Reviews

Reputation by Sarah Vaughan

jacki_f's review against another edition

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3.0

This was a book of two halves. The first half is all set up. Emma Webster is an MP, a divorced mother who is championing a bill to make it a crime to share revenge porn (sex videos filmed with consent but released without it after a relationship ends). She also has a teenage daughter who is being bullied at school. The book opens with a body lying at the bottom of a flight of stairs and gradually it emerges that Emma has been charged with murder.

To be honest I found the first half of the book pretty sluggish but it gets more exciting in the second half which covers the trial. There are too many things that are deliberately withheld, presumably to create tension but instead they just annoyed me. Also, some of the twists are underwhelming. It was an interesting story but I never really cared a great deal about any of it.

pinksy's review against another edition

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slow-paced

1.0

Frustrating 
Slow
Unreliable narrative
Poor character development 
Glad it finished! 

kdurham2's review against another edition

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4.0

Check out the full review at Kritters Ramblings . . .

Emma Webster was surprised when she was elected a MP so quickly and was torn as it would greatly impact her husband and her daughter. A few years later this book begins as she has been a MP for awhile and it has impacted as her husband and her have divorced and they are trying to coparent their teenage daughter. And not a spoil here, but the book begins as Emma has found a dead body at the bottom of her stairs and we immediately go back in time to find out how she got there.

marilynw's review against another edition

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3.0

Reputation by Sarah Vaughan

This story would be a good candidate for a drinking game with all the times the word reputation appears in the book. It seems to be on almost everyone's mind and we are repeatedly reminded that reputation must be safe guarded, often at any cost. And it seems to be the thing most under attack whether the victim is an MP with detractors or a teen who has made enemies.

Emma is an MP who has always put her career before her marriage and her daughter. She'll deny the daughter part but really, she's been letting her ex husband and his wife raise her fourteen year old daughter, Flora, while her time with Flora is fit in around her busy MP career. She even accepts that she is to blame for the break up of her marriage because she really didn't have time to do it all.

A new law to protect women and girls from the effects of online abuse is Emma's main focus and she wants those who use social media for revenge to pay a high price. That is until things hit too close to home. Turns out that Emma is nothing if not hypocritical.

When a man is attacked in Emma's home, we sort of know what happens but there is also a strong sense that things are being held back. Emma is going to protect her daughter, she's going to protect her career if she still has one when this massive dust storm settles, and I get the sense that nothing with Emma will really change.

The first part of the book let me know I didn't care for Emma. The second part of the book is when she falls off her high horse. There is some courtroom time and I tried to pretend I was a juror that had to pay attention but what I knew is that I'd be fighting not to fall asleep in that courtroom. Then it's over and I'm not thrilled with the way things go. I did like Flora, Emma's daughter, and her parts of the story were my favorite.

Published July 5th 2022

Thank you to Atria/Emily Bestler Books and Edelweiss for this ARC.

emily_loves_2_read's review against another edition

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4.0

Reputation
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Genre: Thriller
Format: Kindle eBook
Date Published: 7/5/22
Author: Sarah Vaughan
Publisher: Atria Books
Pages: 336
Goodreads Rating: 4.03

Thank you to NetGalley and Atria Books for providing a digital advanced readers copy of the book for me to read for my honest opinion.

Synopsis: As a politician, Emma has sacrificed a great deal for her career--including her marriage and her relationship with her daughter, Flora. Fourteen-year-old Flora is learning the same hard lessons at school as she encounters heartless bullying. When another teenager takes her own life, Emma lobbies for a new law to protect women and girls from the effects of online abuse. Now, Emma and Flora find their personal lives uncomfortably intersected--but then the unthinkable happens: A man is found dead in Emma’s home, a man she had every reason to be afraid of and to want gone. Fighting to protect her reputation, and determined to protect her family at all costs, Emma is pushed to the limits as the worst happens and her life is torn apart.

My Thoughts: We live in a world where your reputation is everything, it can take years to build and second to destroy. Once destroyed, it could more years to reestablish yourself. Social media is everywhere and we put every part of our lives on social media, hopefully this book will make you hesitate to do that. That is what made me want to read this book. This book is classified as a thriller, but could also be classified as fiction due to the very strong message it relays. The book is narrated by several characters, mainly Emma and Flora, from their own perspective. I loved the court scenes as I generally gravitate toward legal scenarios. The characters were very well developed, had depth, strong, and the female characters were portrayed as very intelligent. The author’s writing was complex, thought-provoking, gripping, shocking, creative, and just brilliant. This story does not follow a typical thriller with red herrings and unreliable narrators, it a story that absolutely could be real, which is what makes this book so good. This is the first I have read by this author, but will not be my last.

shivermepink's review against another edition

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3.0

If you’re into legal drama and politics, you should absolutely read this book because you will most likely love it.

This was an overall painful read for me and I was quite honestly happy that I made it to the finish line and finished it.

I don’t personally find politics interesting and the majority of the book happens inside the courtroom which was another big yawn for me.

What did interest me was the the main characters obsession with her reputation but not enough to captivate me, clearly.

meghan_readsbooks's review against another edition

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5.0

I just finished listening to the audiobook Anatomy of a Scandal from Sarah Vaughan when I got the chance to review Reputation, her forthcoming novel. Thank you to NetGalley and Atria Books for the copy of this book.

Ms Vaughan has a talent for highlighting the underbelly of not just political lives but of many adult lives. Ms. Vaughan also again shows strengths in highlighting why we must have awareness of women's lives as seen in the public lens and how the media, and general public, is often attached to one narrative, one that lacks nuance and does not offer room for explanation, insight, or flexibility (this is seen when the Emma, main character, a new MP, is thrust into a media frenzy when a dead body is found in her house.

I love that this book has strong women and blurry/morally grey areas; I am all in for women being able to pursue positions of power and leadership and to make their experiences their complicated, messy, and filled with questionable experiences and decisions. It was hard, but real and relatable, to see a character with confidence, and to earn a position of leadership and power, become less than confident, to be hurt and impugned by media attacks and online trolls.

This is a book filled with strong suspense as well and well executed twists and turns. The execution of this plot is well done, I was really engaged not just in Emma's story but also in how it was shared and revealed; the narrative was for me compelling and well paced. I like the balance of plot driven narrative with strong character development, I felt as though I had a strong grounding in Emma as a character but also in how Emma was treated and how we got to a satisfying resolution.

This is a book with a lot of payoff and also a lot of discussion potential. I am definitely a fan of Ms. Vaughan's work and her storytelling!

kellyvandamme's review

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4.0

I was literally just kicking myself for not listening to Anatomy of a Scandal sooner, when Reputation was up for grabs on NetGalley. I was in such a rush to click that button I didn’t even read the synopsis, sometimes all you need to know is the author’s name, I guess that alone speaks volumes.

Reputation centres around a female MP, Emma Webster, who is the best sort of MP one could hope for, really: she is honest, diligent and truly concerned about her constituents’ wellbeing. Unfortunately, a big tree attracts the woodsman’s axe, especially when it’s a good-looking woman fighting for women’s rights in a man’s world. With threats coming from all corners, slowly but surely Emma descends into a state of almost constant fear.

Meanwhile, Emma’s teenage daughter Flora is being bullied and catfished by the people who are supposed to have her back. At the end of her tether, Flo does something that might be classed as a stupid teenage prank, but of course it’s different when your mum is in the public eye and your random act of foolish vengeance may be used against her.

Part psychological thriller, part political thriller, part courtroom drama, Reputation aptly documents the negative spiral of being under constant attack and wanting to save one’s family and one’s reputation. Sticks and stones, you might say, but words can and do hurt, and how are you meant to do your bit for the good of your constituency if people don’t trust you?

When we first meet Emma she’s this fairly confident politician but we see her (d)evolve into this nervous wreck of a woman, which makes for a truly fascinating character study. Her fear is palpable, and, I think, will be familiar to many women. Haven’t we all felt unsafe walking or cycling home, speeding up, glancing over our shoulders, clutching our keys tightly, just in case? Emma’s also very credible as an MP and as a mother, once again Sarah Vaughan delivers well-rounded, three-dimensional and utterly believable characters. Reputation also nails the prejudices against women in general and women in authority, the lack of political correctness.

I had a great time with Reputation, I was completely invested in Emma’s and Flora’s story and I love that it kept a few things up its sleeve until the very end. If you enjoyed any of Sarah Vaughan’s previous books and/or you’re in the market for a cracking thriller, then I recommend you take a closer look at Reputation!

Massive thanks to Simon & Schuster and NetGalley for the eARC. All opinions are my own.

melissadelongcox's review against another edition

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1.0

*Thanks to Atria/Emily Bestler Books for the ARC!*

I've tried so many times to read this one and it's just not going to be one that I finish. The book centers around a law protecting women from online abuse and harassment, and it's pretty explicit with some of the threats about Emma in the beginning of the book. Between that and simply not liking her, I wasn't super interested. I skimmed a bit further, but ultimately, this one just wasn't for me!

katelynjaynexx's review

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3.0

This is my third time picking up a Sarah Vaughan novel, and as a huge fan of Anatomy of a Scandal I was really excited this one had that same political theming that I so enjoyed in that book.

Emma is a female MP who is known for supporting the rights of women and is currently seeking to enact new laws that target people who send revenge porn. As we get to know Emma more we see that she does indeed have people who want to target her and when a journalist whom she had worked with is found dead in her home the story begins to unravel and people's reputations are at stake.

This book has the classic Sarah Vaughan charm that draws you in to the nasty world of British Politics and their relationships with the tabloids whilst also addressing many issues that teens, women and even women in power face on a regular basis. As I said, I enjoyed the political theming and premise of this book but did find it dragged on a bit in some places which took my rating down.

However Sarah Vaughan has become an auto buy author for me as I have loved elements of each of her previous books as well.