Kill the Boy Band (Review)

Information:

• Author: Goldy Moldavsky
• Genre: Thriller, Contemporary, Humor/Satire
• Page Count: 320
• Year Published: 2016

Read This If You Like:

• Older YA books (because YA published before 2018ish seems to be considered more “classic”)
• Satire/commentary on fandom/celebrities
• Unlikable main characters
• British boy bands
• Books that take place within only a few days
• Rather boring covers
• Less focus on romance
• Thrillers
• Dumb humor

Synopsis:

Sloane¹ and her closest friends all share one major thing in common- they are all mega fans of The Ruperts, a British boy band consisting of 4 members all named Rupert. When they miss out on the chance to see them perform live on a Thanksgiving Day concert, they all make a plan- instead of celebrating Thanksgiving with their families, they’ll book a room at the exact hotel in NYC that the Ruperts are staying at, and pray that they will be able to catch just a glimpse of them. And they do get to meet one of them… if the act of one of Sloane’s friends kidnapping the most unappealing member, semi-torturing him, and finding out his deepest darkest secrets counts as meeting your idols. Before they know it, the simple act of engaging in fandom becomes dangerous, as Sloane discovers that not only is her stay at the hotel going to become a bit more dangerous than she expected, but that her friends, the Ruperts, and those close to them all have something to hide.

1. (Minor spoiler warning)The main character/narrator uses several fake names/identities throughout the story and it’s never revealed which one, if any of them, is her real name. For clarity, I’m using “Sloane” because it’s the name that is used by the character most. ↩︎

Review/Opinions:

So, this is a book I will describe as… interesting. Last year, I read and reviewed one of Moldavsky’s other YA novels, Lord of the Fly Fest (a novel that combines Lord of the Flies with an almost perfect copy of the infamous Fyre Fest, which comes together as an okay thriller with extremely unlikable, fame-obsessed characters and so-bad-it’s good humor.) Even with my confusing experience with LOTFF, I decided to give her debut novel a try, and thus began one of my most conflicting reading experiences I’ve ever had. While there’s a five year difference in the publication dates of LOTFF and Kill the Boy Band, this novel has almost the same blend of celebrity commentary, suspense, and satire. Except Kill the Boy Band is in a way, a bit weirder.

The main polarizing element of this story is the humor. Let me just give you a basic example of what we’re working with here: the focus is a boy band featuring 4 guys named Rupert. The group was formed on a show called “So You Think The British Don’t Have Talent?“. Their fandom proudly calls themselves… Streupers. Guess how it’s pronounced. And this is basically how the humor works for the entire story- a bunch of really stupid one-liners that go from semi-cringy to trying to look edgy using somewhat dirty language. Plus, a fair bit of it relies on stereotypes, not just of celebrities but also cultures and people. Now, this was published in 2016, when outside of The Hunger Games, Twilight, and a few other notable stories that stuck out from the crowd, YA was a way smaller genre than it is in 2025, and wasn’t exactly the massive collection of diverse authors, representation, and experiences we see today in teen literature. Therefore, it was presumably a little bit easier to get away with this type of humor and stereotyping. But reading this in 2025, these jokes will be either easy enough to ignore (like I was mostly able to do), or will feel somewhat uncomfortable.

The characters in this one were also hard to decide if I liked them or not. Sloane and her friends definitely acted like what you would expect a bunch of teenage boy band fans to be like… but because this is satire, it was taken to a extreme that felt, well, extreme. Sloane was pretty much the only one of the main characters to come to her senses and try to get out of the mess that forms when you kidnap a boy band member, while her other friends are ignorant of the whole situation, have ulterior motives, or just are really bratty and unlikable. (Minor Spoiler) Oh, and the character who serves as the biggest example of cultural stereotypes that I discussed in my last paragraph conveniently happens to be the one who is the worst person in this situation due to her actions. Other than the main characters, everyone else felt a little bland, even the Ruperts themselves. Most of the characters are only made complete through secrets or some corny personality trait to add to the humor. The characters work for the satire, but they were also really hard to actually appreciate.

Besides the weird humor and characters, the thriller part of this book was actually decent. It’s simplistic- meaning nothing happens that will have you gasping in shock, and there’s a twist that is both obvious but not your first prediction at the same time- but since this book focuses on satire, the thriller part compliments it well. As mentioned, most of the characters have secrets- some overly scandalous, others just to expand on their characterization. It especially gets good when the other members of the Ruperts realize something is going on and it begins a whole trainwreck of events. Plus, it does a good job of hiding the actual motivations of a few characters.

Satire also almost leads to commentary, and for this book, it’s about what it means to be in a fandom- and how it can affect relationships between friends and what you’re being a fan of. There’s some really deep and inspiring quotes about this topic in the first few chapters, but I’m not writing them down here since I read this on my Kindle, which I don’t have with me at the time of writing this, and copying a 3 line quote from memory is complicated. (Sorry.) I think the commentary in this book compliments Lord of the Fly Fest well: while LOTFF focuses on commenting on how fame affects those who have it and the desperation to stay relevant, Kill the Boy Band focuses instead on those admiring celebrities and the lengths they will go to show their admiration. Sure, everything that happens is highly unrealistic, but it makes its point.

So overall, was this book bad? No. But was it polarizing? Definitely. I’m not even sure if I liked this or LOTFF more. If you are a fan of horrible jokes, unlikable characters, and fan culture gone wrong, and can tolerate some cultural inaccuracies and stereotyping, go ahead and read Kill the Boy Band, but this book definitely isn’t for everyone. This author has a few other YA novels I haven’t read yet, including one releasing soon (Of Earthly Delights), and they all look a bit more serious than this one. Maybe I’ll read them, but I still want another satire from her- I don’t know my actual opinions on them, but that’s what makes them fun for me to write about.