The Wilde Trials coming January 21, 2025 from HarperCollins; 384 pages
Content Warning: Death, violence
About the Author: “Mackenzie Reed is the author of young adult fiction, including her debut thriller The Rosewood Hunt and follow up novel The Wilde Trials. She cultivated her love of storytelling at Nazareth College, where she graduated with a BA in Communication and Media. A native and resident of Rochester, New York, she loves going for brainstorming walks when the weather’s behaving and spending time with her family. In the sparse moments she’s not writing or daydreaming about her next book, she’s usually winging her eyeliner and hunting for the best slice of pizza in town” (Bio from author’s Goodreads).
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Chloe has always felt like an outsider at her elite private boarding school, but a dramatic breakup with her boyfriend, Hayes, and a fight with one of her closest friends exacerbate this isolation. To add to her conflicted feelings about attending Wilde Academy, Chloe feels immense guilt that her tuition money could be spent getting her sick sister Cece the care she needs. Chloe’s chance to prove that she belongs at Wilde Academy and earn money to help her sister emerges when Chloe is selected to compete in the prestigious “Wilde Trials.” These trials are a series of mental and physical competitions between a select few of the Academy’s graduating seniors, one of whom is Hayes, whose older brother died while participating in the trials. As the competition begins, Chloe and her fellow classmates realize that something isn’t right about the trials, and hasn’t been since Hayes’ brother mysteriously died. Amidst dark secrets, surprising alliances, and dangerous challenges, Chloe and her peers uncover the truth of the trials and the people they once called classmates and friends.
I’m never one to pass on a boarding school mystery, and I was intrigued by the setup for this one. The Wilde Trials was kind of like The Hunger Games meets The Inheritance Games, with a dramatic and suspenseful narrative that kept me engaged throughout! However, there were many points at which I felt a kind of dissonance within the narrative. In what was meant to be a somewhat normal, relatable teen world, the cutthroat (and school-sponsored) competition forcing underage students against each other seemed entirely out of place. While it was built up to be this prestigious and incredibly difficult contest, the trials themselves were a letdown. The stakes and challenges (rowing across a lake, solving a puzzle, etc.) didn’t feel like they matched or justified the behavior of the characters, and in that same sense I questioned the motives of many of the students the story followed. As with many YA novels, there was an overwhelming air of melodrama to a lot of the plot points that lent itself to the lack of authenticity and genuine connection I felt with the narrative. However, there were no points in The Wilde Trials where I found myself bored or not wanting to find out the answers to the book’s mysteries, a credit to Reed’s plot construction.
The Wilde Trials releases on January 25, 2025
Pine Reads Review would like to thank NetGalley and HarperCollins for sending us an ARC in exchange for an honest review. Any quotes are taken from an advanced copy and may be subject to change before final publication.
Sam Parker, Pine Reads Review Social Media Manager
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