Wholesale Ending You Deserve : Rebecca Stafford

Rebecca Stafford Hardcover Young Adult Fiction/Coming of Age Do Revenge meets Sawkill Girls by way of Where Sleeping Girls Lie in this dark-academia-stripped-bare novel about a student who uncovers a predator operating in plain sight at her new prestigious private arts high school. Ava Quirk has longed to attend Faraday, a highly respected and selective private school, and after several rejections, her application has finally been accepted. There’s a lot riding on this—her dreams, for one—but almost as soon as she starts, her grades plummet. She couldn’t afford to get into Faraday; she sure as hell can’t afford to fail out. Enter Peter Barden, Ava’s handsome and acclaimed student advisor. He’s got a deal for Ava: if she befriends Love, a wayward student who Barden thinks needs some guidance, and gets him a copy of Love’s top-secret novel, he’ll pass Ava. It’s a weird deal—and a lofty one for someone as socially awkward as Ava—but she’s desperate. So when Ava befriends Love, and Love’s best friend Graham, with ease, she’s thrilled. The three of them become inseparable, forming a pseudo Dead Poets’ Society-like writing group where they bare all. She’s right where she needs to be to deliver on her bargain with Barden—who has been upping the pressure—but the more time goes by, the more she realizes she’s falling for Love, and the idea of betraying their bond is killing her. Then Ava glimpses the horrific truth lining the pages of Love’s secret novel. The once-perfect façade of Faraday—and all Ava thought was true—comes crashing down. In the rubble, Ava discovers a dark and insidious underbelly…and all signs point to Barden as the architect of destruction.