Book Talk: Goodman, ‘The Meadowbrook Murders’

Jessica Goodman’s debut novel, “They Wish They Were Us,” 2020, which I reviewed in my Aug. 17, 2022 column, established her as a well-versed writer of YA novels about the children of the “One Percent.” She followed that with, “They’ll Never Catch Us,” 2021; “The Counselors,” 2022; and “The Legacies,” 2023.

Like her previous best sellers, “The Meadowbrook Murders” (2025, 338 pages in hardback format), mostly involves the late-teen children of very wealthy parents. They are the privileged few and attend Meadowbrook Academy, a boarding school in Meadowbrook, Conneticut. The story is told from the perspectives of Amy Alterman, a “legacy” student and Liz Charles, a scholarship student from Wisconsin.

Amy is on the soccer team with her roommate and best friend Sarah Oliver. The two girls are inseparable, sharing each other’s secrets. Except, not. And secrets are Liz Charles’ obsession. She is editor of the school newspaper, The Meadowbrook Gazette, and she approaches her job with all the zeal of Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward. (More than a shade different from the school paper on which I was a reporter at the public Cubberley High School in Palo Alto, CA, before it was the heart of Silicon Valley).