get the opportunity to win some swag with your guess if you wish. I got it right, as it was obvious by that point. But that’s not necessarily a bad thing. There were some good red herrings throughout and some side mysteries. But honestly? I was very meh over who the killer turned out to be.

So, this book was very much a mixed bag. I didn’t mind it, and, okay, this was a debut, so it didn’t need to be perfect. It’s nice to come across some new UKYA. and I definitely need to be reading more of it. So I will be picking up whatever Ravena Guron comes up with yet. But I don’t think I’ll be quite as excited.

This is an ingenious story bringing a new angle to murder mysteries. A boy with the ostentatious name Hugh Henry Van Boren is murdered at his posh, mixed sex boarding school. One of his group is a scholarship student from a quite different background, Jesminder Choudhary, a girl from an African family, known as Jes. She becomes an early suspect because there is an apparent connection between a short story she wrote in school and Hugh’s murder. This leads her to start investigating for herself. As the story unfolds, surprises await the reader. The conclusion to the murder is well handled but even better is the emergence of Jes as a confident adult. This is an unusual book which challenges the reader to get to the solution first. I recommend it.