My Review of Lish McBride’s MOST LIKELY TO MURDER

This is my LIGHTLY SPOILERY review of Lish McBride’s Young Adult Thriller novel Most Likely to Murder.

The book is set in Meadowvale, Washington. The primary protagonists are Meadowvale High seniors Rick Hicks and his flamboyantly out-gay best friend Martina Lopez. The two are loners, stoners, and pranksters who’ve generally flown under their social community’s radar.That changes when they’re targeted—alongside several other more popular seniors and one faculty member—in a prank replacing yearbook superlatives with macabre murder forecasts.The senior class and most of the proposed victims are initially annoyed by the prank, which they suspect Rick and Martina of perpetrating. Then the faculty member’s murdered body is dredged from the bottom of a lake, and it grows increasingly clear that the supposed prankster is deadly serious. Clearer still when more students start dying by means exactly like those promised in the grisly superlatives.This galvanizes Rick, Martina, and several of the fast-dwindling number of survivors to organize around finding the yearbook killer before their own vicious superlatives come true.

REVIEW

I wanted to like this book. Its premise—outcast teen besties investigate when a prank yearbook with twisted superlatives becomes someone’s real-life hit list—has all the elements of an iconic YA mystery. Rick and Martina also, on paper, have the raw materials to be gripping YA protagonists. Rick’s personal struggles, Martina’s wit, their natural banter, and their pure friendship through all challenges are, indeed, the book’s highlights. (And might I add how grateful I am that they don’t get together romantically. It’s rare nowadays to get a book or movie or TV series starring two best friends who laugh with each other on the good days and support each other on the worst, all without ruining it by adding sex to their dynamic. Unconditional, abiding friendship is practically a lost art form in today’s entertainment, and I appreciate its depiction here.)

Unfortunately, despite that outstanding setup, the story globally fails to deliver. In fact, those positives that I mentioned earlier are the only things that I truly enjoyed about the book.

The standard formula in modern YA Mysteries and Thrillers usually involves weaving together two stories: a plot-driven narrative surrounding an external conflict and a character-driven narrative surrounding some internal trial for the main character(s). The formula works by always keeping at least one of those narratives in an interesting place that holds audience interest. So if the plot starts to drag, there’s character drama to divert reader attention until it heats back up. And if the character drama starts to drag, there’s spicy plot development to divert reader attention until it resurges.

Unfortunately, neither the character-driven nor the plot-driven stories in this book were compelling.

The only barely memorable characters are Rick and Martina. None of the victims are sympathetic, and I even cheered for one of their deaths. The dialogue often presents as odd and unrealistic. There’s very little character depth—even for Rick and Martina, who are the most fleshed out characters in the story—and what character progression exists is fruit of the lowest hanging sort for YA fiction. Rick is the stereotypical golden-hearted guy with messed-up family. His arc includes learning to accept his sex appeal and learning that it’s okay to rely on others as much as they rely on him. Martina is the stereotypical queer best friend. Her arc includes always being there for Rick and pursuing a litany of love interests until one finally comes across. (For that matter, Martina’s raging sexuality, of which the reader seems to be reminded on almost every page, feels a little forced. She gushes over nearly every named girl her own age in the story, and I wonder if Lish was so intentionally bullish in portraying her sexuality to specifically underscore that Martina and Rick weren’t going to be an endgame couple.)

From a plot standpoint, this book dragged like a rainy Monday. Most scenes felt twice as long as necessary. Moments that should’ve been tense fell flat due to poor pacing. The central mystery itself was less so a mystery and more so a constellation of murders and disparate investigatory schemes connected by the thinnest narrative thread.

The final reveal was an absolute disappointment. A good murder mystery twist should feel surprising but inevitable. When the killer is unmasked, you should be satisfied in a wow-I-missed-the-clues way. Instead, this book’s killer came from nowhere in a wait-that-doesn’t-make-a-lick-of-sense way. Meanwhile, the killer’s motive was thin to the point of virtual laughability. Worse, the reveal was completely disjointed from the emotional threads and character dynamics that had been simmering until then. I honestly expected a more impactful twist involving Rick’s love interest or even two more potential victims who were subtly shown at one point as inexplicably knowing information that only the killer should. Either of those substitute twists would’ve hit harder and made the story feel more cohesive.

My understanding is that Lish McBride is primarily a YA fantasy author and that Most Likely to Murder is her first foray into the Murder Mystery Thriller zone, so I’ll extend her a little beginner’s grace. Still, here’s hoping she vastly improves by the time she makes a second attempt.

TRIGGER WARNING/CONTENT ADVISORY

Most Likely to Murder is definitely for mature teenagers and new adults. It may be a turn-off for younger kids and/or those with religious sensibilities.

There is pervasive foul language. There are homosexual overtones throughout. One consistent subplot involves a gay courtship, and said courtship is consummated rather graphically on page.

Alcohol and marijuana are present, and the main protagonists are stoners who come to school high.

Major storylines revolve around gruesome child murder and its traumatizing effects on other children. 

Toxic behavior in romantic relationships is a minor but existing theme.

MY OVERALL RATING

I give Most Likely to Murder 2.5 out of 5 cronuts.

It’ll do the entertainment trick in an absolute pinch, but I wouldn’t otherwise pick it up.

**Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin Young Readers Group for providing me with the ARC in exchange for my honest review. All opinions expressed are my own.**