In Bury Your Friends, Noah and his friends are looking forward to celebrating graduation from Woodthorn Academy, an elite private school for the children of the ultra rich and famous, with a house party on a country estate. The festivities are under the shadow of a tragedy, however, after one of their group disappears under suspicious circumstances. As the party kicks off, a game of hide and seek takes a nasty turn as it becomes apparent that their opulent surroundings are hiding a killer and the group must decide who will be the next person to die…
This novel takes one of the most traditional crime tropes as its setting – a group of wealthy people are trapped in a country house and murder is afoot. In this case, the characters are hugely rich teenagers, the children of celebrities and high-profile politicians. They are also almost all extremely unlikeable, which means it is difficult to have much sympathy for anyone beyond the main character once the murders begin. Noah is the odd-one out, with no money or connections, and he is also plagued by memories connected to his friend’s disappearance. Is he a killer? This potentially unreliable narrator adds another element of suspense to a fast-paced thriller that takes place over the course of only one night.
Dean is clearly interested in how class and wealth meet race and identity. Several of the characters are non-white and queer and there is a lot of discussion between the characters over how this impacts them and their relationships. This novel sits more at the older end of the YA spectrum, as the characters are all 18 and there is a lot of adult language throughout as well as some slightly more mature themes.
Fans of Holly Jackson will enjoy this very modern mystery.
PWT rating: ♥♥♥
Published by Simon & Schuster, Bury Your Friends is available from bookshops and Amazon.
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Elaine Hewlett is a secondary school librarian.
