NetGalley ARC | The Merciless King of Moore High

I received a free digital ARC from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Rating | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Okay, so I really insanely, absurdly love the Teen Killers Club trilogy. Like, so much that I will ask for more, even when we do not yet have the rest of the story for Merciless King.

Lily Sparks is one of my fave authors and I will read everything she ever writes. She is massively creative and a fantastic writer. TKC was realistic enough that, especially given the climate of our country right now, you could absolutely believe that the government would use something like the Wylie-Stanton to find the psychopaths and put them in this joke of a White House "aministration".

Merciless King, on the other hand, is straight-up dystopian. That's not my usual genre, but I love this one so freaking much.

Nearly a year ago all of the adults morphed into ginormous bloodthirsty monster dragon-y things. Our main character, Kay, has spent the last nine months barricaded inside her high school with fellow students. Life is really difficult at Jefferson; they're scared, they're starving and miserable, and the Student Council collectively makes decisions together on ideas presented at assemblies.

When Kay, a memeber of the SC, finds out a secret that would greatly disrupt life in the walls of their school, she is exiled. Straight-up just taken outside in the middle of the night and left basically as a snack for whatever these hell-creatures are that the adults have turned into.

Kay is surprised and grateful to be rescued by a raiding party of cheerleaders from Jefferson's crosstown rival, Moore High. No one at Jefferson ever thought about there being any other survivors.  Not only are the kids holed up inside Moore surviving though, they are thriving. No one is starving, and they are legit living as though they're back in the middle ages, complete with a king's court, rival factions, and serious shadowy intrigue. Life is still hard and violent, but they've made it this far and don't intend to change any time soon.

King Max does not trust Kay and she has to prove that's she's not there for nefarious purposes on behalf of Jefferson. Max rules with an iron fist and his word is final. There is no talking things out, no assemblies or joint decision-making. Kay has to learn to navigate this new world, which involves expeditions to slay the monsters, minding her own business, and not getting involved in the political intrigues.

Without giving anything away, I can say that she fails miserably at most of those things.

Something Sparks excels at is jumping into the action right away. The book literally begins basically as described in the summary. It can be jarring because you have no idea what is going on when you're dropped in the middle of the action, but the way she crafts her stories, everything comes together and you find out piece by piece what you need to know, when you need to know it. It is crucial that you do not get too attached to any characters, because Sparks has no qualms about killing off someone if it serves a purpose and furthers the story. There was one death in particular that was really hard for me and I never want to talk about it again or I will cry.

Sparks also excels at creating a massively diverse cast of characters. There are a lot of people to remember here, but she gives them life and they are unique. I never felt like someone was a cardboard cutout or a caricature, just there to be a body and fill the space.

Much like in TKC, it is sometimes hard to know who to trust. This is for a variety of reasons - the factions at Max's court, the reality of their situation now that all the adults are gone, and the things characters are willing to do to survive. There is not always a clear-cut good guy or bad guy. It's all shades of gray here and that's okay. You don't know how you will react in a given situation until you're forced to, and Kay has to learn how to deal with that.

It took me a matter of hours to read this one. It's brutal and violent and traumatic and even so, these kids keep surviving and moving forward and doing what they think is right, for the good of the group. The book is simply impossible to put down as characters shift their loyalty and we find out secrets that were meant to stay hidden.

Though the story concludes as well as can be expected, there's room for so much more. I would love to see these characters again and I hope that Sparks decides on the best way to get future stories of Moore and Jefferson to her eagerly waiting fans.

Highly, highly recommended.