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The Honeys meets The Secret History in a work of dark academia like no other -- a boarding school thriller about a queer teen from Mississippi who finds himself swept into a world of old money, privilege, and the secret society at the heart of it all. When Cal Ware wins a scholarship to an elite New England boarding school, he's thrilled to leave his past behind. Back home in Mississippi, he was the poor, queer kid who never fit in. But at Essex Academy, he'll be able to reinvent himself. Or so he hopes... But at Essex, Cal's classmates only see his cheap clothes and old iPhone. They mock his accent, and can't believe he's never left the country, or heard of The Hamptons. Cal, at his breaking point, is about to give up and return to Mississippi when he learns about a secret society on campus -- the key to becoming Essex royalty. Cal knows he's not exactly secret society material, but to his surprise, he finds an unlikely champion in the handsome, charismatic, and slightly dangerous Luke Kim. As they get swept up in the mystery and glamour of the Rush process, Cal finds himself falling in love for the first time. But as the initiation rituals grow riskier -- and increasingly nefarious -- Cal must decide how far he's willing to go, and how much of himself he's willing to sacrifice, to save everything and everyone he cherishes most. Because nothing at Essex -- not even Cal's first love -- is quite what it seems.
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0**I received an electronic ARC from the publisher through NetGalley.**
Actual rating: 3.5
Derek Milman presents his newest YA thriller, A Darker Mischief. Readers follow Cal, a queer transfer student from small town Mississippi who is starting his sophomore year at an elite boarding school. Cal hopes to be able to reinvent himself in New England after the Incident, but as a poor scholarship student he is far from fitting in. Cal learns about a secret society on campus and begins the rush process, intertwining his fate with the handsome and dangerous Luke Kim. As Cal develops feelings for Luke, the tasks assigned by the secret society get more and more daring and even unethical. Cal must decide how far he is willing to go to protect the people he cares about most.
I will never get tired of queer dark academia. Milman does a solid job at building the atmosphere of the campus and the structure of the secret society. The secrets on secrets layered was something that provided a forward drive for the book, even if the layering was sometimes messy.
Cal and Luke are compelling characters to follow. Both of them have their own tragic back story components and have enough things they want to hide in order to land in the morally grey area. Their relationship is, at best, toxic and, at times, codependent. Everything about the characters in this book tends toward being messy, with valid plot development reasons.
My main reason for not rating this book higher is some strange pacing issues throughout the book. Where the initiation into society originally drives the plot, the movement is very sequential and orderly. Toward the climax of the book, there was an odd devolution of order into a more chaotic process. That chaos was quelled before the plot was resolved and left things tied with some wonky decisions and a tidy bow.
Overall. I enjoyed my time with A Darker Mischief and was pleased to have an opportunity to read it early.
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