Wish You Dead
Sixteen-year-old Morgana Merrick knows what it feels like to be treated as less-than. After arriving at Avalon Academy and quickly learning that she’ll need to become something special if she wants to stand out, she turns to magic to get everything she wants. But when her brother’s friend kisses her without her consent, Morgana wants to ruin him – and every person who refused to believe her.
A modern successor to classic teen revenge stories like Mean Girls, Heathers and John Tucker Must Die, Westcott weaves Welsh mythology with accessible magic aesthetics – think crystals, forests, runes and a book of shadows – creating a deeply atmospheric world that can be devoured in a single sitting. Westcott has captured the essence of the average secondary school experience and made the stakes of popularity, academic achievement and the friendship hierarchy feel tangibly important.
Amid the teen-queen, kill-or-be-killed overtones of this thriller is a softer, quieter story about incidental queerness, self-acceptance and finding your own power, and it makes for an interesting twist on the ‘mean girl’ trope. While there is a romantic storyline threaded throughout the core of the story, Westcott focuses on Morgana’s journey to finding out what kind of person she wants to be at the end of it all.
