THE GAME

High schooler Lia is thoroughly prepared to try to win Assassins, the secretive game the senior class plays every year.

Small teams receive email messages from the mysterious Council identifying their targets, whom they must “execute” with water pistols while avoiding their own stalkers. Lia, unlike her older brother and friends, has never been a star. Winning this highly competitive game will finally be her turn to shine, so she’s been keeping tabs on many of her classmates’ schedules. Her BFF, Gem, is amused when Devon, the guy Lia wishes were her boyfriend, ends up on their team along with Ben, whose sister Gem crushes on. But then students start dying, beginning with Lia’s first target. It looks like an accident, but Lia heard something suspicious and she’s not sure. Other deaths follow, and even as Lia’s relationship with Devon deepens, evidence starts to point to her as the culprit. With Lia’s parents unsupportive and the police suspicious of her, it falls to her and her surviving friends to identify and stop the killer. A brisk pace and short chapters keep the plot moving relentlessly forward, sustaining suspense, and if the details and lack of character development don’t quite bear up under close examination, it’s easy to overlook those shortcomings. Lia seems to be White; brown-skinned Gem uses they/them pronouns, and Devon is cued as Latinx.

A fine vacation read—quick, deadly, and surprisingly entertaining.