June 5, 2023
Black 18-year-old Adina Walker—valedictorian of Edgewater Academy, a school for the affluent, largely white, population of Massachusetts’s elite—thinks she has her future at Yale all planned out. Then she gets into a physical altercation with classmate Esme Alderidge, a mean and powerful socialite. The event results not only in Yale rescinding Adina’s acceptance, but in Adina getting blacklisted from every other Ivy League college. Desperate to get back into her dream school, Adina befriends Pierce Maxwell Remington IV, the second son of the most influential family in New England, who purportedly invites her via letter to enter a prestigious competition called the Finish. Along with 11 other girls, Adina must compete in three mysterious challenges: the Ride, the Raid, and the Royale. But what she assumed would be events based around “upper crust manners” turns out to be a vicious game of life or death. Slight worldbuilding occasionally causes confusion that saps tension from perilous, high-stakes scenes. Nevertheless, through Gossip Girl–inspired drama that interrogates the ability of power and privilege to corrupt, debut author Wellington delivers a spine-chilling thriller. Ages 14–up.
