This Place Kills Me
by Mariko Tamaki; illus. by Nicole Goux
High School    Abrams Fanfare    272 pp.
8/25    9781419768460    $26.99
Paper ed.  9781419768453    $19.99
e-book ed.  9798887070445    $17.99

Bespectacled comics lover Abby Kita is having a hard time fitting in at Wilberton, a snooty girls’ boarding school. So when popular Elizabeth Woodward, the only person to have been kind to her, is found dead of an apparent suicide the day after a star-making performance in the school play, Abby is determined to discover why. Along with her cub-reporter roommate, Abby follows a number of circumstantial clues that suggest Elizabeth’s death may have actually been a murder: a love note hidden in a script, a drug rumor, a clandestine list of classmates’ names. But it’s hard to investigate when Abby’s own “inappropriate” past is being harshly judged by mean girls and callous adults alike. Fearless Abby is shamed, harassed, and even beaten. But when she finally uncovers the shocking truth, it’s immensely satisfying. Tamaki channels the casual homophobia, Moral Majority didacticism, and anti-drug propaganda of the 1980s in this tense whodunit that is meticulously illustrated by Goux and atmospherically colored in a pink, slate blue, and black palette. Teens will enjoy the dark mystery while catching a glimpse into the era via such details as the enormous desktop computers, Abby’s beloved Walkman, and eighties music references.

From the September/October 2025 issue of The Horn Book Magazine.