You like The Warriors , Heathers , Battle Royale , or any story that argues that growing up is the most violent thing a person can do. Be warned: The book contains extreme violence, drug use, mental health crises (handled with surprising gravity), and a lot of foul language.

The student body is divided into classic high school cliques, weaponized:

This political backdrop elevates Deadly Class from a violent fantasy to a relevant critique. The kids at King’s Dominion aren't villains; they are symptoms of a sick society. They didn't choose this life; it was forced upon them by a world that offered no social safety nets, no mental health support, and no hope.

The issue focusing on a character named Chico is a work of grotesque genius. Craig illustrates a descent into a drug-induced paranoid psychosis with such kinetic, disturbing energy that you can almost feel the crawling insects on the page. This arc proved that in Deadly Class , no one is safe. The sentimentality of genre fiction is replaced by the brutal reality of violence: when the knife goes in, you don't wake up in the hospital; you bleed out on the floor.