With Friends Like These
By Alissa Lee
Atria, November 4, 2025, 240pp.

The Short of It:

Old friends, a game, poor choices.

The Rest of It:

I wasn’t sure what to expect when I picked this up but I found it to be pretty compelling.

Old friends gather to play a special round of The Circus. What’s the Circus? It’s a game where you are given a target, one of the friends playing and you must KILL them with a water gun or be killed. When a “kill” is made, the shooter takes their medallion necklace and the holder of all the medallions wins the game.

Sounds simple enough but there are few rules which means you can break into each other’s homes, show up at their place of employment or chase them down into a train station. Sounds dangerous? It is.

This special round includes high stakes because unbeknownst to them all, one participant has been investing the winnings and the pot is now quite significant.

As the story unfolds, it’s clear that although everyone appears to be quite successful in life, that money could come in handy for each of them and the game suddenly takes center stage.

What happens when the game gets out of hand? Do they come together to figure out a solution? Or are they suddenly pitted against one another? Sounds good, right?

Recommend.

Source: Review copy provided by the publisher.
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