Reviews with content warning for Sexual harassment - The Rumor Game

Reviews tagging 'Sexual harassment'

The Rumor Game by Dhonielle Clayton, Sona Charaipotra

11 reviews

themoodreader's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.0

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awenya's review

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challenging dark emotional informative tense fast-paced

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

3.75

I usually hate multiple points of views, but in this case it works well. Just when one person's life and point of view starts to swallow you whole and drown you, you get a miniature reprieve by jumping to another.

This book was pretty dark, and while comparing it to Gossip Girl is apt in some ways, I would argue it's much heavier and darker. Pay attention to the content warnings.

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thegreatpike27's review

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emotional medium-paced

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

4.0

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summerif's review

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emotional tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

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avidreaderandgeekgirl's review

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adventurous challenging emotional reflective sad tense slow-paced

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

4.25

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sunsetcity's review

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challenging dark emotional mysterious tense medium-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

3.75

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badger5's review

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emotional 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

Content Warnings

plumpaperbacks's review against another edition

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challenging mysterious medium-paced

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

3.0

[Early copy from Netgalley. This doesn’t affect my opinions/review.]

My feelings on this book are complicated. On one hand, I think it was an (unfortunately) accurate portrayal of how vicious high school can be, of flawed teens making questionable choices when under social and mental duress. On the other hand, though, I found most of the characters extremely frustrating, which hindered my reading experience.

I will say that the final third of the book revealed one very unexpected plot twist that single-handedly saved the book for me. Up until that point, nothing had shocked me except how horrible some of the characters were being. It was all very cleverly done on the authors’ part.

One aspect I have mixed feelings on is Georgie’s character. While she did end up being one of my favorites—alongside Riley and Baez—I question the authors’ choice to make her narrative what it was. Prior to the start of the story, she was a fat girl sent to a summer weight loss camp, which already isn’t my favorite thing. Then the new school year starts, and suddenly, despite being ignored when she was fat, now that she’s lost weight and started dressing differently, she becomes more popular. I realize it was in part a commentary on fatphobia in society, and one of the most significant parts of Georgie’s journey was her realization that she’s beautiful and worthwhile no matter what she weighs or how she looks. But I ask: why was any of it necessary? Why, in 2022, are we still giving this rather offensive cliché any attention? Why couldn’t Georgie realize those things without losing any weight? Alternatively, instead of any sort of self-image character arc, she could’ve been a transfer student, new to the area, and that was why she was attracting attention. I don’t know—maybe I’m over-analyzing this, but I just didn’t really like it regardless.

Also, I would’ve liked to see a bit more about Cora’s queerness. I am completely aware that it’s not meant to be a focal point in this story, and I accept that. However, it’s briefly mentioned a couple of times that she previously, secretly dated a girl, and that’s it. I think it would’ve been interesting to see more of that part of her.

Ultimately, I did like the ending. I liked where each of the characters ended up, and even liked most of the major players by the time I was done, which was a huge improvement from the first half of the book.

As for the book as a whole, I’m not sure. My criticisms of the first half combined with my unexpected investment in and the surprise improvement of the second half equal an overall neutral rating. It wasn’t terrible, but it wasn’t great. I would recommend it if you’re a fan of prep school mysteries and contemporaries with social commentary, but it’s not my first choice recommendation either. So yeah—50/50, basically.

Representation

Indian protagonist
Black queer protagonist
side characters of color (includes Indian, Nigerian, Black and Chinese rep)
sapphic side characters

Content Warnings

sarahmreads's review

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challenging dark tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

Bryn knows about rumors all too well, since she's the subject of most of them. After a car accident she caused that almost killed her ex-boyfriend, Bryn has learned to monitor the rumors and how to attempt to cope with them. When the rumors start to finally ease off her and onto her friends, if she can even call them that, they have to work together to navigate them, and figure out who started it all.

I'll start this off by saying that this is a VERY heavy story, full of a lot of difficult topics, as demonstrated by the trigger warnings above. I highly recommend waiting to start this book until you are emotionally and mentally sound for it.

That being said, I think the whole aspect of cyberbullying and rumors was definitely taken to the extreme for this, obviously for plot reasons. It very much was a lot of petty drama and an overemphasis on online drama. I know it's meant to show the impact of rumors and what it does to the lives of people who the rumors are about, but very early on it gets very stale, and the rumors at least don't have much impact until the one major one at the very end of the story. Even then, it was hard to read because of the graphic and foul nature of what occurred.

Because of all of this, there weren't many characters I did like. I only liked maybe one minor character but that's about it. Bryn has good reasoning but she comes off like a pity case. Cora is cruel except for the few times she isn't. Georgie I kind of liked because of her whole body image arc, which I related to a lot, but I can't really speak to the accuracy of which the "weight camps" hold true for this story. I also can't really speak to the representation of the marginalized communities in this story as I myself am not a part of those communities.

The nature of the book itself leads to the fact that it doesn't really have a linear plot. It's just a bunch of smaller events smashed together in an attempt of a plot. As a result, I just couldn't really get into the book until over halfway through. The formatting of the story on my Kindle as well was extremely wonky due to a lot of multimedia things within the story itself. That ended up taking me out of the story slightly.

Overall, the Rumor Game is reminiscent of Riverdale and other high school dramas, with a wide variety of difficult topics that can make it hard to read.

I received a copy of this story as an e-ARC from NetGalley. Any and all thoughts and opinions are my own.

Content Warnings

nytephoenyx's review against another edition

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dark slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

Disclaimer: I received this book for free from Netgalley and Disney Hyperion in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

The Rumor Game tells the story of a elite private high school in Washington DC, in the links that some people will go to protect themselves and hurt others. It’s a dark, dramatic contemporary story that unfortunately has too many ties to potential real life situations. I’ll be honest from the forefront and say that I didn’t enjoy The Rumor Game, but I do believe it is an incredibly well written book and will be real received by the correct audience.

My complaints about this book have nothing to do with its actual quality and everything to do with the types of media I prefer to ingest. The Rumor Game is a book filled with unlikable people, putting each other in the worst situations, and behaving as badly as they possibly can. It is stressful and uncomfortable to read, at least as far as I’m concerned. That said, if you’re the type of person who enjoys reality TV or police procedural‘s, this book will probably be just fine for you. This story follows the children of politicians and the elite of the capitol of the United States, and the characters are written in such a way that their every instinct is to protect themselves and sabotage others. If there was a single nice person in The Rumor Game, it would’ve been Georgie, but rumors and lies take a toll even on the nicest people.

The plot twists and turns, and although some of it is predictable, you get so focused on a single aspect of the story that you don’t expect it to explode quite the way it does. The authors certainly keep you reading, but it’s a bit like a car accident where you can’t look away but you don’t really want to see what’s going on. The Rumor Game is a hard book to read, emotionally, and I’m sure it was an extremely difficult book to write. It also makes an excellent point. This novel isn’t afraid to go into the corruption of selfish hearts, the pains of having emotionally abusive and emotionally absent parents, and the way malicious lies can follow us everywhere we go because of the infusion of social media and our daily lives.

I always find it challenging to recommend books that don’t leave me with that feel good feeling, but I will go as far as to say that TheRumor Game is well written, well thought out, and cover several important topics. There are many, many circumstances of trauma inducing events in this book, so please make sure to look into the trigger warnings (I have them on my blog, and you can also see them on the StoryGraph) before reading this book. Otherwise, if you think it sounds interesting, I recommend you pick it up and support the authors. It’s really well done, and while I didn’t like it, that has nothing to do with the quality of the book and everything to do with the way it left me feeling when I finished it. You’ll have to judge for yourself.

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