Try Your Worst by Chatham Greenfield
This is a YA mystery romance following Sadie and Cleo, who have had a rivalry since birth and a long history of pranking one another. Senior year, when the girls are framed for a series of escalating pranks that threaten to get them suspended, expelled, or jeopardize their college acceptance, they must work together to find out who is framing them and find along the way that they actually enjoy each other's company.
This was fine. I guessed the answer to the mystery less than halfway through the book and while the romance aspect takes up just as much as the plot and helps not make the latter half feel like a drag, the fact that the mystery was so obvious makes it all the more disappointing that the girls don't solve it until the last 10 pages, leaving no time for the emotional fallout that the answer demands. I would have much preferred they solve the mystery earlier and sort out their romance towards the end as opposed to the other way around- it would have made how easy the mystery was less grating and would have given the characters more time to process the answer.
I also feel that the main theme of understanding that other people have hidden depths and have justifications for the things you judge them for is undercut by how little grace is shown to the villian. Not that I believe that they should forgive the prankster, but they spend the whole book learning that the things they have disliked each other over are things that make sense for them given their life circumstances. So to then absolutely refuse to allow the prankster any attempts to justify themself feels counter to that. And I can't help but think it is done because the prankster's motivations don't actually make much sense; they can't defend themself because that would require pointing out how continuing the pranks actively worked against the thing they were trying to achieve.
That said, I do like Sadie and Cleo as characters, and I liked how their disabilities were handled. The ableism Cleo in particular faces- having the word "lazy" spray painted across her locker and having other kids make fun of her accident without realizing how serious it is- are handled more subtly than most YA. We're shown that this hurts her, but the reader is left to put together for themselves how pervasive ableism in mainstream culture contributes to this without having it spelled out to us. It's pretty much the only element of the novel that trusts the reader to realize things on their own.
Overall, it's fine. It's fine, that's really all I can say about it. I do think Sadie in particular's emotional arc isn't fully concluded and would have preferred that the mystery was handled differently, but I enjoyed the characters and do think the representation was handled well. This one is a letdown after how much I enjoyed Greenfield's debut, but it is fine. 2.5⭐️
