Extraits-

• From the cover 1
  
  Monday, May 22
  
  Senior pranks are a rite of passage. Sometimes they’re fun and sometimes they’re killer.
  
  They’re the last dumb thing you do in high school before you get to do a whole bunch of dumb things in college.
  
  But if you go to my school, they can stop your college dreams dead.
  
  Sophomore year I couldn’t wait to participate in senior pranks, but in the last two years the pranks have really escalated. The Wilder brothers—­putting their last name to good use—­took over. Five of them, all a year apart in age and all headed for prison if it weren’t for their parents’ money, came up with a way to raise the stakes.
  
  Everett
  
  Emmett
  
  Rhett—­ugh
  
  Garrett
  
  Truett
  
  Their parents really went with that matching-­name theme. No wonder they have issues.
  
  I think I remember a kid ribbing Everett about it once. Only once. There’s rumor that the kid had to move to another country.
  
  The brothers all like to exert their dominance. They assign you a prank. A dare, really. If you’re brave enough—­or stupid enough— ­to turn it down, a forfeit is forced upon you.
  
  Arrests, expulsions, not walking at graduation, and even college rejections are what we face now. That is if we accept the dares . . . or if we don’t. Saying no has consequences too.
  
  I watch Rhett laugh and shove one of his followers as he makes his way into the cafeteria, cutting in the line because he doesn’t have to wait like the rest of us.
  
  My best friend, Lucia, twirls her shiny black hair around her finger. “Ignore him,” she says, pushing what I think is supposed to be a burrito away from her. She’s curled up with her boyfriend, Jesse, so far evading the eyes of any teachers monitoring for PDA.
  
  Jesse throws a scowl in Rhett’s direction, still holding a grudge against him for getting starting quarterback at the beginning of the year. Jesse and Atlas are better. Rhett’s family is richer.
  
  “The dares are going to start soon,” I say, turning my nose up. “Rhett’s probably already plotting.”
  
  With only three weeks left of school, senior pranks are right around the corner. Don’t get me wrong, I’m going to go all out to prank Principal Fuller, but I don’t want to get messed up in Rhett’s games.
  
  Atlas leans in, kissing my cheek. “Nothing’s going to stop you and your big brain from going to UCLA.”
  
  Last year Billy Halsten had his place at Ohio State stripped because the fire he set in a trash can spread and gutted a 7-­Eleven. It was his dare from the second-­born Wilder brother. Not to destroy a building but to keep the fire department busy while someone else stole a CPR mannequin.
  
  Since then, the whole thing has made me want to skip the last few weeks of school altogether. There’s no way Rhett is going to listen to Fuller’s warnings.
  
  We’re to keep it safe. No stupid stuff.
  
  The Wilder brothers only do stupid stuff, and I think Rhett might be the worst one of them all.
  
  And I already know Atlas and Jesse won’t back down from a dare.
  
  “Nothing will stop college because I’m not playing,” I tell him. “We’re sticking with eggs and glitter and balloons. That’s enough.”
  
  Atlas pouts, and I can feel myself starting to relent. He’s ridiculously good-­looking—­dark skin, full lips, football...

Critiques-

• 

  February 26, 2024
  Academic focus is at an all-time low at senior Marley Croft’s high school, where, with three weeks left in the school year, dares of increasing complexity and danger are handed out to willing—and unwilling—soon-to-be graduates as part of a long-standing tradition of senior pranks. Rhett Wilder, the leader of the pranksters, comes from a rich and powerful family—and was also once Marley’s best friend. Rhett assigns Marley and her crew—including boyfriend Atlas, bestie Luce, and Luce’s boyfriend Jesse—several dares, the second of which turns deadly, leaving the group contending with an impossible situation that threatens to completely overturn their lives. As the teens attempt to move on from the event, they’re forced to lie to keep from being connected to the prank. Tensions increase, the group begins falling apart, and Marley finds that the others have started acting weird—and are aligning themselves against her. Though the novel’s outcome feels somewhat ambiguous, Marley is a smart and empathetic protagonist whose plans to save herself only reinforce this characterization in this ever-escalating suspense thriller by Preston (The Haunting). Characters are minimally described. Ages 12–up.

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