Will the killer be found?

At the Meadowbrook Boarding School, Amy is enjoying the senior week before the underclasses arrive on campus. She’s looking forward to spending time with her best friend Sarah and her boyfriend Joseph, who attends school in town. After a party the night before, Amy wakes up and knocks on Sarah’s door. When there’s no answer, Amy opens up the door to find Sarah and her boyfriend Ryan dead in a bloody bed. The school is shocked to the core and every student is terrified that they’re going to be the next victim. Amy is moved to room with Liz, the school newspaper journalist, who has high ambitions for reporting the news, on and off campus. Will the killer be found? Will the killer be stopped?

Likes/dislikes: I like how the characters each found a true friend when they didn’t expect to at all. It just shows that you never know where you’ll find a friend. Liz meets her journalistic hero and she learns quite a lot from her. Great character development.
Mature content: PG-13 for implied sex and underage drinking.
Language: R for 66 swears and 19 f-words.
Violence: PG-13 for bloody death.
Ethnicity: Jewish, Black, White are all mentioned.

I love me some dark academia; give me boarding schools & murder any day.

Overall, this was a pretty solid read. It was fast-paced and easy to keep reading, and the juxtaposition of rich prep school kids, lower-income prep school kids, and townies was interesting.

I did feel at times the dual narrations were too similar; sometimes I'd have to double check whose voice I was reading. And—this is the drawback of reading YA as a middle-aged mom—almost all of the parents were godawful!

I recieved a free advanced e-copy on NetGalley to review.

This is a boarding school murder mystery, and in my opinion a very average one. Nothing stood out to me as unique or interesting, but I wouldn’t call it bad. The pace was quite slow and the plot was predictable. The characters were fine if somewhat two-dimensional. All in, it felt very much like a mystery novel was outlined for the major requirements and the outline was executed. Yes, all the boxes were checked - but a bit lifelessly.

I do think there are better YA mysteries out there - but if you’ve already read them all this is an okay one to pick up.

Overall, I love Goodman's writing style; however, I found this mystery to be predictable (knew the killer as soon as they were introduced) and one of the main characters were insufferable (and not in a flawed/unlikeable way, but annoying).

Gave this two chapters, but the writing didn't interest me and the subject matter felt over-trodden/oft-visited. I understand the audience is likely YA, but it felt as though the writing was too simple/too many shortcuts. I did not finish.

Private review - no socials or public reviews for this book as a DNF.

Thank you net galley for the advance reader copy of this novel. This was a YA suspense novel that didn't disappoint. Murders at a prep school was definitely an engaging plot and had me from the first page. I liked how the chapters alternated between Liz and Amys perspectives. I will definitely read more by this author!

The Meadowbrook Murders had all of the themes that I typically enjoy, private school setting, murder, the haves vs. the have-nots. The mystery and twists were interesting but it took an extremely long time to get there. It was slow and hard to get through. Overall the story was solid but pacing and slow build up lessened my enjoyment of it.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.

When Amy’s best friend and best friend’s boyfriend are murdered in the boarding school room right next to hers while she sleeps, Amy becomes the prime suspect. She reluctantly joins up with Liz, a determined and driven journalist on the school paper, to figure out just who the murderer truly is.

I really enjoyed this book. I have read some of Goodman’s books before and really enjoyed them as well. This one has a great mystery as the set up, and the rest of the book really delivers. Liz and Amy are really complex characters and very strong young women, and you can’t help but cheer for them. I had a particularly good time with guessing the murderer just a few chapters before the reveal, which means the book was good enough to fool me for a long time, while also being good enough to have enough clues for me to follow. I would recommend this book.

This book will be such a hit with the young adult crowd!!! It held my attention and kept me guessing the entire way! Teens love nothing better than reading about other teens, especially when you throw in a murder. This author did an excellent job of keeping the reader guessing until the big reveal. I thought the ending was perfect! I will definitely be recommending this book to my students and fellow adults that enjoy this type of work. Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC! I really enjoyed it!

2.25/5 stars. I really have loved Jessica Goodman’s other books, but this one was so predictable and the characters didn’t have me rooting for them. I’ll still read her future books, but this one was a letdown overall.

The Meadowbrook Murders is a solid YA thriller with dark academia vibes, but I wasnt as surprised or intrigued as I wanted to be. I wanted more suspense. I also found it difficult to buy that journalism was such an important of this school community. Still, it was entertaining and will please fans of the author's previous thriller, The Counselors.

I received an ARC of this novel from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

YA murder mystery set in an exclusive prep school. Great characters.

This is a boarding school murder mystery that jumps right into the bloody act and the immediate investigation afterwards. We follow the roommate of the victim, who's keeping secrets about what exactly happened that night and the school's newspaper editor-in-chief, trying to figure out what happened and write an explosive story.

The story was okay, but I didn't love either main character. The way things played out made it sort of unbelievable that they'd uncover any real clues, as they were more wrapped up in their own dramas. I also saw the killer coming early on, there's plenty to lead you there if you pay attention.

Overall, an okay read but I won't be revisiting it.

I voluntarily read and reviewed this book. All opinions are my own. Thank you to G.P. Putnam's Sons Books for Young Readers and NetGalley for the copy.

I enjoyed the way this unfolded; the school newspaper/investigative report character really drew me in. I didn't love this as much as others from Goodman, but still a solid YA mystery.

This was a quick read, but completely sucked me in! If you're into dark academia, you'll love this. This was WILD and a fantastic twisty murder mystery.

If you’re looking for a quick and bingeworthy dark academia YA thriller, Jessica Goodman is the author for you! In her newest, The Meadowbrook Murders, we have a girl and her boyfriend murdered, her roommate was the only one to survive in the room, and a student dying to find her big hardhitting story as a journalist.

Sarah and Amy are roommates and are back for their senior year at their boarding school, and what should have been a fun year turned into a nightmare when Sarah and her boyfriend were brutally murdered and Amy was the only other person in the room and came out unharmed. But she claims she didn’t do it. She knows Sarah had some secrets she was keeping and is doing what she can to protect her friend, but with the mounting pressure, it’s getting harder and harder to. Liz is an aspiring journalist and sees this story as her opportunity to get into a great college if she can crack the case open.

Secrets, drama, and murder among the privileged and spoiled rich kids at their boarding school – dark academia is always fun for that reason. Everyone always has some dark secrets, and there were a few good red herrings in the mix. You might guess the killer, but it won’t take away from the big reveal. If you need a fast and fun murder mystery, this is the one!

That was a really solid dark academia novel. It reminded me a lot of Ruth Ware's The It Girl, but is set in a boarding school (high school), so there's a lot more talk about how the situation arising will impact college admissions, etc. I would have expected a lot more adult intervention, but alas, that's never the case in fictional stories such as these. Amy was kind of a jerk, though she was definitely going through a lot. I did really resonate a lot more with Liz. They both had their flaws though.

I will say that this book was intense and the killer could have been anyone. So many people had motive, were snarky and unkind, and there were means for many people to have committed the act. I really thought I had it solved because of things like someone having taken a shower at a particular time, but seriously, it was all just done really well. Kudos.

A gripping, fast paced murder mystery. I loved the short chapters and alternating POVs. I guessed the killer at about 80% but I enjoyed getting to the final reveal.

Thank you to NetGalley and the Penguin Group for the ARC.

17-year-old Amy Altermann goes to an elite boarding school in Connecticut. One night, after a party Amy comes home drunk. She has not been getting along with her roommate, and former best friend, Sarah. The next morning, she finds Sarah and Sarah’s boyfriend dead in Sarah’s room. Amy strives to clear her name as well as her boyfriend’s while struggling with her friends’ deaths. Reporter, Liz, is writing in her office when she hears about the deaths of Sarah and her boyfriend. As she begins investigating, she uncovers new information. Can Sarah clear her name? What really happened to Sarah and her boyfriend?

The plot is well written, engaging, and keeps the readers engaged. The characters are well developed, unreliable narrators that add to the mystery of the story. Readers who like murder mystery, locked room mysteries, and suspense will want to pick this one up. Recommended for most high school and public library collections. Gr 9 and up, 4 stars

ARC provided by PENGUIN GROUP Penguin Young Readers Group

Some towns keep their secrets buried. Meadowbrook isn’t one of them.

Jessica Goodman returns with another razor-sharp thriller, unraveling the dark underbelly of privilege, ambition, and the consequences of secrets long left to rot. The Meadowbrook Murders pulls readers into a world where appearances are everything, but beneath the surface, danger lurks in every whispered conversation and every forced smile. When a shocking murder sends waves through the elite Meadowbrook community, the truth starts to surface—but not everyone wants it to come to light.

From the very first page, Goodman builds an atmosphere thick with tension. The protagonist, caught between the weight of the past and the need for answers, becomes entangled in a mystery that refuses to stay buried. The deeper they dig, the more disturbing the revelations become—lies that have been carefully spun, friendships built on manipulation, and an unspoken rule that power is the ultimate currency in Meadowbrook. The pacing is relentless, each chapter peeling back another layer of deceit, leading to a finale that is both shocking and inevitable.

Goodman’s writing is razor-sharp, balancing a compelling mystery with character-driven storytelling. No one in Meadowbrook is entirely innocent, and that’s what makes this book so gripping—everyone has something to hide, and everyone is capable of more than they let on. The twists hit hard, the betrayals cut deep, and just when you think you’ve figured it all out, Goodman throws in another revelation that changes everything.

Beyond the mystery itself, The Meadowbrook Murders is an exploration of privilege and the lengths people will go to protect their status. It asks unsettling questions: How far would you go to keep your world intact? And at what point does justice become just another weapon in the wrong hands?

If you love thrillers with complex, morally gray characters, small-town secrets, and jaw-dropping twists, this is a must-read. Goodman has crafted a story that will keep you turning pages late into the night, and by the time the final secret is revealed, you’ll realize nothing in Meadowbrook was ever what it seemed.