Catherine Yang

Simply The Best by Catherine Yang

According to the hyper-competitive Chinese Americans in her Atlanta suburb, seventeen-year-old Maggie Jiang has always been second-best to her rival, Callista Wang. Maggie is exhausted from endless debate tournaments, violin auditions, and recently, convincing herself she actually wants to go to Yale. The pressure to succeed killed her best friend Serena three years ago, and it’s threatening to take her out next. 

When Callista’s body is found a day after she wins Serena’s ten thousand dollar memorial scholarship, all eyes turn to Maggie. Her classmates whisper that she’s finally snapped. The police want to know why she disappeared for an hour the night Callista died. She might have publicly threatened to kill Callista a few times, but that doesn’t mean she actually did it. If Maggie wants her classmates to ever speak to her again, she needs to find Callista’s real killer.

As Maggie interrogates her classmates, she discovers that Callista was hiding secrets behind her façade of perfection. Including the truth behind Serena’s death. Maggie enlists the help of Elijah, her irritating childhood friend—who’s now irritatingly attractive—with his own reasons for investigating. For Maggie, finding the killer turns into more than just clearing her own name. It’s her chance at closure about Serena. Her chance to finally prove herself. But the more she uncovers, the more one thing becomes clear: someone’s coming after the Chinese kids. 

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