Recently, I started watching How to Get Away with Murder. Because I am totally untrendy and if by some trick of nature I am somehow participating in something that people at large appreciate, I must do so four years too late in order to keep the world running and not break fundamental laws of world operation, probably.

It’s a very entertaining show! Twisty and turny. Very dark. I’ve gasped a few times. Viola Davis is a national treasure.

That show is a lot better than this book.

It, like this book, follows a group of young people and a murder, and mystery surrounding that murder. It, too, involves steamy romance and social media and endless drama.

But it’s just totally, full-on better at doing all of it. There’s no avoiding it.

That’s not to say that this book isn’t good! It is. Or at least it isn’t bad.

Here’s the thing. It’s the watered-down, YA version of How to Get Away with Murder. Some people prefer those versions! And that’s okay.

If you liked Warcross better than Ready Player One. If you’re more interested in Pretty Little Liars and Riverdale than Mindhunter or Making a Murderer. It’s fine if you are! They’re just two totally different things.

YA murder stuff is frothier. There are YA requisites it has to meet: budding romance; groups of friends; high school drama; usually some sort of impending-future college-slash-career-goals plotline.

It all depends if you want a side of fluff with your murder mystery.

I, personally, don’t. Give me darkness and thrills and creeps and gore. Do not give me baseball drama and romantic miscommunication and phones getting taken away, please. I’m not interested.

But as far as that goes, this book was pretty good at it. It, at the very least, incorporated the drama into the murder and the motive.

The ending was predictable, yes, and sort of messy really, and definitely not creepy or shocking or the things I really want, but it was unique and somewhat creative.

This whole shindig, actually, was much more unique and creative than I expected. I really didn’t not enjoy it, even though I’ve been so busy trying to lock down the “Most Pretentious Person Alive” award while writing this that I may not have had the time to convey that.

I think it’s that I just finished You by Caroline Kepnes. And that’s really just a much better book than this. Unfair standard, though.

Bottom line: If you want young adult sh*t in your thriller and not just thrills, this book is perfect for you. If you’re here for the thrills, there are way, way, way better choices.