Can a historically all female school merge with an all male school? Not always a consideration but it has happened in real life and it is happening in this delightful story! What can possible go wrong, right?

As you can imagine a lot of students oppose this union, specially the main character, Doe. The character feels immature over her reaction to this decision. Luckily, things become more clear as you move along with the story your view of Doe may change to a more positive, well liked character.

The story does have a large share of the anxieties of leaving the only world you know behind for a new phase in life that is about to begin once you are done with high school For Doe, she puts too much energy into trying to keep her school as it has been - it seems that this goal consumes her whole life. Her friends are now casualties in this crazy obsession, until Doe takes a good look at her own self and re-evaluates what she is doing.

There is a lot of humor - the pranks played against one another are greatness! With that said, the story teaches the reader how easily it is to forget what is really important in one's life... A lot of times we let things consume us - we give them too much power. This book is a great reminder to take your power back and focus on the things that really matter.

So very cute! I loved how familiar this book felt and enjoyed the author's writing style. I enjoyed the romance.

#ThisMayEndBadly follows Dorothy - aka Doe - and her best friends during their senior year at Weston, an all girls boarding school. The school next-door, Winfield, an all boys school, is one that they’ve had a rivalry with for decades. Doe and her friends took up the mantle of the rivalry when they started at Weston and now in their senior year the prank war has reached new heights. When the schools announce that they’re going to be merging in the following year, Doe and her friends take it upon themselves to see if they can stop it. When Doe decides to start fake dating Wells, the cousin of her longtime nemesis Three, she soon finds herself learning that there’s more to high school than pranks and maybe, just maybe, it’s about time to grow up.

This was an excellent YA romcom! Doe and Wells were absolutely adorable together and I loved how the fake dating trope played out in the storyline. Their friends were well developed characters and Markum really allowed them to shine through on their own which I loved.

I am so grateful to NetGalley and Wednesday Books for my early copy of this book!

as soon as i read that this book had fake dating and it was a girl vs. boy boarding school, i was HOOKED. first time reading samantha markum and it won't be my last. this book gave me found family as well with jade, sumi, gemma and shawn; the best friends a girl could ask for. there were a few many subplots that i was a bit hesitant about (mr. tully) but in the end, it all made sense for the greater plotline and actually moved the story forwards. i also love the cover 10/10

This book had a lot going on. I feel like sticking to a few different plot lines would have been better than trying to include all the tropes; rivalries, fake dating, enemies to lovers, family drama, etc. it made things kind of convoluted and I would have rather had a focus on one or two of the tropes.

Also, what’s with the predatory teacher? I didn’t feel this was needed or appropriate for YA book. Maybe if the plot had demonstrated how to deal with that situation rather than not addressing it at all, it could have been more acceptable. This just didn’t sit right with me and is likely a reason I just didn’t end up being a fan of this book.

Thank you to NetGalley + Wednesday Books for the ARC.

Although I couldn't get into this book much myself, I think my students would LOVE it - between the pranks, friendships, relationships, I think it is a book worth having in the class library!

This book made me feel a lot of different emotions. I cried, I laughed, and I did not want to put it down.

You are really sucked in to Doe's life with her friends and their rivalry with the Winfield boys school. I was not expecting this book to cover as many topics as it did but wow.

Looking forward to reading more books from Samantha Markum in the future.

"As for Winfield, no one really knows when the rivalry began. Some say a Weston girl was deeply scorned by a Winfield boy long ago, and that's when the animosity started. Others say it's simply the way of the world when you put two of anything across the road from one another-one always has to be better."

Two schools involved in a pranking rivalry featuring YA fake dating tropes? Yes please! I absolutely adored the idea behind This May End Badly, and found myself engrossed in the many different plot threads that are going on here. Lots of scenes involving issues that YA readers need to tackle, while also forming a cute enemies-to-lovers relationship between main characters that you just have to root for.

Honestly, if this book had left out the predatory teacher plot line, I would have given this book somewhere between 4-5 stars, but I could not shake how inappropriate it felt to include this plot while also not showing teenaged readers how to speak up and ask for help, followed by parents and other adults shaming them with "why didn't you say anything?" All in all, would read another book from this author in a heartbeat.

This was such a fun book!

I'm getting reacquainted with YA romances and this was the perfect book to get me back into them! Who doesn't love a fake dating trope?? So good!

I love this cover too!

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the earc in return for an honest review.

I thought I knew where this story was going, a cute fake dating romance featuring prank wars between two rival schools. But it flipped the script on me three quarters of the way through, with a uncomfortably descriptive appearance of sexual assault by a male teacher, which threw me.

Most of the story is fairly predictable, in her final year at school Doe finds out that her school, a girls only school and her rival, Three's boys only school, are merging. She decides to royally irritate him by fake dating his cousin Wells, who of course she develops feelings for.

I actually really liked Wells. He was a decent guy, funny, intelligent, loyal. He never messed Doe around and made his feelings for her known when he realised them. On the other hand, as Three was such a big part of Doe's life, I never felt that we got under the surface of him. Doe herself I frequently found to be annoying, and selfish.

The sexual assault storyline did feel like it hit me out of the blue - there was clues leading up to it, with frequent mentions of the teacher being one to avoid, but the story often moved quickly back into the prank war storyline. I couldn't help but feel that the sexual assault storyline was added in later, and the moments leading up to it written in quickly.

Overall, this was a good story, I just don't see myself reading it again and I did wish that the sexual assault storyline was scrapped altogether in favour of a lighter read - I didn't think the heavy scenes worked well with fake dating / prank war tropes that are usually used in light, fluffy reads.

This was a cute YA read. I liked the story, but found it to be a bit slow at times. I just wanted more to happen and kept waiting for more, but alas, it didn’t happen. I liked Doe and her group of friends. The shenanigans are funny and the romance cute.

Thanks to netgalley and the publisher for my ARC.

A well above-average YA read that was a delight to read. I think the idea of the prank war was in most ways an enjoyable set-up, and I thought the characters had more depth than most recent YA romances I've read. It was a fun read, mostly charming and funny, and would be an easy book to recommend for those looking for a smart, substantive romance with character diversity. I think that YA readers will find the backdrop of the rival schools to be especially appealing, as well as the main character's friend group. I enjoyed seeing a character that had a solid friendship group to support them. I am so over the trend of the lone female protagonist that 'just isn't like other girls' and seems to be in state of perpetual solitude until the male lead appears, and so I am glad to see that it's ending and more books like this appearing. For that reason alone I would be very likely to recommend this title to my patrons.

Thank you to Netgalley and St. Martin's Press/Wednesday Books for providing this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

OK, I really liked this book. Doe is a senior at her all girls boarding school, Weston. There is a long standing prank war between Weston and the all male boarding school, Winfield, across the street. As school is starting for the new school year, Doe and her student body learn that this is the last year that this will be an all girls school and that the two schools will be merged. Doe is not having this and stops at nothing to stop this merger from going through. Doe decides to "fake date" one of the Winfield boys just to get under her rivals skin. After this, everything seems to spiral out of control er where Doe is about to not only lose her friends but also be kicked out of her beloved school.

Even though I really liked Doe, I found her to be pretty selfish. What saved her for me is that she saw the light in the end. I love to see a character grow and redeem them self. A pretty fast read that was helped by the pranks because you wanted to see where it would go next.

Sadly, I never got to this! I want to read it at some point, but obviously it won't be through Netgalley.

3.5 Stars

“This May End Badly” is a m/f YA romance full of tropes such as fake-dating and enemies-to-lovers.

Doe is horrified to learn that her beloved boarding school, Weston School, which is all girls, will be merging with Winfield Academy, the all-boys school from across the street. She and her friends have been in a prank war with the Winfield boys that started decades ago and she wants to use the pranks as a way to finally beat the boys for good and to somehow stop the merger from happening.

This was a fun read for the most part. It’s full of humor and witty banter with fun pranks on both sides. This deals heavily with friendships and family and there was a lot about it I really liked.

Although Doe is against merging the schools, I enjoyed the conversations around gender inequality and how having the schools being all-girl or all-boy doesn’t leave space for transgender and non-binary folks. As an LGBT+ person, I was happy to see this included.

My issue was with Doe, the main character. I realize this is young adult and she’s 17 so she would be making questionable decisions but I found her to be selfish and dismissive for a lot of the book. I did appreciate the fact that she actually grew and learned from her mistakes but it was a bit late for me. I found the reasoning behind all of her choices to be weak and it had me rolling my eyes. I was also surprised to see her friends call her out on her behavior, even if it took almost the whole book.

Additionally, I thought the storyline with the teacher that preys on girls kind of came out of nowhere and it left a bad taste in my mouth. It’s a serious topic but it felt forced and like it was only there to add drama on top of all the other drama that was already there.

This was a solid debut from Samantha Markum and I hope to read more from her in the future.

I received an arc from Wednesday Books/St. Martin’s Press via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This May End Badly took a bit to get into because a lot is going on. Doe (Dorothy) is a senior at Weston School, an all-girls prep school, and leads the girls in pranking their rivals the all-boys school Winfield Academy. Doe also has 4 best friends, Shawn, Jade, Gemma, and Sumi. We meet them all immediately while they are in the middle of setting up a prank for the beginning of the school year. At the same time, we are introduced to her arch-nemesis Three Westborn and other members of the Westborn family. With introductions also comes some history. There was an immense amount of information to take in at the beginning. This only gets more overwhelming when subplots are added into the mix.

While Doe fights the merger of the two schools, she also has multiple other issues to deal with: aggravating Three by fake dating his cousin, retaliating against Winfield boys for any pranks they pull, figuring out what she wants to do after high school, navigating her friendships, and the list just goes on. It makes for a chaotic life for Doe and makes it chaotic for the reader to connect with her, at least that was the case for me. I would have liked the focus on one or two plotlines with greater introspection as opposed to so much going. The focus on external action, like the pranks and angering Three, concealed her internal struggles until around the halfway mark when things started to come together. With so much going on, it also meant page time for these subplots was limited. I wanted more Doe fake dating Three’s cousin Wells. This was the highlight of the book for me, and there just wasn’t enough of it.

With so much going on, I was never sure what was going to happen next. A prank? Time with Wells? Time with her friends? While it was a little chaotic at times, This May End Badly was still a good read. I would recommend this to individuals who like books about friendships, school rivalries, and the difficulties of growing up. There is a subplot that might be triggering to individuals so please see the synopsis for further information about the book. (3.5 stars rounded to 4 stars)

Okay omg, where do I even start? I completely fell in love with this book. It has everything someone would ever want to read.

This felt very much like a Netflix original movie with teen romance, a prank war gone rogue, and a mess of unruly boarding school kids skipping school and bucking the system. An angsty and completely consuming raucous adventure that was a breath of fresh air! I loved this one!

Doe and her friends always try and stay one step ahead of the Winfield boys. The rival schools have been in a prank war even before Doe’s time. So when the headmistress announces a school merger, Doe will stop at nothing to protect her school, even going so far as to fake date a Winfield boy to get under her enemies skin. What Doe doesn’t anticipate is the fallout from her quickly snowballing lies.

Fast-paced and with a perfectly balanced anti-hero, this was a relevant and timely novel that brought up hot topics like gender equality, child abuse, harassment, and sexuality. The friend group is amazing and I love how there is a constant lingering chemistry between Doe and Nells. It’s just a really great YA novel packed with serious topics, entertainment, and fresh perspective!

Really enjoyable YA read! Markum is witty and her characters develop nicely. The pacing was great as well!

I was super excited to read this one because I love enemies to lovers and fake dating, plus the whole rival schools in a prank war idea sounded really cute. I wasn't captivated at first, but was enjoying it, and then it just kind of went downhill for me.

Firstly, Doe is just annoying. She's really selfish and she doesn't listen to those around her. I was really upset with how much she dismissed what the other girls at school were saying about not being upset about their school merging with the boys school. I understand that her school was a place where Doe felt safe and she didn't want things to change, but she wouldn't listen when people were telling her that by having gendered schools it could be really harmful to any students who were non-binary or trans. Eventually she is like "Oh, maybe they're right and having this school be an all girls school could be invalidating!" but it took her a while to get there and that just felt really....off.

But more so than that, what really bothered me was the fact that there was a side plot about a male teacher being a sexual predator that I felt was not handled well at all. All the girls know that this teacher is sketchy, they tell each other not to be alone with him, and Doe even tells a younger girl that she sees coming out of his office not to be alone with him and gives the girl her number and says to call her in case she's ever called to his office alone again. They've all heard rumors and are on their guard, and yet... no one says anything. I know that victims not speaking up his a huge issue, and it's usually due to adults and or law enforcement not doing anything to actually take action, but it just felt really off here. Eventually the girls and boys from their rival school, band together to take a stand after the girl who Doe had given her number to calls her in tears because she was alone with this teacher and he made a pass at her. When their parents finally get involved and ask why they never said anything? They didn't want to cause their parents stress or cause trouble. That made literally zero sense and just bothered me. The worst part is, this storyline was treated like a cautionary tale instead of a serious issue until the last 30 or so % of the book and because there was no real weight to it before that, it didn't have any emotional impact. If you're going to make a teacher being a sexual predator a plot point, make it a plot point. Discuss it throughout the entire story, and give it the importance that it deserves.

I wanted to like this book, but it really was not for me.