Book Review: Getting Away with Murder by Kathryn Foxfield
Published: July 6th 2023 by Scholastic
Rating: ★★★★ (4)
Genre: Young Adult // Mystery, Thriller
Quick Thoughts: A hypnotic, electrifying book of a ruthless AI vs Humans that seizes your attention and doesn’t let up.
About The Book:
Cabin in the Woods meets Squid Game – a girl playing a game with a supercomputer unwittingly traps her sister in a deadly escape room.
When Saffron is forced to do work experience at a tech company, she gets into an argument with her supervisor over which high school stereotype would survive the longest in a horror film: the sports star? The queen bee? The swot? The drama girl? The class clown? The rebel?
Unbeknown to them, the AI robot she is working on at the time decides to determine the answer by testing it out for real. It designs an algorithm to search social media and school records to find the best examples of each stereotype from the neighbouring towns, and the invitations go out – six people, including Saffron’s perfectionist sister Georgia, will be trapped in a series of deadly escape rooms and only one will survive the night…
First Thoughts
After absolutely loving Tag, You’re Dead, I knew that I wanted to read more from Kathryn. So when the lovely team at Scholastic offered me her newest book, I was instantly excited to get back to that place of thrills already!
My Review
Twin sisters Saffron and Georgia are nothing alike as we find out early on in this dual POV novel. Whilst Saffron is, as she puts it, all guns blazing and action first, think later, her sister is not. Georgia is level-headed, thinks a lot before making decisions, and has the straight-A grades to match her perfectionist image. But when Saffron begins work experience at a tech company that are opening soon and quickly gets into a debate with her supervisor about what stereotype (The Rebel, The Queen Bee, etc) would survive the longest in a horror movie, it sets off a chain reaction that puts her sister—and a handful of other people from close-by towns—in life-ending trouble. Why? Well, because the company AI robot, Lightman, decides to go haywire and find out the results of their argument for itself…
The AI robot gets to work quickly designing a program that seeks out the fitting characters for the experiment, and soon enough, there are invitations sent to a handful of varied characteristic-fitting people to test the theory, Saffron’s sister Georgia included. With the group trapped in a rotating series of escape rooms that are swiftly killing off players, it becomes clear only one will survive. And with odds programmed by a rogue AI and surprise villain, it’s anyone’s game at who that might be by the end of the night.
Overall, Getting Away With Murder was as nail-biting as YA thrillers come. I found myself turning pages into the night, desperate to find out what was going to happen next. Whilst I found some of the plot and twists predictable to a degree, I was still absolutely blown away by how gripping it felt. Kathryn is incredible at making the reader feel a part of the story and keeping you addicted throughout in yet another hypnotic, electrifying book of a ruthless AI vs Humans. A must read—it will seize your attention and won’t let up. Four stars!
About The Author
Kathryn Foxfield writes dark books about strange things. She blames her love of the creepy and weird on a childhood diet of Point Horror, Agatha Christie and Dr Who. She writes about characters who aren’t afraid to fight back, but wouldn’t last 5 minutes in one of her own stories. Kathryn is represented by Chloe Seager of the Madeleine Milburn Literary Agency. Her YA thrillers GOOD GIRLS DIE FIRST, IT’S BEHIND YOU and TAG, YOU’RE DEAD are published by Scholastic in the UK and Sourcebooks Fire in the US.
Have you read Getting Away With Murder?
If you haven’t, don’t forget to add it to your TBR!
Let me know in the comments or on twitter @LittleMemoirs!
happy reading!
