Murder On A School Night by Kate Weston
Sep. 10th, 2023 10:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
quippeThe Blurb On The Back:
There’s never a good time to find a dead body. Especially not when you’re trying to kiss your crush.
All Kerry wants to do is stay at home with her rom-coms and strict retainer schedule. Instead, her BFF Annie has roped her into going to their first sixth-form party to investigate who’s cyber-bullying Heather, the most popular girl in school.
On the cusp of kissing the hottest guy in school, Kerry discovers the body of Heather’s second in command suffocated with a menstrual cup. Within days, another student turn up dead, this time with a sanitary pad across the eyes. Now Annie and Kerry are officially on the case to stop the menstrual murderer … period.
16-year-old Kerry and her best friend Annie live in the small English village of Barborough. Kerry is an introvert who is trying to cope with her doctor mum’s successful social media accounts about menopause and women’s issues while lusting after the school football captain Adam Devers and maintaining a strict retainer schedule. In contrast Annie is obsessed with being popular and desperate to get in with Les Populaires (aka the coolest people in their school).
Les Populaires are led by Heather (a social media influencer with a large number of followers who is dating Adam Devers and whose parents own a menstrual products business but whose father died in a speedboat accident while on a business trip to the Bahamas the previous year), her best friend Selena, and twins Colin and Audrey. None of them have ever shown so much as an awareness that Kerry and Annie even exist until on the first day of the school year when Heather approaches Annie and accuses her of being behind an Instagram account set up in the name of Heather’s late father, accusing Heather of having a secret.
Seeing a way to get in with Heather - and more importantly, a way into the exclusive party that Heather’s holding that night - Annie volunteers to find out who’s running the account. Initially reluctant to be dragged along, Kerry brightens up at the party when she bumps into Scott, who has just started at her school after moving to Barborough from Manchester with his mum. But what seems to be the beginning of a possible romance suffers a horrendous set-back when Kerry and Scott stumble on the body of Selena, who appears to have been suffocated with one of the menstrual cups manufactured by Heather’s mum’s company.
Unbelievably, Detective Inspector Wallace and his sidekick, Detective Inspector Collins seem to think that it’s an accident. Annie and Kerry are determined to prove them wrong, but their investigation reveals long buried secrets and it’s not long before other deaths follow …
Kate Weston’s YA humorous murder mystery is a genuinely funny affair whose main characters wear their feminism on their sleeves as they navigate the perils of unpopularity, first romance and murder. I loved the relationship between Annie and Kerry and the romance element plays out neatly so it’s a shame that the mystery kinda loses momentum in the final quarter and didn’t quite work for me. That said, I’d definitely check out Weston’s other work.
I really enjoyed the humour in this book. The dialogue between Annie and Kerry crackles and Weston packs the book with sharp observations, including about feminism, sexism and friendship. I particularly liked the slightly tongue-in-cheek depiction of feminism here - Weston captures the earnestness of young women like Kerry and Annie who are very forthright with their views, regardless of whether they make other people uncomfortable, but who aren’t successful when challenging the sexism of teachers like Mr Cronin, who deliberately tries to get a reaction out of them. At the same time there is also a serious message here about how we should be normalising talking about periods, vaginas and menopause and I think the free way in which Annie and Kerry do so is actually quite empowering.
The mystery element itself starts off at a good pace with Weston establishing characters and motives. If I’m going to be picky, then the depiction of Les Populaires isn’t anything new in YA - Heather, Selena, Colin and Audrey are all the familiar bitchy archetypes that have been going since HEATHERS and MEAN GIRLS and although Weston does a good job of showing the rivalries and the fakness behind the relationships (and I particularly enjoyed a scene where Heather has to appear in school after Selena’s murder when everyone’s discovered Selena’s affair with Adam), there’s nothing original about it. The problem, for me, comes in the final quarter which seems quite rushed with Weston trying to pack too much in. Some revelations work well (notably one that affects Kerry) but others just became quite convoluted, with the result that there’s a lot packed in and it doesn’t really convince.
I did completely believe in the friendship between Kerry and Annie, especially Kerry’s exasperation at Annie’s quest for popularity. As an introvert, I particularly empathised with Kerry’s desire to stay at home but equally appreciated how Annie keeps dragging her out. Kerry’s budding relationship with Scott is funny and charming and Weston gives Scott enough personality to make you root for them.
All in all, although I was disappointed with the final quarter there was plenty here that kept me entertained. I would definitely read more about these characters if Weston were to write a sequel and I will also definitely check out Weston’s other work.
The Verdict:
Kate Weston’s YA humorous murder mystery is a genuinely funny affair whose main characters wear their feminism on their sleeves as they navigate the perils of unpopularity, first romance and murder. I loved the relationship between Annie and Kerry and the romance element plays out neatly so it’s a shame that the mystery kinda loses momentum in the final quarter and didn’t quite work for me. That said, I’d definitely check out Weston’s other work.
MURDER ON A SCHOOL NIGHT was released in the United Kingdom on 6th July 2023. Thanks to the Amazon Vine Programme for the review copy of this book.
All Kerry wants to do is stay at home with her rom-coms and strict retainer schedule. Instead, her BFF Annie has roped her into going to their first sixth-form party to investigate who’s cyber-bullying Heather, the most popular girl in school.
On the cusp of kissing the hottest guy in school, Kerry discovers the body of Heather’s second in command suffocated with a menstrual cup. Within days, another student turn up dead, this time with a sanitary pad across the eyes. Now Annie and Kerry are officially on the case to stop the menstrual murderer … period.
16-year-old Kerry and her best friend Annie live in the small English village of Barborough. Kerry is an introvert who is trying to cope with her doctor mum’s successful social media accounts about menopause and women’s issues while lusting after the school football captain Adam Devers and maintaining a strict retainer schedule. In contrast Annie is obsessed with being popular and desperate to get in with Les Populaires (aka the coolest people in their school).
Les Populaires are led by Heather (a social media influencer with a large number of followers who is dating Adam Devers and whose parents own a menstrual products business but whose father died in a speedboat accident while on a business trip to the Bahamas the previous year), her best friend Selena, and twins Colin and Audrey. None of them have ever shown so much as an awareness that Kerry and Annie even exist until on the first day of the school year when Heather approaches Annie and accuses her of being behind an Instagram account set up in the name of Heather’s late father, accusing Heather of having a secret.
Seeing a way to get in with Heather - and more importantly, a way into the exclusive party that Heather’s holding that night - Annie volunteers to find out who’s running the account. Initially reluctant to be dragged along, Kerry brightens up at the party when she bumps into Scott, who has just started at her school after moving to Barborough from Manchester with his mum. But what seems to be the beginning of a possible romance suffers a horrendous set-back when Kerry and Scott stumble on the body of Selena, who appears to have been suffocated with one of the menstrual cups manufactured by Heather’s mum’s company.
Unbelievably, Detective Inspector Wallace and his sidekick, Detective Inspector Collins seem to think that it’s an accident. Annie and Kerry are determined to prove them wrong, but their investigation reveals long buried secrets and it’s not long before other deaths follow …
Kate Weston’s YA humorous murder mystery is a genuinely funny affair whose main characters wear their feminism on their sleeves as they navigate the perils of unpopularity, first romance and murder. I loved the relationship between Annie and Kerry and the romance element plays out neatly so it’s a shame that the mystery kinda loses momentum in the final quarter and didn’t quite work for me. That said, I’d definitely check out Weston’s other work.
I really enjoyed the humour in this book. The dialogue between Annie and Kerry crackles and Weston packs the book with sharp observations, including about feminism, sexism and friendship. I particularly liked the slightly tongue-in-cheek depiction of feminism here - Weston captures the earnestness of young women like Kerry and Annie who are very forthright with their views, regardless of whether they make other people uncomfortable, but who aren’t successful when challenging the sexism of teachers like Mr Cronin, who deliberately tries to get a reaction out of them. At the same time there is also a serious message here about how we should be normalising talking about periods, vaginas and menopause and I think the free way in which Annie and Kerry do so is actually quite empowering.
The mystery element itself starts off at a good pace with Weston establishing characters and motives. If I’m going to be picky, then the depiction of Les Populaires isn’t anything new in YA - Heather, Selena, Colin and Audrey are all the familiar bitchy archetypes that have been going since HEATHERS and MEAN GIRLS and although Weston does a good job of showing the rivalries and the fakness behind the relationships (and I particularly enjoyed a scene where Heather has to appear in school after Selena’s murder when everyone’s discovered Selena’s affair with Adam), there’s nothing original about it. The problem, for me, comes in the final quarter which seems quite rushed with Weston trying to pack too much in. Some revelations work well (notably one that affects Kerry) but others just became quite convoluted, with the result that there’s a lot packed in and it doesn’t really convince.
I did completely believe in the friendship between Kerry and Annie, especially Kerry’s exasperation at Annie’s quest for popularity. As an introvert, I particularly empathised with Kerry’s desire to stay at home but equally appreciated how Annie keeps dragging her out. Kerry’s budding relationship with Scott is funny and charming and Weston gives Scott enough personality to make you root for them.
All in all, although I was disappointed with the final quarter there was plenty here that kept me entertained. I would definitely read more about these characters if Weston were to write a sequel and I will also definitely check out Weston’s other work.
The Verdict:
Kate Weston’s YA humorous murder mystery is a genuinely funny affair whose main characters wear their feminism on their sleeves as they navigate the perils of unpopularity, first romance and murder. I loved the relationship between Annie and Kerry and the romance element plays out neatly so it’s a shame that the mystery kinda loses momentum in the final quarter and didn’t quite work for me. That said, I’d definitely check out Weston’s other work.
MURDER ON A SCHOOL NIGHT was released in the United Kingdom on 6th July 2023. Thanks to the Amazon Vine Programme for the review copy of this book.
