ARC Review: You’re No Better by Andrew Joseph White

Andrew Joseph White has built a reputation for writing the kind of YA that does not look away, books about trans and neurodivergent teens navigating worlds that were not built for them, wrapped in horror and thriller elements that hit harder because the true terror is always emotional. We have been…consuming…Andrew’s books since Hell Followed With Us, and You’re No Better is his most recent, out October 27th! Read on for our full review!

It’s Banned Books Week and we are featuring books by authors who have experienced censorship as well as other content related to censorship. Andrew’s debut, Hell Followed with Us, has been censored at least 6x and The Spirt Bares Its Teeth has been censored at least 3x. If you’re looking for ways to fight censorship, we recently posted an interview with Dr. Alyssa Chrisman on ways you can help!

You're No Better

by Andrew Joseph White
Published by: Peachtree Teen
on October 20, 2026
Genres: Contemporary, LGBTQIA+, Mystery, Young Adult
Bookshop
Goodreads

PREORDER NOW to receive the limited deluxe edition—only available on the first printing while supplies last! This striking deluxe hardcover edition features metallic edges, illustrated endpapers, a special case stamp, and foil jacket effects.

Bestselling author Andrew Joseph White returns with another horrific YA thriller: a profound portrait of a struggling teen trying to convince the world—and himself—that he’s better than the serial killer who raised him.

Morgan Slaughter, a seventeen-year-old trans boy with autism, put his serial killer father in prison years ago. Despite that, everyone thinks Morgan will grow up to be just like his dad: including his volatile mother, the documentary crew following their family, and maybe himself.

Desperately, Morgan latches onto his father’s final victim—the only one who was never identified—hoping that if he unravels the mystery, he’ll finally prove he’s better than the man who hurt him. But this puts Morgan in the crosshairs of classmate Felicity Keating, who knows the truth about Morgan’s childhood—that he wasn’t just a witness to his father’s brutality, he was an accomplice. And if he doesn’t let them help with his investigation? They’ll tell everyone.

Forced to confront his past, Morgan’s ugly but carefully controlled world unravels. The film crew is manipulative. His mother’s temper spirals into malice, then violence. And Morgan and Felicity may be more tightly intertwined than either of them can stomach . . .

You're No Better is a gritty and unapologetic coming-of-age suspense about teens who grew up surrounded by cruelty and are clawing their way to adulthood the only way they know how.

Review

I have read every Andrew Joseph White YA book and You’re No Better is exactly what I have come to expect from him, which is both a compliment and a content warning (ha).

Morgan Slaughter is seventeen, trans, autistic, and the son of a serial killer. He put his father in prison. He is trying to survive senior year, which would be hard enough on its own, but now there is a documentary crew following his family and his mother has made his participation non-negotiable, which comes with its own set of rules including putting off his transition until college. Morgan latches onto the one thing he thinks might save him: his father’s final victim, the only one who was never identified. If he can solve that mystery, maybe he can prove, to everyone around him and to himself, that he is not his father.

That emotional pull is the true force behind this story. Not the mystery, not the documentary, not even Felicity, his classmate who knows the truth about what Morgan’s childhood actually looked like. It is the particular terror of wondering whether what is wrong with your parents is also wrong with you. Whether the thing you are most afraid of is not something that happened to you but something that lives inside you (where my fellow nature vs nurture folks at?). Andrew sits in that fear without flinching (dare I say reveling in it?) and without letting Morgan off the hook, which is uncomfortable.

Andrew does something in his books that a lot of YA stories don’t: He does not clean it up. He does not give you a protagonist who has it figured out or a resolution that ties the trauma into something manageable. Morgan is messy and struggling and sometimes wrong, and the story does not punish him for that or redeem him in a way that feels earned by the plot rather than by him. What I appreciated most is how much of the story you experience alongside Morgan rather than being told what to think about it. Andrew trusts his readers, which is something you feel on every page.

If you have read his other books you already know he is not going to let you settle into what you think is happening. You’re No Better has multiple twists, which is what we have come to expect from him. Everything recontextualizes something you thought you understood. Sort of like the investigation unfolding through the story.

You’re No Better is an angry book. It is bloody and it is not going to be for everyone. Andrew has said he writes hard things more hopefully for YA, which tracks compared to his adult debut earlier this year. You’re No Better does not end neatly. It ends realistically, which in a book about a kid carrying this much weight is its own kind of hope.