THE MERCILESS KING OF MOORE HIGH

Teens in high schools that used to be rivals struggle to survive after the world ends.

Before, Kay Kim was Jefferson High’s Student Council secretary, famed for her inability to lie convincingly. For the past nine months, 18-year-old Kay, along with the rest of the student body, has been struggling to survive. Monstrous Growns, formed from the mutilated bodies of the town’s adults, have been killing indiscriminately. Despite sending out jocks to scavenge for food, Jefferson students are starving. The Council holds power through numerous laws. After they exile Kay, she’s given asylum by rival Moore High, where the students—under the rule of King Max, who’s inspired by an online medieval role-playing game, and Merlin, who calls herself a wizard—are well fed and battle ready. Kay hopes they’ll help save her school and find Kyle, Jefferson’s lost president, but instead she becomes embroiled in a tumultuous power struggle. The depiction of the current social hierarchy provides intriguing parallels with the Before times, and Kay’s challenges with dissembling and the importance of truth-telling are recurring themes. While the Growns are gruesome, the mechanics behind their creation require a suspension of disbelief. Similarly, the individual plot elements are intriguing and surprising, but they become overly complicated, diluting the impact of the new post-apocalyptic normal. The easily anticipated romance is a believable slow burn. Kay’s surname cues Korean ancestry; there’s some racial diversity among side characters.

Thematically intriguing with shocking twists, but overly convoluted.