If you grew up in a high school romance where close-knit friendship groups dominated the campus, you should read this book. The plot is captivating and captivating, and the cast of characters is strong. The reader gained more insight into the human condition from each person's justifications for their actions. Seeing the mysteries develop and the characters interact with their various secrets was fascinating.

Thank you HarperCollins Children's Books for the copy of The Wilde Trials by Mackenzie Reed. This is a good YA teen book and would make a fun movie/series. It would have made more sense if we had learned the reasons each competitor participated as well as the motivation of the former champions. I liked the trials and would have loved it if each one had been linked back to the values of the school. Even so, this was an immersive read that taught some subtle lessons. I can see it being in middle school libraries and teens loving it! 3.5 stars rounded up to 4.

was very entertained by all the characters and the plot. It was a fast paced book and I thought the trials were really well done.

I was interested to see how The Wilde Trials would fit into the growing mystery-at-a-school genre, and it definitely holds its own. This book is Survivor meets Pretty Little Liars, and I think students will really enjoy it.

Our protagonist Chloe attends an elite boarding school where an annual competition for the chosen graduating Seniors could supply the money her family desperately needs. If she can only win.
Chloe has a younger sister with cancer.Twice within the first few pages she is remembering 2 instances where she used that to one, write her essay about her sister being ill knowing that she would score some sympathy points. As well as using it to get out of trouble after starting a food fight. Yet in the very next chapter she becomes furious when someone incinuates that she has used that very issue to get ahead. Which she so obviously did.
I couldn't understand why anyone other than Chloe and Hayes would put themselves in this type of situation. Hayes needs information. Chloe needs the money. She is poor and about to lose her family home, but everyone else is just poor, little rich kids.
I found the puzzles to be quite clever and the unfolding of the twists at the end which led to the final reveals to be great.

3.5 stars - I had such a blast reading this book. Wealthy academia and a contest with different trials - I couldn’t get enough. Although this read as very YA, the characters were well-rounded and the story line was interesting. Not my favorite game/trial book, but I did enjoy this and appreciate that it was a fun read.

Thank you to NetGalley and HarperCollins for providing me with an advance reader copy in exchange for an honest review.

The title of this book is very misleading. What I thought would be a YA story of high-stakes, dangerous trials turned out to be one in which a group of already wealthy students take part in pretty low stakes “trials” (like riddles and brain teasers and a rowing race), with a blackmail mystery subplot, and some mysteries surrounding the trials and the institution as a whole. The choice to make the “trials” so low-stakes while making the title “The Wilde Trials” feels like mismarketing and is unfortunately a set-up for disappointment for many readers like myself. It also had the added effect of making the story feel even more “YA.” I think many readers who go into this book with the right expectations would enjoy it far more than I did.

Thank you to NetGalley, HarperCollins, and Mackenzie Reed for providing an e-ARC in exchange for an honest review. All opinions expressed are solely my own.

This book is YA at its best. The story is so good, I found myself completely emerged in the story very quickly. The Wilde Trials is the kind of book that you think about all day until you can read more. The story was so captivating and I loved these characters so much. The competition made for a perfect story, but a personal mystery is what really hooked me in.

While I normally love these YA thrillers, I have to say that the absolute improbability of this just took me out of the story so much that I couldn't enjoy it. Everyone is clamoring the compete in a competition that the school continues to hold after someone DIED?!? Jesus. When the plotlines are eye-rolling and unbelievable, sometimes an interesting protagonist call pull it through; unfortunately, Chloe is so annoying that I just wanted to throw this book at the wall.

A myriad of mystery, mind games, and possibly murder, Mackenzie Reed’s second novel is somehow even more thrilling than her first.

Set before a personally favored backdrop of mine (obscenely wealthy high schoolers who have too much time and money on their hands–hello, fellow Gossip Girl lovers, you’ve come to the right place), we find ourselves following female protagonist Chloe throughout the duration of her boarding school’s annual competition. Using her wits to win enough money to help her sick sister should be a walk in the park, except she’s stuck competing with her ex-boyfriend and combating suspicious attempts at sabotage.

I absolutely flew through this story, with a pull that made it un-put-downable I found myself itching to know the ending every step of the way. It was the perfect transitional mystery to read between summer and fall, with themes that held weight without feeling too heavy. With a well-balanced cast of characters and intriguing relationship dynamics amongst them, they carried the plot along beautifully.

For those looking for a quick paced, competitive, slightly-mystic mystery, I highly recommend spending your next cozy Sunday curled up on the couch with this incredible new thriller!

If Mackenzie Reed isn’t an autobuy author for you after The Wilde Trials, then you simply haven’t read her books.

The Wilde Trials improved upon everything that was already great about Reed’s debut novel The Rosewood Hunt. Wilde Academy and its competition is so interesting and I pictured the trials and estate so vividly and effortlessly in my head. The characters and their motivations are very compelling. I particularly loved Chloe and found her flaws and strengths very relatable and real for a girl her age. The twists unraveled at the perfect time and I found myself staying up wayyy too late multiple nights reading. Finally, the trials themselves had me on the edge of my seat, and as a reader of a lot of competition based books due to a childhood obsession with The Hunger Games and The Goblet of Fire, I found them refreshing and not predictable.

I highly recommend this book for lovers of YA thrillers, and even for people who normally read outside that genre. It is such a fun time and Reed is such a promising young author with (I’m sure) a great career ahead of her.

Thank you to NetGalley and HarperCollins Children's Books for this ARC!

4.5 ⭐️

Thank you to HarperCollins and NetGalley for the eARC!

I absolutely loved the Rosewood Hunt and before I started reading The Wilde Trials, I had not read the description for it and thought it was the sequel for The Rosewood Hunt. TRH had a very fitting, satisfying ending, but I was excited to read about the characters again. So I was disappointed when I realized The Wilde Trials was a new story, set in the same world but with different characters. But oh my gosh I loved this book! Mackenzie Reed writes characters with deep and real flaws. I’m also really obsessed with found families and this author continues to write some pretty sweet friendships. Now, I’m not sure how much I can say about this book without spoiling it, but it was fast paced with a great mystery that is light enough for a YA book, but it still had high stakes.

I can’t wait to read Mackenzie Reed’s next book, I hope she will eventually write a book in this same world, bringing all of her characters together for one grand mystery.

the cutest friendships and relationships coming out of a mystery thriller... seriously, what is it with this genre’s authors being able to nail either the best relationships or the best characters???

the ensemble cast of *the wild trails* has this flipped version of high school romance vibes. we've got the resident asshole, the beloved prince, the violent jokester, the nerd—basically everyone you’ve either loved or hated in those classic hs romances—but mackenzie reed gives them a grounded feel without stripping away their quirks. i honestly couldn’t bring myself to hate anyone. i really appreciated how the author considered the characters' ages and didn't make their mistakes feel like the end of the world.

all in all, if you were obsessed with tight-knit friendship groups ruling the campus in high school romances, this is a book that *needs* to be on your 2025 tbr. i’m so obsessed with the relationships in this book, it's not enough... I NEED MORE! 😍

I think my expectations for what this book would be were too off. I saw another review comparing this to Panic (which I think had one of the most thrilling concepts in YA) and maybe having that comparison in mind shaped my expectations of this book too much into something it isn’t. The Wilde Trials is about a competition consisting of seven trials in the wilderness, with one winner taking $600,000 and bragging rights. To top it all off, all contestants will spend 2 weeks living in a decrepit and partially collapsed estate in the middle of the woods. When I first started this, I was like, why are these already rich kids scrambling to enter this competition and putting themselves in this much danger just for prides sake when none of them actually need the money? Keep in mind, I was picturing dangerous tasks that were at least somewhat on the level of what I read in Panic. I got my answer once the trials started; it’s because this competition isn’t actually deadly or dangerous at all. That’s not at all what I was expecting and was a bummer.

I can see how this can be compared to Panic, but boarding school edition, and with lower stakes as the competition itself isn’t dangerous. I found the trials themselves a total snore, since they were mainly just riddles and brain teasers, while I was expecting actual dangerous, death defying trials. I kid you not, one of the trials was literally rowing across the lake and the first people who get there wins. What is this, a relay race? I was expecting something so high stakes that people died from it, when this was just teenagers running around the woods solving riddles and answering history questions on paper? I guess I was just expecting something more thrilling than this.

The Wilde Trials did have the added subplot of discovering a mystery about the trials and the manor, which added some much needed substance to the plot. This is less about the competition itself and more about the people competing in it, and the mystery behind the blackmailing of the contestants. I couldn’t care less about the blackmailing plot for most of it but it picked up at the end and I did become invested by the end.

I think that the right reader will enjoy this book more than I did if they keep their expectations in check. Do not go into this expecting a book consisting of terrifying, or even interesting trials. It’s not going to be thrilling in that kind of way. If you go into this expecting this to be more about the mystery behind the trials and more of a whodunnit sort of thing, rather than the events of the trials themselves, you’ll likely enjoy this more. As a horror fan and high stakes reader, this was a disappointment to me personally, but not every reader will have the same preferences as me.

Thank you to Netgalley and HarperCollins for sending me an advanced copy in return for my honest review.

Thank you, #NetGalley and HarperCollins Children's Books, for allowing me to read Mackenzie Reed's The Wilde Trials in exchange for my honest review.

Chloe Gatti is nothing but determined. She is constantly proving herself to others, including her peers at school. To make a point to her peers and maybe for herself, she signed up for the Wilde Trials, which is a competition held at her school. This fierce competition is held two weeks before graduation. A student competitor must be the last to win the trials and ultimately win the grand prize money. On the day they announced the list of students going to the Wilde trials, Chloe and her friend check this list to see not only her name but every one that is her archnemsis, including her ex-boyfriend Hayes, is also going to the trials. Chloe does not let this bother her because she is winning this money for her family. After all, her sister's cancer treatments are becoming expensive and taking a toll on the family. Fast forward to the first night at the Wilde trials, which are at the old campus of her school, and the competition takes a dark turn for the worse. Chloe's darkest secret is being used against her by another competitor. To win and figure out who is blackmailing, she must decide who to trust, and that might mean she has to join forces with her ex to solve the many mysteries in the competition.

With her sophomore novel, Reed has solidified herself as a star in the YA thriller genre. The Wilde Trials had me on the edge of my seat one moment and giggling the next. It takes a rare talent to write a story that is as sure of itself as this one.

"The Wilde Trials" by Mackenzie Reed is a teen/young adult mystery novel where high schoolers attending a private boarding school apply to be part of a two week competition in the woods (consisting of puzzles, riddles, physical competitions, etc.) and the winner will receive $600,000. Chloe has applied to be part of the Wilde Trials to win the money to pay for her sister's cancer costs. She is ecstatic when she is one of the accepted entrants, but then sees that her ex-boyfriend is also participating. Once the trials have started, Chloe notices that someone is sabotaging her. A brick is thrown through her window with a threatening message and photo, saying that they know that she cheated on some of her exams and they will tell everyone if she tells anyone about the sabotage. A humorous and thrilling teen mystery that keeps you guessing. Recommended for YA collections where Maureen Johnson's "Truly Devious" series is popular.

I was a little bit torn on this one and ultimately what to rate it, but I think those true YA audience readers will love it. The pacing was a little slow for my liking, and it really didn’t pick up until about 60% in. I was curious enough to know what was going to happen and what would be revealed to keep reading though. Once it did really get going I found myself very invested. I liked the characters and particularly the relationship between Chloe and her sister. Reed does a nice job of making you question the motives of everyone in the game and was able to share some solid character development even when some characters weren’t always on the page as frequently. The ending wrapped up nicely, although it did seem a bit rushed after everything. If you are into stories that are about games or competitions, you will definitely enjoy this one. Lots of clues and challenges within the Wilde Trials themselves as well as other secrets that are simultaneously uncovered.

This one has a bit of "The Inheritance Games" to it with the twist of being at a private school. Honestly, one of the better puzzle mysteries I have had the chance to read in many years.

I'd highly recommend for those who like some puzzles on the side of their mystery!

Thanks NetGalley for the e-ARC!

The Wilde Trials was lots of fun.
12 high school seniors compete in a wilderness competition for $600,000. Everyone has their reasons for being there, butt when Chloe starts getting sabotaged and blackmailed, she's determined to find out who.
Lots of twists and turns as we discover everyone's secrets. I couldn't put this one down.

Thanks to Netgalley and Harper Collins for an early copy for review.