{"id":46602,"date":"2026-06-10T22:26:54","date_gmt":"2026-06-11T02:26:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/?p=46602"},"modified":"2026-06-10T22:26:54","modified_gmt":"2026-06-11T02:26:54","slug":"review-of-i-dont-wish-you-well-jumata-emill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/?p=46602","title":{"rendered":"Review of I Don’t Wish You Well, Jumata Emill"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>I Don’t Wish You Well<\/em><\/p>\n

by Jumata Emill
\nread by Andr\u00e9 Santana and five more<\/p>\n

Listening Library, 2026. 10 hours, 7 minutes.
\nReview written June 9, 2026, from a library eaudiobook.
\nStarred Review<\/p>\n

I Don’t Wish You Well<\/em> is a novel about a teen journalist digging into an old murder case for a school project. When I realized that, I almost stopped the audiobook right there, because I’ve seen that basic plot before, and often it has felt like artificial motivation. I’m so glad I kept going. This book has lots of heart and plenty of layers of complexity in both the mystery and the multiple social issues behind the murders. Plus, the protagonist, Pryce Cummings, was a kid I grew to love – and his deeper motivation quickly became clear.<\/p>\n

The novel opens as Pryce is on his way home after his Freshman year of college, where he’s a journalism major and has gotten some good articles published. He’s a little sore that he wasn’t chosen as a summer intern in the journalism department, even though that’s unheard of for Freshmen.<\/p>\n

But he sees a comment on an article about a five-year-old murder case from his hometown – that maybe Douce, the Black gay teen everyone thought was responsible, didn’t murder the four football players after all. So Pryce pitches to his professor that he’ll investigate the murders while he’s home for the summer and do a podcast in the Fall.<\/p>\n

Sure enough, when he interviews the commenter on his way home – he learns that the alleged murderer – who was found dead with a gun in his hand and evidence in his room – actually was hours away on the night of the first murder, but the police would never listen to his testimony.<\/p>\n

Pryce has a personal interest in clearing that boy’s name. He is also gay, but not out to his parents. The whole town sees the murders as proof that being gay is depraved and sinful. Maybe if Pryce finds out the truth he can change the narrative.<\/p>\n

And so Pryce begins asking questions. And begins finding things out. It turns out that the four football players who were killed had dark secrets in their pasts – and reasons many people may have wanted them dead. But if that happened, why did they kill and frame Douce? And why didn’t the police follow up other leads?<\/p>\n

Since this is happening in a novel, we’re not actually surprised when Pryce’s investigation puts him in danger. The original killers wore a Trojan mask (used to celebrate the town’s football team), so it’s unnerving when Pryce starts seeing a shadowy figure wearing a Trojan mask.<\/p>\n

Besides that, it’s Pryce’s brother’s senior year coming up – and he’s planning to lead the team to a winning football season. The football fans in town, which is pretty much everyone, aren’t happy about Pryce stirring up old ghosts.<\/p>\n

The title? That’s because most people in town don’t actually want to know the truth. So they don’t wish him well in his efforts.<\/p>\n

Once again, my summary doesn’t do this book justice. I was a little impatient with the set-up, but the book quickly got rid of all my skepticism. The case was much more than a class project to Pryce and besides the compelling investigation, he uncovered issues about power dynamics in a football town, about racism and sexism and marginalization of gay people. And it’s all woven together in a story about a kid you come to love.<\/p>\n

jumataemill.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Buy from Amazon.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Find this review on Sonderbooks<\/a> at: www.sonderbooks.com\/Teens\/i_dont_wish_you_well.html<\/a><\/p>\n

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.<\/p>\n

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but the views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.<\/p>\n

Subscribe<\/a> for more reviews and talk about books.<\/p>\n

Join the conversation: What did you think of this book?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I Don’t Wish You Well by Jumata Emill read by Andr\u00e9 Santana and five more Listening Library, 2026. 10 hours, 7 minutes. Review written June 9, 2026, from a library eaudiobook. Starred Review I Don’t Wish You Well is a novel about a teen journalist digging into an old murder case for a school project. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39,21,6,42,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-46602","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-audiobooks","category-contemporary","category-mystery","category-starred-review","category-teen-fiction-review"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46602","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=46602"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46602\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":46615,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46602\/revisions\/46615"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=46602"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=46602"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=46602"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}