The author a self-described “Astronaut Intelligence” teacher prepares kids who might be interested in space travel with what they can expect if they become astronauts—and what they can do to prepare. He reminds readers that space travel for kids is not a very far-off possibility especially when it involves the space around the Moon and Earth—or what Mongo dubs “MEarth.” The book offers a blend of practical advice that readers will need to achieve their astronaut-related goals (such as pursuing STEM courses in school) as well as introductions to technical terms related to space travel including “gravitational sweet spots” known as “Lagrange points.” Mongo also frequently injects humor and helpful tips into his discussions including the idea that even the smallest things can make a big impact: “Real talk future Kid Astronaut: nobody’s going to remind you to shower when you’re floating in a space station. Master the small stuff now because in space the small stuff keeps you alive.” Arumugam’s occasional cartoon illustrations consisting of pen-and-ink sketches with mustard-yellow accents are silly and fun as in an image of a spacewalking astronaut attempting to brush their teeth with their helmet on. Although the frequent QR codes throughout the text—which connect readers to outside interactive materials—may prove distracting for some Mongo’s laid-back casual narrative tone will likely appeal to younger readers. What particularly stands out is the book’s overwhelming sense of optimism for the future. Mongo repeatedly emphasizes that kids have choices—whether they’re deciding what electives to take in school what career path to follow or even how much to participate in their own lives (“Life is always going to life with or without us”).

Society after suffering various crises (including pandemics) has returned from the brink via a carefully controlled male-dominated technocracy called the “SCS.” Only “Upper Sphere” elites have the right to easily marry bear children and serve useful functions as artists planners legislators and the like. “Outcastes” at the opposite end of the social spectrum are simply housed tolerated and kept amused. Former soldier John Wilson—who was raised in reduced circumstances in embattled Chicago distinguished himself in military service in a war against an Islamist empire and was rewarded with a Harvard Law education—has a modest legal practice. But he secretly opposes the establishment’s foundations particularly its religious aspects. Though he cooperates with SCS strictures on “pragmatic” grounds he avoids opportunities for coveted class advancement dwelling in a condo in a committed relationship with a sex robot. After Wilson transgresses an absurd tangle of laws by preventing a woman’s suicide on the waterfront he’s summoned to a hearing to determine his suitability (the surveillance state has been monitoring him) for a dizzying Upper Sphere upgrade. The plotline—which is quite thin though it strengthens in the third act—provides a framework for postulations rants classical allusions arguments about the existence of God and lengthy discussions of ethics justice altruism love and other heady subjects (the author has published numerous works fiction and nonfiction centered around the idea of adopting nihilism as a practical approach to life). Patient readers will ultimately be rewarded with an especially affecting conclusion but first they must navigate the disassociated hero’s dense often circular internal monologues and heady musings: “Struggle and doubt exist and with them Others exist otherwise nothing exists. Without struggle and doubt I would be one with the universe and disappear. I do not want to be one with the universe. I reject it as it rejects me.”

Munro who knows her way around a maze here fits a series of them into a simple storyline about a child who’s taking a trip to visit Grandmother accompanied by Mom and Dad. Written in second person addressed to readers the book starts at Sunnyside Airport and from there we move—never in a straight line!—through departures check-in security airport shops and the food court and terminals into a wonderfully roomy plane interior. At last it’s time to take off: “UP UP AND AWAY!” Large intricate full-color spreads are rendered in Munro’s familiar style not drawn with super-sharp outlines but nevertheless perfectly clear. In addition to the winding mazes each double-page spread includes a challenging list of items to find including (on each spread) “a copy of this book.” Direct instructions (“After Security you enter the FOOD COURT and SHOPS. First get a cold drink”) guides readers through the mazes; an answer key keeps frustration at bay while providing useful and reassuring flying facts. The people depicted are diverse in terms of skin tone and ability; the protagonist never appears (the artwork is depicted from the youngster’s perspective). Whether preparing for a trip or whiling away hours on a flight readers will find this book absorbing and informative.

Victoria Barrón was born in Mexico but was orphaned when she was 8 years old. Her paternal uncle Elias and his wife Marta adopted her and raised her in El Paso Texas. Now she’s an immigration attorney in that city with her own law firm called the Center for Help. In her office she finds an envelope postmarked as coming from Zacatecas Mexico; inside is a mysterious letter from a woman named Clarita Dávila who claims that Victoria has a relative in Zacatecas whom the lawyer needs to see. Victoria soon travels to the small town where a stranger named Eduardo Duarte meets her; he takes her to the Casa del Conquistador where she’s introduced to the frail elderly Doña Antonella Duarte—her maternal grandmother whom she’s never met. She adopted Victoria’s mother Estima when she was small. Eduardo is also Antonella’s grandchild—the son of her oldest son—making him Victoria’s cousin. As the tale unwinds the attorney learns that her grandmother has many secrets. Meanwhile a group of Aztec descendants seeks to reclaim Aztec relics in the hands of collectors. One of these men is Martín Eztli who’s subject to visions and capable of great violence. His hunt for the missing center discs of the Itztia Shield will lead him to Antonella. Hulen’s complex mystical mystery offers multiple twists and turns as Antonella is kidnapped Eduardo is infused with the spirit of a conquistador and Victoria starts hearing the disembodied voice of her deceased mother. The revelation of a secret passageway beneath the Casa del Conquistador and the appearance of an abundance of pivotal secondary characters will keep readers on their toes and graphically violent episodes add a bit of horror to the adventure. There’s also the charming developing relationship between Eduardo and Victoria; while the story explores ancient grievances and contemporary avarice the pair’s romantic possibilities offer intriguing pieces of Mesoamerican and conquistador history and culture.

Eighteen-year-old Josephine Marzynski has had the best opera training available in Boston but to advance in her art she must go to Berlin. “I wanted to learn from the best in the world” she narrates and “the best were German.” Normally it would not be a problem for Josephine to study in her mother’s native land but the year is 1916 and Germany is at war with America’s closest allies. Simply by being an American in Germany Josephine invites suspicions that she’s a spy. She stays with childhood friends of her mother’s the Müllers and she has her cousin Jack Meyers with her to help navigate the cultural divide. Josephine finds herself simultaneously seduced and alienated by the culture of Berlin the city of her operatic dreams and by Gustav von Lüben a captain in the German army whose lungs are permanently damaged from poison gas. She’s just beginning to come to terms with the contradictions of her situation when on April 6 1917 the thing she most dreads comes to pass: The United States declares war on Germany. Josephine decides to abandon her studies and leave Germany as soon as possible but getting back to America turns out to be much harder than she expected. As Daly explains in her author’s note the novel is a fictionalization of a memoir (ghostwritten by Daly’s own grandfather) of the historical Josephine Marzynski. Perhaps for this reason a slightly distracting sense of self-awareness characterizes Josephine’s narration as though she realizes capital-H history is unfolding around her: “I held his gaze my frustration boiling over. ‘Gustav I know my country and we wouldn’t have entered this war without cause. If you think we’ll quit before finishing the job then you don’t know us at all.’” Even so the novel documents a fascinating period of history from an intriguing perspective.

Eleven-year-old Lizabeth “Liza” Gordon is used to moving house; as her grandmother says her dad “was bitten by the gobug when he was young.” This time Liza’s dad aims to start a family gelato business in Greenblossom South Carolina that he’ll call Gordon’s Gelato. Liza and her older brothers Pete and Brad are going to help run the shop. Liza doesn’t want to leave her friends but when they prove to not care about her she says good riddance to the Richmond Virginia area and heads to her new home. It’s worse than she imagined: The new residence is a “rundown bi-level style house” her room is “puss yellow with prune-purple trim” and she’s starting school with only six weeks left before summer vacation. Stepping into her new life she has to figure out how to work in a gelato shop determine whether her new friends actually like her and plan for her 12th birthday. Liza’s dad becomes a contestant on a reality show competing for a grand prize of $1 million which makes things a lot more complicated for Liza but if her dad wins her whole life could change. The novel’s fun and engaging lead character makes the book a captivating read. The supporting characters from Liza’s eccentric dad to the boy who helps out in the gelato shop feel well rounded and unique. Liza is easy to root for especially when everything keeps going wrong for her. Her creative and disgusting gelato flavors nicknamed “Gordon’s Gaggers” are a funny element that adds to the overall charm of the story.

“Four acres steel fence two warehouses three forklifts one-thousand cars and a junkyard dog”; for the temperamental uneducated Harry Saunders his new wrecking yard in the desert was an empire to command. His 9-year-old daughter Robyn wrenched from suburban life in Laguna Beach California warmed up to it more slowly. She began working the junkyard counter as a tween operating phone lines and locating parts despite knowing little about cars. Robyn was befriended by a rough posse of men and Harry even let her drive a forklift once. But her little brother Ryan failed to thrive—he was savaged by the resident pack of guard dogs as a small child and later bonded with the ever-present tweakers selling scrap metal for meth funds. When the teenage Robyn salvaged a battered but stylish 1983 Honda Civic her world opened. She listened to cool music on the radio and visited the ocean instead of attending school; away from the junkyard’s chaotic orbit she explored a more creative path. But as the business lost money her father became increasingly aggrieved Ryan veered off course and Robyn discovered that she could never fully escape her past. Saunders Wilson’s “memoirella” is brief but even when lightly touching on subjects like familial sexual abuse and drug addiction her story has impact. The author’s examination of her family and community grants grace and understanding to all. At restaurants Harry harassed waitstaff and the wrong word could cause him to flip over the dinner table at home—but his savagery obscured the early wound of abandonment. Ryan is a nemesis but also a confidant wilding out with Robyn through the night and eating biscuits and gravy with her at dawn. The setting plays a pivotal role: Robyn left a safe “walled fortress” for a land of “misshapen” houses where the sky loses its “coastal blue tint” and nature—in the form of the Pacific Ocean and Cal State San Bernardino’s forests—helped enable Robyn’s eventual escape.

The table is where this loving Black family enjoys the first meal of the day; it’s where the children do homework and make cookies and where everyone prepares for fish fry Fridays. Extended family shares space here during somber moments such as deaths and on happier occasions including birthdays Kwanzaa and other holidays. Grandpa regales the young protagonist (who narrates) with stories of Mom and Dad’s past as the child listens intently. And when it’s time for Mom to braid the youngster’s hair this too happens at the table. “The process is exhausting for both of us and I sometimes struggle to sit still” but “when she is finished I feel so pretty—and thankful that it’s done.” In her authorial debut Washington relies on the cut-paper collage technique that won her a Caldecott Honor for Choosing Brave (2022) written by Angela Joy. Her images boast bright colors rich textures (the grain of the wooden table is particularly eye-catching) and a level of detail so intricate it’s hard to believe the artist relied on cut paper alone. Her straightforward prose often ripples across the page conveying warmth and visual verve. Photos of Washington’s own family table close out the work.

On the title page a pale-skinned adult clothed in colorful garb stands among a grayscale forest. As the main text starts the adult—now aged but wearing a similar outfit—walks with a youngster apparently a grandchild. Observing and enjoying the vibrant lush natural world around them the narrator reflects on the different places the family has hailed from and paths they’ve taken “in search of the perfect place / To put down our roots / And call home.” Over a few page turns the child (revealed to be the book’s narrator) has grown to adulthood and donning the elder’s satchel explores the forest with the next generation. “I grew here. // This is my community.” As the narrator’s children (who present East Asian like the narrator) swing among the trees and explore the forest our narrator considers the past present and future. With spare but lyrical text Awan’s story celebrates a forest’s transformation and that of a family over generations. Jomepour Bell’s careful illustrations reveal the passage of time: what has changed (a single fox seen earlier eventually is depicted with two kits a butterfly emerges from its chrysalis) and what remains: home and the vibrancy of the forest. The bright visual details reinforce the themes of belonging and time and reward attentive reading.

“The work of leadership isn’t just about building organizations” writes Grossman; “it’s about building people who then create something extraordinary together.” Drawing on the “collective wisdom” of his clients and colleagues in the business sector as well as data amassed by the Harris Poll on behalf of his consulting agency the author argues that the most effective modern leaders balance “emotional intelligence with analytical thinking.” In other words they combine an empathetic encouraging approach with strategic thinking focused on efficiency. While the book’s ample selection of anecdotes from CEOs across numerous businesses lend a personal touch to the work what stands out most is the poll data taken from more than 2000 employees. This research indicates the persistence of antiquated “command-and-control” leadership styles with only one-third of employees willing to call their organization’s leadership “exceptional.” Grossman convincingly uses the Harris Poll data to identify six traits characteristic of exceptional leaders and devotes an entire chapter to each including leading with gratitude fostering an inclusive culture and “communicat[ing] with context.” (The author reports that leaders designated exceptional by their employees were more than seven times more effective at “adjusting their communication to meet employee needs.”) Grossman conveys his research-backed claims in an enthusiastic writing style that makes for an absorbing read rich with real-world examples and commentary from the author’s corporate cohorts. The book boasts a wealth of visual elements such as colorful fonts and high-resolution full-color illustrations diagrams and photographs; occasionally the work feels like a stimulating collection of streamlined infographics. It also reads at times like an extended advertisement for the author’s consulting agency the Grossman Group since the text is full of trademarked phrases references to the author’s other books and QR codes linked to additional products and services.

Zoffness a clinical psychologist here debunks many common beliefs about pain—those held by the general public and doctors alike. For starters Zoffness bemoans that “for a variety of reasons many to do with our profit-driven healthcare system pain medicine remains rooted in the antiquated biomedical model. We continue to be treated as disconnected body parts despite being housed in one hyperconnected body.” Pain she writes is too often viewed as a symptom of some other pathology rather than a condition in its own right. The overarching theme of the book is that the sensation of pain especially pain that endures is influenced by psychological and social factors in addition to widely accepted biological aspects. Zoffness notes that roughly “1.9 billion people around the globe currently live with chronic pain 100 million in the US alone.” She adds that “pain costs the US $635 billion annually in medical costs and lost work productivity.” Practitioners prescribe treatments that might sound alternative or even woo-woo such as breathing exercises and mindfulness. The hard part the author admits is convincing her patients—and here her readers—that connecting physical symptoms with emotional health sometimes sounds too much like pain is all in one’s head. Zoffness backs up her stance with plenty of scientific evidence that’s delivered in understandable language and reinforced with real-life examples. Readers who have chronic pain—or know someone who has it—should find the author’s advice worthwhile. For those who are more familiar with Zoffness’ conception of pain the book can feel a little repetitive even as it provides solid argumentation.

To date Farris has largely published work about being a parent with easygoing humor relatable scribbly characters and a dash of cuteness. This graphic memoir of her time in medical school and residency explores an entirely different world dissecting cadavers and attending in operating rooms but Farris’ gentle pointed comedic sense still suffuses every page. The story begins at its own ending—waddling through a hospital hallway nude in labor with her first child Farris calmly declines a gown—“It’s okay. I work here.” From there she loops back to recount her journey to that moment. Chapters are organized by sections of schooling detailed with a straightforward chart near the book’s beginning. The pre-clinical years are spent in classrooms studying from textbooks and body parts bonding with peers and meeting her future husband outside of the program. The clinical years consist of rotations through specialties like pediatrics surgery and the psychiatric ward where Farris observes a diversity of attitudes toward patients and practice some deeply humane others coldly clinical and a few downright prejudicial. Internship and residency allow her to understand doctoring more holistically which leads Farris to growing confidence relating to patients and increased satisfaction in her work. Finally on graduation day Farris oversleeps and realizes she’s pregnant and her life as a doctor begins. Farris uses her accessible visual style and straightforward tone to explore medical concepts with elegant directness—from cell death to hospital codes from electroconvulsive therapy to palliative care. She is well-versed in cartooning as communication and it’s refreshingly clear that she prizes comprehensive communicative care in her day-to-day work as a physician as well.

For six years Sasha has lived in Haven the underground society built to withstand nuclear war. Since the war since her family’s deaths since discovering she doesn’t get sick like everyone else does Sasha’s life has been full of death and overfull with grief. While working in the Ward Haven’s limited hospital she stays with patients as they die. When Tristian Hayes a unit commander of the Force ends up as her patient hanging on for his life she pleads for him to stay alive. He does—upending her bleak ritual as Death’s Angel. Hoping to forget everything she’s seen and to numb the pain Sasha leaves the Ward in favor of a role with a pickax expanding Haven’s tunnels. Tristian fiercely determined and stunningly stubborn recruits Sasha to the Force for a vital mission aboveground. The story picks up steam with Sasha’s intense training to become the medic for Tristian’s tightknit unit. Together they bear the weight of their unit’s survival and all that’s left of humankind. While in training Sasha struggles to discern friends and enemies but nothing is as challenging as facing her own demons. In this prequel to her debut novel Conform (2025) Sullivan tries to accomplish a lot with both the worldbuilding and plot machinations resulting in a convoluted story and flattened characters. The plot doesn’t have a satisfying payoff but the romantic tension between Sasha and Tristian will keep readers engaged.

Some still doubt that the son of a glovemaker who never left England could have created the imaginative universe we behold in the plays and poems. Amussen a historian at the University of California Merced writes a social history of England in the late-16th century to affirm that a man of the theater a highly literate poet an acute observer of daily life and quite simply a great literary genius could and did live to create the great works that traveled under his name. Early modern London had everything: travelers from abroad artisans the rich the poor the powerful the meek. Many schools offered far more than they do today. A boy in his teens would have been taught the classics of the ancient world the history of England and enough Latin (if not other languages) to navigate the libraries and booksellers of Queen Elizabeth’s age. Shakespeare was surrounded by scholars and artists and musicians and poets of skill and learning. His plays were performed by the greatest actors of the time. His poems were dedicated to some of the most powerful aristocrats of the age. He did not have to visit Verona to imagine Juliet’s balcony. He did not need to be born to furs and finery to give voice to kings. During his life Shakespeare was known for his ambition and his range. After his death the publication of the First Folio edition of his plays cemented his reputation. “There is no mystery about who wrote Shakespeare’s plays” Amussen writes. “There is nothing in the plays or in Shakespeare’s life that is incompatible with what we know of the man from Stratford.” The case is closed the author maintains and we can love and live inside his work without doubt.

Following the untimely deaths of her beloved parents just a few years apart focused determined Liliana Chamberlain hides out from state authorities scraping by in her family’s apartment focusing on getting to her 18th birthday in May and keeping her grades up for her full-ride college scholarship. But her estranged maternal grandparents’ lawyer—who was her mother’s close childhood friend—suddenly arrives with news: Liliana’s billionaire grandparents disowned her mom when she ran off with Liliana’s dad as a pregnant teen but now they want to send Liliana to her mother’s alma mater Westdale Academy. Readers will be swept along with this engaging over-the-top account of a school that’s filled with a diverse group of glittering teens. Chemistry immediately sparks between Liliana and two love interests: bisexual Theo Dubois whose mom is a famous actor and brooding but kind Maddox Moreno the son of a tech giant. She decides to run for Optima an elite society that accepts one student per year. While readers will likely pick up that Liliana is in danger well before she does they’ll still career along with the rollicking trope-filled twists and turns that continue to the very end of this boarding school adventure. Liliana and Theo are cued white and Maddox presents Latine.

It’s typically American Johns Hopkins musicologist Celenza notes that rebelling colonials adopted the derisive British song “Yankee Doodle” as a badge of pride. But a true anthem was wanted and it came in the War of 1812 (which “we tend to forget…began as an act of US aggression”): the “Star-Spangled Banner” written by a lawyer (and slaveholder in the “land of the free”) who borrowed the barely singable tune from a British men’s club. It might have been a handier ditty such as “My Country ’Tis of Thee” (its tune borrowed from “God Save the King”) or “Hail Columbia” but alas no. Not long after emancipation the formerly enslaved and their descendants found an anthem of their own in “Lift Every Voice and Sing” with its resonant cadences (“Lift every voice and sing / Till earth and heaven ring / Ring with the harmonies of Liberty…”) a song that deserves wider circulation outside the African American church community. Other songs in Celenza’s roster speak to other aspirations of freedom: George Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” which “captured the mechanistic beat of modern life”; the collected works of Duke Ellington blending jazz with the European classical tradition; Abel Meeropol’s antilynching ballad “Strange Fruit” as sung by the great Billie Holiday who ended her set with it and left the stage immediately after leaving her audiences stunned by the force of her delivery; Jerome Robbins’ musical West Side Story originally meant to tell the story of immigrant Eastern European Jews in New York and seized upon by politicians to denounce juvenile delinquency; and of course that great delinquent Bob Dylan whose folk anthem “Blowin’ in the Wind” Celenza wryly notes offers “an answer that is equally evasive and profound” like the author himself. Celenza’s selections extending into the era of Hamilton aren’t unexpected but she has something fresh to say about all of them.

Basil Theriot is the only one who can see ghostly G’pere at his funeral. In this slow-burn story she follows his vague directions trying to determine what G’pere needs from her. Meanwhile her family stresses over their restaurant’s signature dish seafood-stuffed mirlitons; her father taking over for executive chef G’pere can’t figure out the secret ingredient. Basil chafes against expectation that she’ll take over the restaurant someday—she knows the sacrifices involved and she doesn’t even like Cajun food. Basil uses her school’s upcoming Career Day presentations some fibs and the assistance of her Creole-Italian best friend Tommy Spizale as cover for reconnecting with her family’s Cajun roots through visits with G’pere’s friends (a swamp tour airboat captain a shrimper and a coastal scientist). The outings allow New Orleans and Louisiana’s Central Wetlands to shine as key characters. In the climax Basil who’s found her environmentalist passion faces consequences for the lies she’s told and the ways she’s treated Tommy during her single-minded quest. The plot threads come together neatly and the character arcs are thematically satisfying. The book oversimplifies distinctions between Cajun identity which is framed as white and Creole which is described as Black or mixed race (but “considered Black” in the U.S.) a dichotomy that erases Indigenous heritage and real-world complexities. Indigenous peoples are mentioned in a high-quality author’s note.

When her grandfather gets sick Madeline Andersen takes leave from her job at Le Tableau Bleu in Los Angeles to help run her family bakery in the touristy Danish-themed town of Solvang California. When he dies she decides to stay on to help Grandma Ruth who can’t bake to keep the place going. It takes a while for people to warm up to her French pastries but business continues to improve. Even so her business improves more than her social life especially once Mallory a rude customer competes with her in a local baking contest and accuses her of stealing her éclair recipe. Even though Madeline wins the contest the victory comes with a load of problems. When Ruth and Madeline find Mallory’s body in the alley behind the bakery the rumor mill paints them as murderers. Madeline has established a friendship with good-looking Det. Ashton who’s known Ruth for years but they’re still suspects and she decides that a bit of independent sleuthing might help prove them innocent. Meanwhile Madeline discovers she’s being followed possibly by a smitten teenager who leaves her gifts possibly by someone else who leaves cryptic notes. Although Ash assures her he’s on the case Madeline is both fearful and bold in her attempts to find clues that will lead to Mallory’s killer. Mallory was not a nice person and Madeline continues to dig up possible suspects but her lack of control may put her on a collision course with a killer.

Eighteen-year-old Natalie’s Deaf family owns the Nielsen Family Deaf Center in Seattle where they teach ASL. But Natalie’s father was the heart of the place and since his death things have been going downhill. Miraculously Natalie is offered a job that pays well enough to save the center—but it involves going on tour with boy band DAYDREAM and teaching their obnoxious frontman Felix Song ASL. Felix has never been a motivated ASL student despite his little sister’s having degenerative hearing loss. On tour Natalie bonds with the boys gets a peek at the darker side of the music industry and discovers that Felix may not be quite so annoying after all. This fun breezy read will appeal to romance lovers followers of boy bands those with a connection to the Deaf community and fan fiction readers (DAYDREAM’s fans share their stories on the site AO3). Alongside the romance Langford incorporates elements of Deaf culture and community and touches on learning disabilities. These moments while celebrating Deaf culture and disabled joy sometimes read like clunky infodumps. The author portrays different approaches to communication realistically and without value judgments. Natalie’s complex relationship with her mother is given room to breathe and avoids a too-neat ending. Natalie is cued white and New Zealand immigrant Felix is of Korean descent.

Social outsiders Rick Hicks and his best friend Martina Lopez just need to get through senior year—and hopefully along the way they won’t get into any fistfights with classmates or be expelled. Maybe they’ll even find girlfriends and avoid being murdered. That final task soon becomes their primary assignment in this steadily suspenseful and occasionally gory thriller. Soon after school starts the previous year’s yearbooks arrive and everyone discovers a shocking prank: Someone replaced the yearbook superlatives with descriptions relating to death (“Zara Moxley Most Likely to Choke on Her Own Words”). Rick and Martina appear as “Homecoming’s Cutest Corpses.” When the body of grouchy guidance counselor Mr. Stephens (“Most Likely to Sleep with the Fishes”) is pulled out of a local lake the other potential victims team up to find out who’s behind the gruesome stunt. Before they can solve the case a few of the amateur sleuths meet their predicted creepy bloody or strange ends. McBride slowly unravels the suspects and their motives building up to a cinematically dramatic conclusion. White-presenting Rick’s non-murder-related concerns—his family’s financial struggles his growing romantic feelings for classmate Nika Page and his ride-or-die friendship with Martina (who’s cued Latine)—form the story’s emotional core through which readers experience Meadowvale High’s horrific happenings.