Fake dating between two students at rival boarding schools? If TikTok doesn't eat this book up I'm going to be so mad.

This May End Badly was a perfect balance between soft, adorable romance and sharp characters angry at the world. The prank war shenanigans are ridiculously fun and the banter between the characters made me laugh out loud so many times I lost count. I got so invested in the budding romance that I just could not put it down.

Content warning for discussions of child abuse and sexual misconduct.

This was a DNF for me. I just couldn't get into the story, there were too many characters from the beginning, and I felt the writing was overly juvenile for a book for teens.

I cannot think of one thing wrong with this book, I loved it all the way through and I would highly recommend it to all of my friends. I like how the author added more depth than just fake dating, and made this book have an underlying plot as well with the teacher issue. This book made me so nostalgic for Fall and falling in love, and I will keep an eye out for anything else by this author!

This book immediately sucks you in. I adored the main five girls and their relationships were depicted perfectly. Although a bit predictable in the middle there (with the conflicts and the apologizing), this story never lagged. And the ending was superb. Love everyone coming together like that for an important cause.

I really wanted to like this book but I just couldn't get past the predator teacher storyline. The fact that not only did all the students know he was a predator but the faculty did as well and covered up to avoid a possible closure for the school. Not a fan of showing a young audience that this type of behavior is tolerated. The romance and the pranks were fun but there was a shadow hanging over me for the whole book. It was written well but the story just wasn't for me.

This was super cute. Not only did this book feature a diverse cast, but they were so likable and relatable. This book has enemies to lovers, two rival academies, ✨fake dating✨ and I loved our main characters relationship with her parents, her dad especially. I did like the romance too, but think it could have been fleshed out a bit more. Very fun read!

"This May End Badly" is a story of being too passionate and losing sight of what is really important. The all-girls boarding school, The Weston School, is across the street from the all-boys school, The Winfield Academy. There is a longstanding rivalry between the schools that manifests in a prank war, with the students trying to one-up each other with pranks. Nobody epitomizes this rivalry better than Dorothy (Doe) Saltpeter and Nathaniel Emeric Wellborn III (Three). Doe and her friends pull off a great prank to start the school year, their Senior year, with Three as one of the victims. However, at the school's opening assembly, Doe and her friends learn that this is the last year that the Weston School will be an all-girls school. For financial reasons, the two schools will be merging into a co-educational institution next year. There are also plans to have the students participate in volunteer activities together and otherwise develop the collegiality that will be required starting next year.

Doe is a Weldon girl to her core and she can think of nothing worse than the school becoming co-ed. She is determined to stop the merger. She is also determined to make sure that in the rivalry between her and Three, she comes out on top. Doe and her friends come up with ever more creative pranks, which are matched by Three, his cousins, and his friends. However, Doe also concocts a scheme with Gabriel Wellborn (Wells), Three's cousin, in which they will pretend to date, as a way to really annoy Three. Wells and Three have their own issues, and Wells needs Doe's assistance with his own plan. Doe wants to tell her friends that her relationship with Wells is fake, but she does not think they will understand. In order to make her plans work and in order to hold up her end of the deal with Wells, Doe makes some painful choices, lying to her family and friends. She also soon discovers that not all of girls at the Weston School want it to remain an all-girls school, especially some of the students in the lower grades who are actually going to be at the school next year. Doe ends up in a war with Three and a war with some of her fellow students, and she sees her friendships fracture, as her single-minded focus prevents her from seeing other perspectives and recognizing the harm she is causing. Some of her lies catch-up to her, which results in damage to her relationship with her parents and threatens her continued enrollment at the Weston School. However, a bigger threat arises, which threatens the safety of the female students, and it is going to take the assistance of the opposing factions at the Weston School, as well as the assistance of the Winfield boys, to make sure the threat is eliminated and that the school is safe for the students.

I received a copy of the e-book via NetGalley in exchange for a review.

This was a fun read- reminds me of what I enjoy YA!

What I liked:
-boarding school setting
-fake dating trope
-complex characters
-overall just cute!

What I disliked:
-I initially did not think much about it, but I did see one reviewer discuss the issue of teacher vs student harassment and how it was dealt with by the students. Something I am still thinking about.

Soooooo cute! And fun!

This is one of my favorite tropes and this book is incredibly well done. It’s funny and realistic.

I thought the sensitive subjects were handled in an intelligent and believable way (as in how real-life teens would react).

I’m a sucker for a well-written YA romance. And this was absolutely fantastic.

Who doesn't love a good prank? Nobody loves this more than Doe and her friends who are determined to win a century-long war against a rival Academy. When the headmistress says the two schools are going to merge, things elevate very quickly.

This school is more than just an education, it has become Doe's safety net since her parents divorce. Doe decided to war the boys against the girls and show that the two can't possibly get along. But only one group will win.

Doe must decide what's more important, her fake boyfriend, protecting a young student or winning the war. Who will win? Read this book to find out!

this book was so much fun for me!! i love the boarding school setting and i love a good prank war! and while it is definitely in the ya category the banter and anticipation was paced so well it kept me perfectly balanced between being satisfied and wanted more, so much that i was blushing from the flirting and fluff.
i also think this book displayed making mistakes and navigating secrets and lies very realistic so that i never felt like the mac was acting outside of how someone would normally act or outside of her character which can be the case sometime when reading about a character who is making flawed decisions. another aspect i loved was the girl group friendships. i think it really embodied how a close knit group of friends act together and the group dynamics of that. i enjoyed the little details and quirks about each friend. on the serious side this book presents a clear message about sexual harassment and displays a good example of the standards people should hold others to and the seriousness of dealing with these situations when we may not feel like people will be on our side. verbally this book was super enjoyable and i would definitely reread it and recommend it! 5/5 stars
i received a free arc of this book in exchange for an honest review

I love a boarding school setting in a book and this story did not disappoint. It was hilarious, smart, and fun to read. The pranks were amazing and the friendships were so heartwarming. I loved the smart banter between Doe and Wells and their chemistry was undeniable. Such well developed characters and a book that you can get lost in.

As a librarian who is especially interested in fantasy and scifi, it can be difficult for me to remember romance titles for readers advisory that was published after 2010 -- which isn't something to be proud of. I am so excited to add this book to my list of contemporary and romance suggestions!

The best parts of this book were the mischievous girls unabashedly protecting what they love, and I would love to see more of this!

I absolutely loved this book. As someone who also went to an all girls high school I could relate to so many things Doe was going through. The love for her school, and her friends. This fierce protectiveness to this place that provided a safe space for girls.
I love a good rivalry story with a fake romance trope. The love story was so cute but I love how it wasn't the focus of the story. This May End Badly really focuses on Doe and her friendships as well as the inviolability and difficulty of growing up and moving on.

This was such a fun read!! A perfect YA romance novel/coming of age story! It really has something for everyone. Character development, relationships, a plot, humour, etc. Such a sweet read with a lot of important messages scattered throughout the book which I think were really great!

The main character did get on my nerves a lot, but I'll let it slide because it kind of is a coming-of-age story. She is 17 years old and trying to figure out her life, which can be quite overwhelming; a feeling which is woven through the storyline beautifully.

The plot is very simple, yet filled with humour and teenage pranks which is perfect for younger readers and the romance is really cute and makes you feel all fuzzy inside while also not being the sole purpose of the story which I really loved.

All in all a solid 4/5

I admit, it’s been a good, long time since I read a book set in a modern day high school. Young adult novels have teenage protagonists, sure, but the situations are so extreme that I almost don’t notice it. But when it comes to things like SATs, college applications, drivers licenses? It’s been a long time. So needless to say This May End Badly threw me off a little in the beginning.

I’m so happy I stuck it out though, because the story was an absolute roller coaster that took several turns into the unexpected, and after I got about a quarter of the way through, I had a very hard time putting it down.

This May End Badly follows Dorothy “Doe” Saltpeter in her last year at Weston, an all-girls boarding school. Their long standing rivalry with Winfield Academy, the boy’s school across the street gets turned up to eleven when the administration announces that the two institutions will merge the next year, becoming one coed school. Doe, who is adamant that the merger not take place, is furious.

The war between the schools surpasses normal academic rivalry, often escalating into more and more elaborate pranks. News of the merger leads Doe and her friends to step up their game even more: if they can prove the two schools won’t get along, then the two simply cannot join together.

But Doe’s rivalries extend beyond the schools themselves and into the personal. Specifically, a rivalry with Three, the most popular boy at Winfield, and son of one of the school’s wealthy benefactors. Wanting to get under his skin to fuel the fires of the inter-school war, she makes a deal with Wells, Three’s cousin. The two of them pretend to date, because it bothers Three, and in exchange, she will help him settle an old score of his own with his cousin.

Between the prank war and the fake dating, the book already had a lot going on, and a lot going for it. But as it continued, a lot of more serious issues began to come to light, forcing the characters to decide what it is that really matters to them.

Ultimately, I think the book is less about the plot per se, and more an examination of growing up. Neither Doe nor Wells’ stories end in the way I might have expected, and I think that’s a good thing. If they’d gotten their way, as they wanted from the beginning, then they would still have to live with the consequences of their actions. And it’s not that the conclusion is consequence free, but rather consequences they can live with, and even be proud of.

Samantha Markhum does a great job with her characters. I admit I found Doe to be a little intense and insufferable at first, and it was a huge relief to find out that that was sort of the point all along. Her relationships with her friends, her rivals, and her fake (but maybe not so fake?) boyfriend feel lived-in and real. There is also the absence of the sort of unrealistic intensity you usually see in fictional teenagers. Disagreements can be put aside to unite in common cause, students don’t follow each other around like lemmings. Teenagers acting like teenagers. What a concept.

I began this book with the assumption that I’m too old for “high school books”. An assumption I was only too happy to have proven wrong. This May End Badly was a surprisingly delightful, thoughtful look at what it means to grow up, and how that doesn’t have to mean compromising yourself in the process.

This May End Badly is out April 12, 2022. Special thanks to NetGalley for the advanced copy for review purposes.

I honestly went into this book thinking I wouldn't like it but I have never been more happy to be wrong. I absolutely adored it and ended up finding it hard to put down and very nearly finished it in one sitting.

Here we have the classic rivalry between two boarding schools; The Weston School (for girls) and The Winfield Academy (for boys). This rivalry/prank war has been going on for longer than anyone can remember, which is why its such a shock for Doe (self appointed Westfield leader of the war) when it comes to light that come next year the schools will be merging; and she naturally takes it upon herself to stop it.

The best part is that this book brings in two of my favourite troupes; enemies to lovers and fake dating. I will say I was surprised in the queer representation here as I find most books that have 'straight' relationship as the main one, the supporting characters tend to follow. So I was pleasantly surprised when there was queer rep and a lot of talk about how gendered schools alienate people who identify as non-binary or transgender. In reality, I wouldn't even say the love story is the only main story as there are lots of other moments and large events happening when Doe's love story kinda takes a back seat and I think that's why I loved it so much.

Can't wait till this book is out so I can actually go out and read a hard copy!

This book had so many things to love. Pranks, awesome friendships, funny banter, cute but evil boys. The one thing that was hard to read was the inappropriate teacher storyline. It felt off and now well placed in this book. It could have been left out of the book and I wouldn't have felt like anything was missing. I still really enjoyed it and look forward to other books from this author.

At first I was skeptical about the plot of the story. Fake dating is one of my favorite tropes but usually not done well. This book went above and beyond completely dispelling all doubts.

This ending may have been one of my favorites all year for young adult books.

This book had so many tropes and elements that I absolutely love: enemies(ish) to lovers, boarding school setting, fake dating, etc. I was impressed that this was Markum's first novel. Mostly, the character develop was excellent. Doe grows so much from the beginning to the end of the story. This is not one of those cases where she is kind of a crappy friend but never learns from her mistakes. There was also amazing tension between the main character and her love interest. Simply, this book is a lot of fun and hits many of the marks for a compelling contemporary YA romance.