I received a digital advance copy of The Meadowbrook Murders by Jessica Goodman via NetGalley. The Meadowbrook Murders is scheduled for release on February 4, 2025.

The Meadowbrook Murders is a young adult mystery/thriller set in a prestigious boarding school. Amy wakes up in the morning to find her roommate Sarah and Sarah’s boyfriend murdered. As Amy was the only other person there, some suspicion falls on her. She knows she didn’t do it, and wants to keep suspicion from her “townie” boyfriend, who she had snuck in for part of the night.

Amy’s search for the truth alternates with chapters from Liz, the editor of the school newspaper, who is reporting on the grisly story in hopes of winning a scholarship. The two girls butt heads, but are forced to join forces as secrets begin to pile up around them.

This novel started strong. Goodman did a good job of setting up the premise and mystery of the story. Initially, I suspected Amy’s boyfriend, and also felt he was too obvious a suspect to have actually done the deed. As the novel began to wrap up, the plot was less successful for me. Other than the boyfriend, there were not other viable suspects presented to the reader, which resulted in an ending that felt a bit convenient, rather than logical and earned. I would have appreciated more red herrings worked into the story. Incorporation of flashbacks (or even a second timeline) might have helped this as well. We get some information about the histories of the characters, but they are only related to us as summary from the narrators. Seeing those moments would have allowed us to see other potential suspects.

More backstory would have also helped with character development. While I did have a good sense of the two point of view characters, the people around them were a bit blurry. In particular, I had no real sense of Amy’s roommate Sarah, so as Amy began to uncover secrets Sarah had kept, the reveals had little significance for me as a reader.

I also felt a lack of clarity in the setting of the story. I could tell that Goodman knew the layout of campus, and how that related to the town and area around it, but as a reader, I did not share that picture. Again, seeing more of the past story might have helped to expand my view of the world of the story.

Overall, The Meadowbrook Murders had the framework and potential of a solid mystery/thriller, but needed to share more of the backstory with the reader for us to fully appreciate the tale Goodman created.

I thoroughly enjoyed this story. The writing is fresh and the story had me hooked at the beginning. This is a well written YA/New Adult murder mystery that takes place in a small, sleepy, Connecticut town at a private high school. What happens when a young senior girl, Amy, wakes up to find her dorm mate (Sarah) and her boyfriend murdered in her bed; with no recollection of having heard anything during the night? This is the premise of the story. Amazing how a double homicide can make you look at things a lot differently and wonder who to trust and what to believe. Enter the other main character, Liz, the school paper's editor-in-chief. I loved how the author helps the reader work through how these two polar opposites sift through the information that they glean and eventually rely on one another to hopefully figure out what really happened at their school.

*Thank you to Penguin Teen and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for my honest review*

This felt like a teenage reimagining of recent adult dark academia thrillers like In My Dreams, I Hold a Knife. I did like the angle of having it in dual PoV with a journalism twist. I pegged the killer from the start, which was kind of a disappointment. But ultimately I felt like the tension didn't hit as good as it could've.

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an eARC of this title.

This was my first experience with this author and for the most part I enjoyed this. This is a very typical YA thriller. I really enjoyed the beginning and was instantly drawn into the story. When I read YA I tend to expect it to be super fast paced and be very quick to read. Unfortunately I didn't feel that way with this one. While I was very engaged at the beginning, I found myself losing interest as the story progressed. It could very well be that I just haven't been loving YA as much lately. I would recommend this for people who usually pick up and enjoy YA, and when I was a teenager, I would have probably really loved this.

2.5 stars

A run-of-the-mill YA boarding school murder mystery. This helped me pass the time while I was sick at home with the flu but I saw the killer coming from a mile away and the characters were quite two-dimensional.

I received an advanced copy of this book through NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review. I've read a few of Goodman's books, and I did enjoy The Meadowbrook Murders. It was easy reading with two points of view from Amy and Liz. I'm not sure I'd totally characterize this book as a YA thriller. I didn't quite feel the suspense, and I had an idea of the killer somewhat into the book.

Amy has a townie boyfriend who is her soccer coach's son. We don't know his age, but he seemed to be a little older. It was kind of weird, to be honest. Her best friend Sarah was her roommate, and they had a big fight just after moving into the dorms starting senior year of high school at boarding school. Most of the kids are from rich families. Amy finds Sarah and Ryan, Sarah's boyfriend, dead in her room. The scene is very graphic.

Liz is the editor of the online school paper and an aspiring journalist. She's a scholarship kid with aspirations and goals, but few friends. She approaches the story with the goal of getting a scholarship to college. However, after the Murders she gets in trouble for posting the story, and other students don't trust her. But Amy and Liz need each other to solve the case, even though it's not their job. It's clear the school and cops want to find a suspect and close the case so they can return to usual operations. Even if that means accusing the townies that seem suspicious.

I wish that Liz and Amy formed a bond during the time, but they were mostly at odds with each other, accusing each other of involvement or nefarious motives. They had a lot in common, actually, being Jewish and having crappy/absent mothers. The ending was just a little anticlimactic? I didn't dislike the book at all,hence the 3 stars, but it didn't really wow me. Release 2/4/25 3.25☆

4 stars

i highly enjoyed this from start to finish. its not very often i can sit through a thriller in one sitting but this one really got me!!!

amy and liz were complete opposites but helped each other in the most unexpected way possible. it was quick and gripping and even though i figured out the culprit early on, i was on the edge of my seat the whole time!

thank you so much for this arc!

A young adult thriller set at a prestigious boarding school in New England. After a night of partying in the first week back for their senior year, Amy wakes up and discovers her roommate and best friend Sarah murdered in her bed alongside her boyfriend Ryan. The dorm they live in has high security, so who could have killed them? Amy starts off telling everyone a lie - that she was alone that night - because her boyfriend Joseph was there that night, but he's not allowed on campus. Telling the lie instills fear in Amy, especially when she has to move out of her dorm and move in with Liz, the editor of the school's newspaper who seems to be just trying to get a story any way she can.

The novel is told from the POV's of both Amy and Liz. They are both determined to figure out what happened - Amy because she doesn't want her or Joseph to be blamed and Liz because she wants to break the story first. It was fast paced, and I liked the 2 teens as they tried to piece things together. If you're a fan of dark academia thrillers, I'd definitely pick this one up.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an e-ARC of this book!

I'd rate this 3.5 stars.

I've enjoyed all of Jessica Goodman's books and find them great for students who enjoy engaging, but relatively straightforward thrillers. This story has duel POVs, which I always enjoy. Two students are brutally murdered in their dorm room at a prestigous boarding school and one of their roommates must figure out who did it before someone is wrongly accused. The story was engaging and I read it quickly, but I also guessed the killer pretty early on. That is fine, but what I did miss was a strong explanation for the killer's actions. To me, the motivation just wasn't there, which detracted from the overall story (for me). Overall, this will be great for high school classrooms!

The Meadowbrook Murders is a suspenseful YA murder mystery that delivers on the suspense. Told in the points of view of two very different characters it kept me turning pages on my Kindle, so happy to have received this ARC.

Liz and Amy are both flawed characters, but both focused on finding the truth, each in their own unique way.

The book had me hooked from the beginning, dying to know what would happen next. They even managed to surprise me at the end.

I highly recommend this book if you enjoy YA murder mysteries.

The mystery of who killed two boarding school students kept me interested, with me changing my mind about who the killer might be several times along the way, but neither of the main characters ever grabbed me enough to care much about them. There are the requisite secrets that are discovered about the two dead teens - secrets that could be motive for the murders - but even those don't seem all that big of a deal. They are just more along the lines of disappointments for Amy, who thought she and her best friend shared everything. It also felt implausible that Amy was not more thoroughly questioned by the police. She acted like she was being targeted by them as a main suspect throughout the book. Finally, I didn't find Liz's obsession with only finding facts, and sorting out what merited journalistic attention, to be very compelling as a character trait. I was happy that the two girls managed to work out their differences and rely on each other.

It wasn't predictable but the killer admitting what they did to Sarah and Ryan to their next victim is unrealistic. I'm not sure how that can be written better but there was to be a way.

The Meadowbrook Murders is a YA thriller that follows Amy and Liz after a horrifying attack on the school campus. Sarah, Amy's best friend, is discovered brutally murdered in her bed, alongside her boyfriend. Amy, devastated by the deaths, and even more upset that her last exchange with her friend was a cruel argument, is determined to move on with her life. However, with everyone on campus thinking she is the killer and with new secrets being revealed, Amy is more confused than ever. Then, there is Liz. She has never fit in with her boarding school classmates. All Liz wants is to be an esteemed journalist. In order to win a coveted scholarship, she needs to write an epic piece. This double murder may be just what she needs. But how far is Liz willing to go to get her story? How many people is she willing to hurt?

The Meadowbrook Murders is an easy read and definitely has some suspense, tension, and YA drama. The story is told through two POVs: Liz and Amy. I enjoyed having both of their perspectives and thought the author did a nice job developing both characters. A few of the twists towards the end I found to be unnecessary (particularly the one involving Joseph and Sarah). It definitely reads as a YA book, which, again, makes it a fast and easy read. I do think thriller readers will be able to predict the murderer reasonably easily. With that all said, I still enjoyed the book and wanted to finish it.

Thank you NetGalley and Penguin Young reader’s group for sending me this ARC in exchange for an honest review

I have mixed feelings about this book I enjoyed it but there was a lot I didn’t like.

I wasn’t the biggest fan of Liz she was lacking something she started off very unlikable but as the story progressed it got a little better but still I wasn’t really feeling her.
Surprisingly I really enjoyed Amy’s chapters and I felt so bad for her but was so proud at the same time, her character development was probably my favorite.

I guessed the culprit from the beginning but I won’t lie and say the author didn’t slightly convince me it was might’ve been someone else. Overall it was a pretty nice read very fast paced and if I were still a teenager I probably would’ve enjoyed this so much more.
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️

A well-paced and engaging YA Thriller. The story kicks off with a bang when Meadowbrook senior Amy wakes to find her best friend Sarah and Sarah's boyfriend Ryan murdered in their dorm room. The last conversation Amy and Sarah had was a very public argument that left many of their mutual friends torn on whether or not they could trust Amy, who kept secrets of her own to protect someone she held dear. This leaves Amy in a position where she reluctantly has to rely on the school newspaper editor Liz even though Amy is not a fan of journalists or the media in general.
I did enjoy the book and found it engaging, however, it was a fairly run-of-the-mill "popcorn thriller" without anything super unique to set it apart. I would recommend it to its targeted audience, people who enjoy YA thrillers, or those just getting into the genre.

Thank you to Netgalley and Penguin Young Readers group for the eArc.

⭐️: 3.5/5

I’ve always been a sucker for a YA book about rich people behaving badly, and if there’s a murder involved, even better. When I read They Wish They Were Us, I loved the characters and the plot, so I had high hopes for this one, and while I did enjoy this and read it pretty quickly, it fell just a little bit flat for me.

The mystery itself was a lot of fun, and it’s always a bit nostalgic to read about teens trying to solve a mystery and bumbling their way through it, contaminating evidence because they think they can do it better than the cops, and just generally being uninformed while thinking they’re the most informed. It’s a hallmark of a teen thriller, and while the decision feel very young, that’s what makes it a comfort genre for me.

I did find Liz to be…really annoying throughout the book. She was the stereotypical lower income character in a story about rich kids, who has a chip on her shoulder and believes no one could possibly have any circumstances that make their lives as hard as hers. She made so many “mental notes” I felt like making a drinking game out of it, and she was so callous about everything going on in service of her own self interests, it was hard to root for her even when she came around. The conclusion was satisfying, although it didn’t have as much follow though as I wish it did, due to the circumstances of the reveal. I did ultimately enjoy this one though, even if I wasn’t necessarily the target age or audience.

Thank you to @netgalley and @penguinteen for this eARC in exchange for my honest review!!

It's the start of senior year and it's senior week. Amy goes to bed and wakes up to find her roommate Sarah, and Sarah's boyfriend, Ryan, murdered in their room. And last night she had a big fight with Sarah and doesn't completely remember what happened after. She wasn't alone in her room either, so she's concerned that she will be a suspect, but she couldn't have murdered her friend, could she?

I'm a sucker for a campus story, so throw in an elite boarding school with teens behaving badly and a murder to start off the story, and I'm there. Told in alternating points of view, we hear from Amy's perspective as well as Liz, the editor of the school newspaper. Liz is more of an outcast looking to break the big story and not super popular with the crowd that Amy and Sarah hang out with. Amy is trying to understand what happened to Sarah and Ryan and quickly learns who is still her friend or who now thinks she's a suspect in the murder. Liz just wants to prove herself as a good journalist and hopefully score a college scholarship.

I appreciated that the teen's took center stage in the story and there was only limited involvement of the adults around them, including the police. This was a quick read with short chapters that easily kept me turning the pages. While I wasn't completely surprised by the ending, it didn't lessen my enjoyment of reading this.

Thank you to G. P. Putnam's Sons Books for Young Readers for the opportunity to read and review.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️💫
4.5/5

I loved reading “They Wish They Were Us” so when I saw this book, also set on a school campus (my favorite setting for mystery/thriller books) I knew I had to read it!

This book takes place at Meadowbrook in the northeast and follows Amy, a popular star soccer player, and Liz, the editor of the school paper. After a senior week party, Amy wakes up to find her best friend and roommate murdered. She gets moved to another room and finds out she’s now staying with Liz who is struggling with how she can write the story without hurting or betraying her classmates.

There are many suspects and even more secrets. You’ll never figure out who did it.

Thank you NetGalley, Penguin Group, and Jessica Goodman for this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

3.75 stars! 💫 First off, a MASSIVE thank you to Penguin Group and NetGalley for the ARC of The Meadowbrook Murders!! 🖤 I couldn't resist diving into this dark academia thriller! The suspense, the twists, and those oh-so-privileged students at Meadowbrook Academy? Pure chaos in the best way! 🌪️

The story kicks off with Amy, whose best friend and boyfriend are murdered in their dorm room. And here's the kicker—Amy was the only one there but claims she didn’t hear a thing... 👀 Naturally, everyone's side-eyeing her, and the drama cranks up as Amy’s trying to clear her name while uncovering a bunch of secrets she didn’t even know Sarah was hiding! 📚 Then, we meet Liz, the overachieving editor of the school paper who’s digging into the murder for a scholarship. Their dynamic? 🤩 SO juicy, so full of tension! 🔍

✧ Murder Mystery 🔪
✧ Reluctant Allies 😤➡️🤝
✧ Dark Academia 🖤
✧ Small Town Secrets 🤫
✧ Suspicious Best Friend 👀
✧ Prestigious Boarding School Vibes 🏫
✧ Dual POV 💬
✧ Whodunnit? 🕵️‍♀️

The pacing? 🔥 It was short, snappy chapters that kept me flipping like a book-crazy person on a caffeine binge! The suspense? Chef’s kiss. But, I did start figuring out the ending a little early, and while the plot twist wasn’t mind-blowing, it was still satisfying enough to keep me hooked until the end. 😅 I honestly could’ve used a bit more on the killer’s motive—maybe a few extra pages wouldn’t have hurt, right? 🤷‍♀️ But hey, the character growth—especially Amy and Liz—was chef’s kiss level! Watching them work together and evolve was a total highlight! 🌟

Definitely a binge-worthy thriller for fans of A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder or anyone who loves a good boarding school mystery with tons of juicy secrets! 👀 Had a blast with this one, and I’m sure you will too! Can't wait for the release on Feb 4! ✨

Thank you to NetGalley for this E-ARC.

I really enjoyed this book. Read half of it in one sitting. It’s a really fast read. Easy to get through. A YA I would think. Very suspenseful.

Amy wakes up one morning at her boarding school. She had a fight with her best friend and roommate. They’ll be fine though. They always make up after a fight. They’re like sisters.
But not this time. There’s blood everywhere and Amy doesn’t want to open Sarah’s bedroom door.

A quick and easy read to figure out who would’ve wanted to hurt Sarah.

I really enjoyed this read.