She and her parents have been recipients of the dean’s kindness, but that makes her an outsider unprepared for what is to come. Waverly is a great protagonist to follow for the story, as she’s a scholarship student whose only hope for Ivy League admittance is a school like this.

As for me, I liked how it had a sort of dark-academia-secret-society vibe to it, while also having deeper connotations with the big twist, feeling very relevant to the present-day political landscape. But the twist being of the apocalyptic nature is only vaguely hinted at in the blurb, and while it worked for me, I know it won’t work for everyone. On the one hand, it is a claustrophobic “survive the night” book. This is the Way the World Ends is kind of an odd book, because I feel like the blurb doesn’t give the right expectations.

I received an ARC from the publisher via NetGalley and am voluntarily posting a review. Waverly’s fairy tale has turned into a nightmare, and she, Ash, and her friends must navigate through a dizzying maze of freight elevators, secret passageways, and back rooms if they’re going to survive the night.Īnd even if they manage to escape the Masquerade, with technology wiped out all over the planet, what kind of world will they find waiting for them beyond the doors? Before she can escape or contact the authorities, a mysterious global blackout puts the entire party on lockdown. This gala is harboring far more malevolent plots than just opening parents’ pocketbooks. All Waverly wants to do is shed her mask and be with her, but the evening takes a sinister turn when Waverly stumbles into a secret meeting between the dean and the school’s top donors-and witnesses a brutal murder. The Masquerade is everything Waverly dreamed of, complete with extravagant gowns, wealthy parents writing checks, and flowing champagne. So when her tutoring student and resident “it girl” asks Waverly to attend the school’s annual fundraising Masquerade disguised as her, Waverly jumps at the chance-especially once she finds out that Ash, the dean’s daughter and her secret ex-girlfriend, will be there.

While her classmates are the children of the one percent, Waverly is getting by on tutoring gigs and the generosity of the school’s charming and enigmatic dean. ISBN-13: 978-1250827975 | $20.00 USD | 272 pages | YA Thrillerįans of One of Us Is Lying and The Hazel Wood are cordially invited to spend one fateful night surviving an elite private school’s epic masquerade ball in Jen Wilde’s debut thriller, This Is the Way the World Ends.Īs an autistic scholarship student at the prestigious Webber Academy in New York City, Waverly is used to masking to fit in-in more ways than one.

Queens of geek by jen wilde