I Don’t Wish You Well by Jumata Emill
Thank you, Netgalley, for providing this ARC
Pryce is finishing his freshman year in college, studying journalism. He is made aware of a comment online about a series of murders in his hometown back when he was a freshman in high school. The murders were said to have been committed by a teen, Aaron “Deuce” Beales, who was afraid someone was going to out him as gay. It was said that Beales, a black teen, killed four other teens to keep his secret. Now, five years later, a man named Herman Young says Beales didn’t do this, and that no one will listen to the truth.
Pryce decides to investigate this as a journalism project and make a podcast out of it as well. He hopes it will help him make a name for himself and earn a summer internship, but he also feels especially connected to this crime because everyone thinks Beales killed these boys because he was ashamed of people finding out he was gay. Pryce is also gay, but not fully out as of yet. He feels that if he can prove this had nothing to do with Beales being gay, his parents will be more accepting of him being gay. And not just his parents, the whole town was sort of awful to anyone who was thought to be gay. I can see why Pryce wouldn’t want anyone to know he was gay.
Right away, Herman Young tells Pryce that Beales was at his house the night of the first murder. There is no way he could have done it. Why didn’t anyone listen to this evidence? Was this a police cover-up? Was this a ‘good old boys’ type of thing because the victims were the star football players? Why was someone so focused on blaming Beales? Oh, I was hooked!
There were sections of the book written as transcripts of the podcast. I really like seeing that in books. Maybe it’s just different, maybe it’s because I really like podcasts. I just enjoy it. Even reading about Pryce’s research was interesting. It really felt like a true crime documentary at times.
If this were a podcast, I would be all over it! Pryce starts to find more evidence that Beales might not be the murderer, and a lot of people want him to let the past stay in the past. Some of the research that Pryce was doing was impressive to me. At one point, he finds a photo of someone in front of their house, then uses Google Maps to find the names of all the streets in the town to see if they match the address and checks the street view to see if they can find the house. I thought that was amazing and terrifying. I am never posting a photo of myself in front of my house! Pryce is truly fantastic at noticing things and finding clues. I really enjoyed this book.
*I read this to see if it would be a good fit for my middle school students. There is talk of sex and one night stands, the F slur for gays is used, mention of child SA, drug use. Not a good fit for middle schoolers, but I loved it!
Five out of Five Magical Coffee Cups
Literary Coffee 