Hello, bookworms!
How’s life treating you? Are you on track with your reading goals for the year? I personally am, however I am most definitely not on track with my reviews. I have so many articles to write and so little time, I honestly don’t think I will make it to the end of the year in one piece at this point. I will surely try to squeeze some reviews here and there, but I believe I will change my posting schedule for 2024, because this is getting out of hand.
Anyways, today I am here to talk about Murder on a School Night by Kate Weston, a fun YA murder mystery pitched as perfect for fans of Truly Devious and Fleabag.
Without any further ado, let’s get this review started!
Disclaimer
I received a physical proof of this book from the publisher (which is now available in its final and corrected form) unsolicited in exchange for an honest review; this does not affect my rating nor my opinions in any way. Everything you’ll find in this review is what I actually think and it wasn’t influenced by anyone. Thank you so much to the publisher for the chance to read and review this book.
About the book
Title: Murder on a School Night
Author: Kate Weston
Publisher: Electric Monkey
Publication date: July 4, 2023
Pages: 384
Plot, as stated on Goodreads
A hilarious murder mystery–rom-com from author and comedian Kate Weston investigates the sinister side of social media when bullying turns bloody—and a string of classmate deaths by menstrual cup and sanitary pad sets amateur sleuth Kerry hot on the trail of a menstrual murderer. Perfect for fans of Truly Devious and Fleabag. There’s never a good time to find a dead body, sure. But what about finding a dead body while you’re trying to kiss your crush? Kerry had different plans for her first high school party—like not going. All she wanted to do was stay home in the safety of retro rom-coms and her strict retainer schedule. Instead her BFF, fiercely outgoing mystery-fanatic Annie, has roped her into going to the party to investigate who’s cyberbullying Heather, the most popular girl in school. Finding herself getting close with her dreamy crush is odd enough, but when the two of them discover Heather’s second in command, Selena, suffocated with a menstrual cup, things get really weird. And when a second student turns up dead, this time with a sanitary pad across the eyes, Annie and Kerry—no matter how much she resists—are officially on the case to stop the menstrual murderer… period.
My rating: 3 out of 5 stars
Review
I want to start this review by talking about the comparisons. While I haven’t watched Fleabag (I do believe the comp is a bit excessive anyways, though), I am one of the biggest Truly Devious fans in the world, and comparing the series with this book is doing a disservice to both. The have nothing in common, aside for being both YA mysteries with female main characters. The similarities end there, I honestly don’t think they are anything alike.
That being said, luckily I didn’t go into this book expecting it to be the next Truly Devious, so I had a fun time and I enjoyed it. It is not the best murder mystery I’ve ever read, and at times the humour was a bit too much for my taste, but overall it was an easy and quick read and it kept me entertained from beginning to end.
It reminded me of some Pretty Little Liars (the show, I haven’t read the books) subplots at time. Not for the actual events, but for how far fetched and over the top everything was, but in a good way. I truly had to suspend my disbelief a lot, but it was worth it in the end.
I honestly really enjoyed the fact that a mestrual cup was the main clue for a while there, and I find the tag lines of this book to perfectly incapsulate the tone and themes of the book.
What I wasn’t a fan of was the romance. I have no idea why authors feel compelled to push a romantic subplot in their mysteries, especially when they are standalones. I sometimes enjoy when there’s a relationship aside of the mystery, but it is usually in series — like the A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder series — and when the romance doesn’t overshadow the actual mystery plot and everything is well balance. Which was not the case here.
I also did not get too attached to the two main characters. They were fine, but I honestly believe there should have been a bit more of character work and character building. If you are a plot driven reader, it probably won’t bother you, but if you are a character driven reader like me, you’ll understand the struggle you have to face when a character is not bad, but it isn’t good either. I wish there had been a bit more work here and there.
Anyways, I would still recommend picking up this book, especially if you are not the biggest mystery reader out there and you want to start by something easy and not a series. I get that it could be intimidating picking up Truly Devious, and while this is something completely different, as I said, it’s still a good enough read. Personally, I will keeping an eye out to see if Kate Weston decides to write some other mystery books. Her backlist does not sound like something I could enjoy, but if this is the route she is taking, I’ll be following.
That is going to be all for today. Thank you for reading and thank you for patiently waiting for my very slow updates. I will talk to you soon with the extremely long overdue review of the second season of the Heartstopper TV show!
La Petite Pritt 