AJW, why must every book of yours need an 8-10 business day recovery window?
You're No Better by Andrew Joseph White is a testament to AJW's growing skill as an author - his body of work just keeps on getting better and better (and darker, too). The novel follows Morgan, an autistic, closeted trans boy navigating an infamous serial killer father and a mother who seemingly just wants to stir up trouble with an invasive documentary about his father's arrest. If you're looking for something that will keep you on the edge of your seat and your heart rate above normal levels, this novel would be perfect for you.
In that classic Andrew Joseph White fashion, the MC is rather abrasive/unlikeable, yet you just can't stop hoping that Morgan gets his happy ending. Personally, I think that character is one of AJW's strongest points, and his character building and resonant (at least for me) portrayal of autism never ceases to amaze me.
The novel is fast-paced, leading to a very quick read - I devoured it in a matter of hours. In the last 100 pages, I felt like I could quite literally not put the book down, as the stakes were just so high.
Overall, this was an amazing novel. Some of my favourite aspects were the complicated portrayals of gender, autism, and mental health, as well as the scathing criticisms of social media and true crime. Honestly, it would not feel right to give You're No Better any less than five/five stars. Highly recommended (as long as you like suspense)
Thank you to Daphne Press for providing this novel for review consideration via NetGalley. All opinions are my own.

AJW never misses for me, but every time he releases a novel, I doubt it can hold up to his previous one. He has proved me completely wrong yet again, and this for me is his best book yet!

Morgan was a fantastic main character, I found him so complex and massively flawed. He was selfish and manipulative yet still so layered that I often found myself hating him and rooting for him at the same time. Being inside the head of a character who can be so cruel at times made for such a satisfying read and I felt myself very invested in Morgan and some of his decisions made me angry and frustrated. However, this is mixed in with an excellent depiction of trauma and the effects it can have on people, which made me feel greatly for Morgan and the balance made him the undoubted hero of the story and so genuinely likeable despite such wrongdoings. The fact that you can like a character like Morgan is a testament to AJW's phenomenal writing and character work.

I found the plot was fast-paced but slowed well for the more emotional and pivotal moments, and the story itself was totally gripping from the very start. I found the twists to be unpredictable and it was fantastic to never really know how you felt about or what to expect from each character the whole way through. I found this truly hard to put down and finished it in a few hours.

This story has AJW's usual brilliant trans and autism rep, and I also found it touched very well on mental health, specifically PTSD, OCD, and intrusive thoughts. Morgan's mental health was explored in depth, and handled with a rawness and grit rarely seen in mental health representation, even in horror. There is no shying away from the uncomfortable and unsightly of mental illness here, and I found myself nodding along at points and really resonating with the darker parts of mental illness which people don't want to talk about.

I also very much enjoyed the criticism and slight parody of true crime fandom. The snippets of social media and blog threads between chapters were often funny but always infuriating. This book explores true crime fanatics and the way they can sometimes treat and speak of killers in a brilliant way.

I will forever and always recommend Andrew Joseph White and, as a trans reader, always appreciate him deeply for the unfiltered and excellent representation he writes.

You’re No Better is a fast-paced gut punch of a thriller, despite being categorized as YA. This book had me in a chokehold from the first chapter. Going into this, I had previously enjoyed Andrew Joseph White’s adult horror novel, You Weren’t Meant to Be Human, but I had not read any of their YA books. I will now be reading the rest of their YA books.

From the beginning, Morgan is a complex protagonist. He is deeply traumatized by his childhood, understandable, and has no issues manipulating people to get what he wants. On the surface, I wouldn’t even say Morgan is a likable protagonist, but something about him had me rooting for him the whole book. Despite the awful things he does and the way he treats his friends, I wanted him to succeed.

You’re No Better is fast-paced, gritty, and complex. It is full of twists and turns that had me flipping pages in desperation to uncover the next piece of the puzzle. Once you start, you won’t be able to put it down.

Andrew Joseph White is back with another incredible novel, and one that takes a deep look into the morbid fascination we as a culture have with true crime. At times, my own curiosity around cases like these felt like a mirror held up to me, forcing me to look beyond the grim details and at the people crimes like this have a lasting impact on.

As a transmasc enby and neurodivergent person, I found myself hugely sympathetic to the struggle of being a boy having to navigate girlhood and keeping up appearances, as well as those thought loops we get stuck on, and the worry that beneath the urge to be a good person, maybe there's something fundamentally broken and flawed underneath. At times Morgan was intensely dislikable, but it all made sense with the life he's lead and the things he's endured, and finding that balance can sometimes be tricky but it was navigated with such ease to create a flawed but interesting main character. I loved Felicity, and Alyssia, and I found myself (for once!) surprised at the twist towards the end.

AJW is an incredible author who is solely responsible for kick-starting my love of queer and trans horror, and I consider each of his novels an instant buy so I was thrilled to be approved for an ARC of You're No Better. Thank you for letting me read this ahead of time - I knew it wouldn't disappoint, and I was absolutely right.