Okay I have to admit, as a YA romance I wasn’t expecting much, silly me I know, but this book blew all my expectations away. I loved the banter, I love loved Doe and her friends so much and I even loved her fake boyfriend overall this was a really cute read.

In Samantha Markum’s This May End Badly, Weston girl, Doe, and Winfield boy, Wells, agree to fake a relationship to one-up their nemesis and Well’s cousin, Three. It’s a wonderfully written merger of the fake dating and enemies-to-lovers romance trope with a dash of friends-to-lovers thrown in. Doe and Wells inadvertently become friends and catch feelings for each other while pretending to date to get under Three’s skin. Markum’s dynamic writing style, vibrant and detailed description, vivacious and colorful dialogue, and deftly developed fascinating, complex, and imperfect but likable characters draw you in and keep you glued to the pages.

Doe’s gifted at creating pranks to pull with her BFFs/Weston Girls, with whom she’s determined to win the century-long war against their rival boy’s school Winfield Academy before their senior year ends. Unfortunately, plans for The Weston School to merge with their rival next year cause their longtime feud to go into warp speed, spiraling the school and their lives into chaos. So, Doe sets out to prove that Weston girls and Winfield boys don’t mix to protect her haven, starting with her nemesis Three, Winfield’s boy king. She makes a deal with Wells, Three’s cousin, that he will fake date Doe to get under Three’s skin, and she’ll help Wells get his rightful family heirloom back from Three. To keep up her end of their agreement, Doe lies to her friends and family to keep their relationship secret. And once the pranks between their two schools escalate, Doe’s feelings for her fake boyfriend, Wells, become genuine and intense. Ultimately, Doe must choose between winning the school rivalry or joining forces with their rivals when a teacher the Weston students have always suspected of inappropriate behavior hurts a younger Weston girl.

I love Three and Doe’s fiery, snarky, adversarial, cute, emotional relationship, which simmers with chemistry. Markum develops/displays Three and Doe’s fantastic chemistry with delightful, sweet, funny interactions and intimate conversations. Doe exudes disdain for the boys in the Wells family and the Winfield boys in general and fierce protectiveness for the Weston School and its student body. On the other hand, Wells presents a low-key, laid-back, aloof façade to the world that leads them to believe he doesn’t care much about anything. Intelligent, laser-focused, and obsessive, Doe can be self-centered and is all about the Weston School—her safe haven after her parents divorced. Unfortunately, she misses so much in life and what’s going on with the people in her life. She’s a frustrating character because she tramples on people’s feelings in pursuit of her objectives/goals, even though her motives may be good. A handsome, intelligent, brooding player, Wells is a fascinating, likable character who’s deeper than he appears, making you wonder what’s going on with him. This May End Badly is Does’ story, rightfully told in her first-person POV. However, Markum’s portrayal and development of Three make you want to hear from his POV and learn more about him.

A funny, angsty, sweet, and entertaining YA romance, This May End Badly is a multilayered story. It explores themes of friendship, anxiety, stress, found families, bullies, dysfunctional families, sexism, sexual predators, sexual harassment, school rivalries, falling in love, self-discovery, and taking risks. I highly recommend the novel for fake dating, enemies-to-lovers/unlikely allies, capers/pranks, and YA/Teen romance fans.

CW: Sexual harassment/assault, abuse of power

Advanced review copy provided by Wednesday Books via Netgalley for review.

For one, I definitely feel too old for this type of YA story with prank wars and school pride dialed up to 11. That's fair enough; I'm not the target audience and it's okay for this book to not be for me. What added to my discomfort with it though was the strict enforcement of the gender binary by the main character, whose feminism very much felt like a TERFy kind of "boys bad, girls good". As a non-binary person, this made me feel unsafe to continue the book, so I decided to DNF it.

a fake dating, boarding school rivalry romance? say less!

Doe is entering her senior year at her beloved girls boarding school, looking forward to continuing to prank the enemy boys school with her close group of friends. that plan goes slightly awry though as they all find out that the two schools plan to merge the following year. doe teams up with the enemy, aka pretty rich boy wells to irritate his cousin three and to try to ruin the chances of the merge happening. along the way she makes some discoveries about herself, her school, her friends, her family, and her “relationship” that flip the world as she knew it upside down.

this was simultaneously a great ya romance, a fun rivalry story, a commentary on generational wealth, a coming of age and reflection on friendships and familial relationships, and a peek into student-led social justice that really never slowed down. i thoroughly enjoyed every second of it!!

TW: sexual assault, sexual assault of a minor.

I was given the opportunity to read this book thanks to the publisher and netgalley!

Overall, I enjoyed this read. It was a quick wonderful escape from reality. Between the fake dating, the found family, the girl power, the teamwork .. .etc There was so much happening, but it wrapped up nicely. In the novel we follow Doe as she completes her last year at Weston School (which is an all-girls boarding school) and she deals with the changes coming ahead. The Weston she knows, and loves is subject to change in a massive way when it combines with the Winfield Academy (the all-boys school across the road) and her greatest enemy at the time! Because of this upcoming change her prank work against the boys (a student known as Three in particular) becomes much more intense and internally important for her to win. But after students come forwards about a particular teacher and the SA Doe must decide if her war with Three is what is truly important or if protecting those who come after her at the school should be her priority. Add in there a fake romance (turned real romance) that is started simply to get under Three's skin. The complications of real family as well as found family and the relationships that develop within ones life.

This May End Badly by Samantha Markum is a fun read about two rival high school academies and the lengths the students will go to prank each other. There's also a very well-written fake dating trope. And, just enough sentimentality to make this a heartwarming read as well. Highly recommend! Thanks to NetGalley for the free digital review copy. All opinions are my own.

I was entirely prepared for the ending of this book but that doesn’t mean I enjoyed it any less. It’s the fake dating trope at its finest. With lots of quippy banter and a little bit of light spice, This May End Badly is well written and a wonderful read. The book does a great job of showcasing close friendships and a blended family model, as well as background queer characters. There are fun pranks and a more serious note, especially towards the end. Overall, the book is very well rounded and majorly enjoyable!

There is a lot going on, admittedly. Winfield and Weston are merging to form a co-ed school. To protest the merger, Doe comes up with even more pranks than ever before, escalating the rivalry between the two schools. Not only that, but it’s her senior year. She needs to apply to colleges and keep her grades up. Integrated with the prank war, Doe wants to play the ultimate prank on Three, her main rival/archnemesis at Winfield. She begins to date his cousin, Wells, both of them knowing it’s fake dating. Along with all that, Doe struggles to stay close to her friends as the prank war escalates while they’re experiencing their own problems. Plus, one of the teachers is extremely creepy, keeping girls after class or calling them into his office, alone, and intimidating him. Doe soon must decide if this prank war and preventing the merger is really at the top of her priority list, especially when her fellow girls may be in trouble.

The dialogue was spot on. I found myself grinning at the quips and snappiness of various interactions, as well as being surprised at the maturity displayed by Doe, especially. She wasn’t overly mature, but a person who had experienced some degree of hardship while also still being a teenager. I really liked her as a person and as a well written character. I would have liked a bit more with Doe’s best friends. They didn’t get enough of the spotlight, in my opinion. I wanted more of them hanging out or doing homework together. Just mundane things because they sounded like a really great group of people who didn’t get enough page time for my liking.

The hint of queer issues was much appreciated. Doe’s Dad is bisexual. And one of her best friends is queer, as well. Plus, there comes a discussion later about how exclusionary an all girls school can be for trans or non-binary characters, and others struggling with their gender identity. It’s not all encapsulating but did show an awareness of queer issues that many other young adult books don’t unless the main character is also queer.

I recommend this book to people who are fans of enemies to lovers and the fake dating trope. Thank you to NetGalley and Wednesday Books for this ARC, though I read it much later than intended!

Weston’s school for girls and Winfield’s academy has been in a prank war for a long time!
Then of course insert a prank master and she is ready for the win! When Doe finds out about about the plan to merge the 2 schools the following year her and her friends team up to try and stop that from happening!
This is a cute read! Lots of content and extras going on as well as the prank war. Definitely a fun contemporary YA!

This book ended up being a DNF. Rating is based solely on the content I did read. I ultimately found the pacing and development of the story and/or characters not engaging enough to continue on and finish the complete book. This was one I DNFd also due to certain content.

I really enjoyed reading this book, but looking back it's been so incredibly forgettable. Every time I see it, I'm like "have I read this?" I know I really enjoyed the aspect of the all girl's school and what it means to foresee this merger to create a co-ed institution. Working in a women's college, this was a really interesting topic that made me think, but I can't remember much else about this book.

THIS MAY END BADLY is a standalone YA novel by Samantha Markum. This book has an escalating prank war. Normally I don’t care for stories with prank wars in them, but THIS MAY END BADLY has everything else I love about YA fiction. It has an unexpected romance, complex characters, and the main characters evolve and figure out what’s really worth fighting for. Of course, I really love fake romances that turn real, and that’s initially what drew me to this story.

Doe Saltpeter is somebody whose world got upended when her parents divorced. Weston, her friends, and this war with Winfield Academy are things she can count on. With her nemesis Three, Doe has someone to direct her misplaced anger at. I love this story because it highlights how much teenagers often struggle with what they know versus what they think they know. People you thought you were so sure of, turn out to be completely different than how you always thought of them. Mentors and authority figures you thought of as having all the answers turn out to be fallible, and occasionally jerks. Perhaps the most jarring of all, is when you realize that you’re not as sure of yourself as you thought you were. Doe is a realistically flawed protagonist. She has unresolved emotional issues because of her parents’ divorce, and she acts out at times. For me, she’s flawed but not a jerk. As the story progresses, she’s constantly confronted with the ways what she has always believed might not be totally correct. It’s a hard pill to swallow. One thing I dislike about YA novels with a somewhat misguided female protagonist, is that I feel like the supporting characters are usually too hard on her and there is no accountability for those other characters. Thankfully that’s not the case with this story, and author Samantha Markum has those characters cop to their mistakes as well as the main character. This is important for me.

From the very beginning, it is understood that Three is Doe’s enemy. She’s designated him as such because he goes to Winfield Academy and is, in her mind, the epitome of a privileged and arrogant young man and sorely in need of being taken down a peg or two. Gabriel Wellborn aka Wells is Three’s bookish yet uber hot cousin. In kind of a convoluted way, Doe and Wells begin fake dating to get under Three’s skin. I loved it! The banter between Doe and Wells is fab and the chemistry works. It’s all very age-appropriate but charming, messy, and steamy all at the same time. Wells turns out to have his own family baggage as well.

THIS MAY END BADLY is a must-read for YA fans. It has it all – depth, complex characters, great dialogue, and a dreamy romance. I especially appreciate how there is a happy-for-now ending without making it too saccharine or fake. I look forward to reading more from Samantha Markham.

This was such a cute read! I always like to read YA romance as a nice pallet cleaner and that’s what this was! A whimsical read without a care in the world

Weston girls and Winfield Academy boys do not mix. In fact, they are downright rivals, but when it is announced the schools will merge all plans Doe had go off the rails. A prank war, fake dating and chaos caps off their year but eventually leads to growth, friendship and love.
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Thank you #wednesdaybooks and #NetGalley for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review

I think this book had a lot going on... some of which I loved and some of which I think should have been edited out. I think it would have been nice to bring up all of the side characters but have their storylines fully flushed out in proceeding novels. I think in an attempt to make this book very related to a wide audience and throwing in way too many tropes it impacted the overall feel of the novel. Saying that, I did still think that this was a fun YA, following likeable characters but it is a lot.

This was a debut author, and I thought I’d give her a try. Plus, a boarding school prank war sounded fun to me. Thank you, NetGalley for an ARC of it.

Doe and her band of Weston girls at her beloved boarding school have a prank war going on with the boys at Winfield Academy across the way. But when their headmistress announces that the schools will be merging the following year, after Doe and her friends have graduated, their longtime feud spirals into chaos. To protect the school, she puts together a plan that Weston girls and Winfield boys don’t mix. She takes a direct hit at Three, her nemesis. To win, she bargains with his cousin, Wells: if they fake date, she’ll get under Three’s skin and help Wells get back his rightful family heirloom. But does it turn into something more?

I had never read a boarding school romance book before, so I thought I’d give this one a try. I loved how most of the characters had nicknames. I will do a small spoiler: Dorothy (Doe), Wells (Gabriel), and Three…well, I forget his real name. But I also loved the setting and visiting Doe’s family. I loved how even the side characters were well flushed out.

I also loved the conclusion and found myself not liking a teacher (well deserved, read to find out). But LOVED how it ended.

This book is a very excellent debut novel by the author, who I think will go far and write many more wonderful reads to come. This is definitely a great fake-dating story. Can’t wait to read her next work.

This book had a lot going on. I loved the idea of a prank war and romantic undertones but the additional family drama and weird teacher and each character in the friend group having their own thing was a lot for how short this book was. I did really enjoy the rivalry factor, it’s what made me request this book in the first place. Boarding school games will always catch my attention!

This is such a fun book that takes the fake dating trope to new heights. I am all about the joys of youth and boarding schools, and with pranks between the Weston girls and the boys at Winfield Academy.
I enjoyed this story about friendship, love, and everything else in between.

I loved this! Markum hit the perfect balance between funny, realistic, and heartwarming. She will for sure be an insta-read for me next time around!

I’m overwhelmed with galleys, and this one was published months ago, so I’m going to have to skip it:(

Fake dating: check!
Teenage angst: check!
Strong female friendships: check!
This book is a fun YA romp complete with witty banter and a fun take on everyone's favorite trope: fake dating. When the Weston School announces it will be merging with Winfield Academy, it causes the long standing prank war to escalate into all out war -- culminating in a fake dating bet of course. The hijinx are super fun but this novel still has heft as it deals with potential sexual harassment from a teacher. If you're looking for a cute fast YA read, look no further!