Reviews with content warning for Toxic relationship - Their Vicious Games

“Rule one: Wealth is power. If you don’t have it, keep your head down. I thought I’d gotten that one down to a science over the past twelve years. Rule two: Knowledge is too—now that power I had in spades. But with knowledge comes the responsibility to know when to keep your mouth shut and when not to (see rule one). I chose not to and I chose wrong.”

➽ Their Vicious Games is a Thriller following Adina Walker who's trying to earn back her Yale acceptance. Adina's one of the few girls at the prestigious Edgewater Academy and one slipup costs her everything. With no future prospects and blacklisted from all universities, Adina only has one more chance: participate in the Finish, a high-stakes competition sponsored by the Remington family. The winner receives a full ride to their college of choice. The premise was really promising, as I liked the idea of a competition between 12 bright women who each want to secure their future. They compete in three mysterious events called the Ride, Raid and Royale. However, Adina soon begins to suspect that the Finish is much more deadly than she thought.

➽ I liked the themes and ominous atmosphere. Despite the slower pace, there were many chilling moments that showed how far the girls were pushed and how far some would go for their success. Most participants are white, so Adina's the only black girl. She strikes up a friendship with the only other person of color, Saint, the daughter of a Chinese investor. I liked their friendship and wish Saint would have gotten more of the spotlight. Adina also deals with her ex-best friend and the person who ruined her future: Esme. There was a ton of tension between the girls! I also appreciated the discussions about class and race, as Adina has to deal with the casual racism of her benefactors. She's struggling to regain her agency in an environment of self-satisfied, righteous rich people who see her as a tool to show their goodwill!

➽ In the end, I thought the book dragged at times and went in a direction I didn't enjoy. I expected Thie Vicious Games to be much more fast-paced and engaging, so the buildup was too slow for me. I also didn't think I understood everyone's motivations for being here apart from Adina, Esme and Saint. The other contestants were one-dimensional so I didn't get a sense for their motives and didn't care about what happened to them. Apart from that, Adina often got handed a lot of things by others and I didn't feel like she grew as a character until the very end. In general, I wish the book had stuck closer to its original premise, as I found it more interesting than the direction it took.

This Finish isn't like the others because it's held as a competition to see who can win Pierce's hand in marriage and become part of the Remington family. It's top-secret and not only about college acceptances, as the winner gets all sorts of privileges. It reminded me of The Selection, just with more murder. I wish the focus had stayed on the girls competing for their future instead of trying to appeal to a rich white boy. In the end, Adina's own determination to earn back her Yale acceptance got pushed into the background. I also didn't understand why the other girls who came from good families risked their lives just to marry into the Remington family. Some parts didn't make sense to me.

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boba_n_books's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

Squid Games meets The Bachelor? Sign me up! ... To read about. Not to compete in. This fast-paced young adult thriller takes "eat the rich" to a whole new level.

Adina is a Black teenager who was about to secure her future through her scholarship to Yale. Her plans are ruined once an incident at school causes her to lose that well-earned scholarship. The only way to get it back is to enter the Finish--a competition where young women prove themselves worthy of being a part of the wealthy Remington family through three different events. It is not long before Adina and the other girls in the Finish realize that the stakes are higher than money and power. It's life or death. The younger Remington boys say they're trying to change the system, but are they? Being one of the only girls who didn't grow up in the rich world the Remingtons live in, Adina realizes she has to either change herself or change the Finish to survive.

Though the characters may seem superficial at first, each one has their own motivations and moments of reckoning. Wellington's commentary on race and class and what people will do to achieve and maintain power is fascinating. She certainly doesn't attempt to make the reader comfortable, and there are many times I had to remind myself that I wanted Adina to get out and not to conform to the Remington way.

This novel challenges social structures and typical tropes, and it was just a damn good book with a satisfying ending.

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ashylibrarian's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Readers will be left in a state of shock and horror (in all the best ways) after finishing Their Vicious Games by Joelle Wellington. This is a fast-paced novel that is packed with thrills and chills, and readers won’t even begin to imagine the terrors that will unfold within its pages.

There are so many amazing strengths to consider when talking about this book. Two (2) of the biggest things that stood out to me were the brilliant world-building and meticulous character development. All of the characters in this book are used with purpose. Some of the side characters we do not see much of, but when you do read about them, you know they have been placed with thought and intention. Readers will also be able to see the world of this book unfold as they read as if they were watching a movie. The Remington Estate, the clothes, the expressions on the characters' faces. Everything is painted so vividly and clearly through Wellington’s alluring prose.

Another aspect of this book that Wellington handles so well is the impact that classism and racism have on the characters and society that run rampant through the upper-class New England community where the prestigious Edgewater Academy resides. There are many barriers that Adina faces throughout the book - barriers built from the materials of systemic racism and classism. This book is set in a fictional New England world, however, readers will likely be able to see connections to socioeconomic and racial injustices that are happening in our world today. This is definitely a heavy read, but it is also a read that is packed with traditional horror characteristics and creates a modern twist on the “final girl” trope.

It was difficult to pinpoint a weakness in this well-crafted punch of a novel. One thing I would say is that readers might be a bit off-put by the quick-developing attraction from the female characters to the male characters, Pierce and Graham. It’s clear from the beginning of the competition that the money and power the Remington family carries has a lot to do with the motivation for many of the girls’ attraction to Pierce, but the attraction between Adina and Graham seems to develop within a page or two, making more of a quick-combustion attraction that does not have much backing.

Their Vicious Games is a book that I would highly recommend to readers who enjoy fast-paced thrillers that leave them feeling utterly shocked, especially if they like books that intricately weave together themes of race and class with classical horror tropes. I would likely recommend this book to older teen readers due to the fact that some of the content in this book is fairly intense and there is strong language used throughout.

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