About the Book
You must work twice as hard to get half as much.
Adina Walker has known this the entire time she's been on scholarship at the prestigious Edgewater Academy—a school for the rich (and mostly white) upper class of New England. It's why she works so hard to be perfect and above reproach, no matter what she must force beneath the surface. Even one slip can cost you everything.
And it does. One fight, one moment of lost control, leaves Adina blacklisted from her top choice Ivy League college and any other. Her only chance to regain the future she's sacrificed everything for is the Finish, a high-stakes contest sponsored by Edgewater's founding family in which twelve young, ambitious women with exceptional promise are selected to compete in three mysterious the Ride, the Raid, and the Royale. The winner will be granted entry into the fold of the Remington family, whose wealth and power can open any door.
But when she arrives at the Finish, Adina quickly gets the feeling that something isn't quite right with both the Remingtons and her competition, and soon it becomes clear that this larger-than-life prize can only come at an even greater cost. Because the Finish's stakes aren't just make or break…they're life and death.
Adina knows the deck is stacked against her—it always has been—so maybe the only way to survive their vicious games is for her to change the rules.
My Review
Their Vicious Games by Joelle Wellington
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Unless you didn't get the major hint from the book description or have been living under a rock when it comes to this book - this is a thriller of survival games, that some have compared to the "Hunger Games" or "Squid Game." I think it's much more comparable to SG: it takes place in the real world, involves rich people toying with people who willing enter their games out of some desperate need for something from them. And toy with them they do. This is a dark story, and the villains have few, if any, redeeming qualities.
It's a spectacular story that isn't just a gory march through events to a bleak finish. The author does a great job of packing this book with so much emotion and creating a story that touches on issues of class, race, self-awareness, and what it means to truly "win." I loved it.
I won't spoil the girls' reasons for being there, or the reason the family is hosting this particular year's special events (this years games are more intense than "normal years" for a certain reason), but hearing each girls' true reasons for competing makes for some of the most emotional moments in what is already a very intense book. I felt extremely invested in the fates of so many of the characters in the book, by the end I couldn't put it down until I found out what happened.
I was satisfied with the ending. It felt good. Like what was supposed to happen after the way things played out throughout the previous story. I can't say much more.
I will definitely be looking out for more from this author. She's obviously very talented and a great storyteller. I'm sure there's much more exciting things to come!
View all my reviews
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