Reviews tagging 'Infidelity'

The Inheritance Games by Jennifer Lynn Barnes

22 reviews

litliz's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny mysterious medium-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Dysphoria, Alcohol, Child death, Domestic abuse, Gun violence, Infidelity, Toxic friendship, Stalking, Gaslighting, Violence, Medical content, Body horror, Cursing, Blood, Car accident, Death, Toxic relationship, Injury/Injury detail, Death of parent, Grief, Abandonment, Classism, Emotional abuse, Lesbophobia, Physical abuse, and Chronic illness

guessgreenleaf's review against another edition

adventurous mysterious tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Car accident, Alcohol, Child death, Classism, Death, and Death of parent

Minor: Toxic friendship, Stalking, Murder, Infidelity, Gun violence, and Domestic abuse

aysha_blake's review against another edition

adventurous funny lighthearted mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gun violence, Stalking, Death, Death of parent, Alcohol, and Infidelity

sup3r_xn0va_maya's review against another edition

slow-paced

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

1.0

This was not exciting or entertaining at any point and because of this book I'm finally going to give up on reading things just because they're popular, ya'll have questionable taste. 

This read like a middle grade, not a young adult novel, but a very boring middle grade novel with terrible dialogue. It was also predicable in some parts, and then the ending was really lack luster.  

I'm giving this one out of five stars, I did not enjoy this at all. 

I listened to this for free on libbyapp.com

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Grief, Infidelity, Death of parent, Child death, Lesbophobia, and Cursing

lily1304's review against another edition

fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Loveable characters? No

3.5

This is not the type of mystery that the reader could piece together and solve, since a lot of the clues involve characters finding hidden compartments and passageways, or the characters only share the information needed to solve the next puzzle as they're solving it - it's not a whodunnit in that way. But it's entertaining and I read it really fast to find out what would happen!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Stalking and Gun violence

Moderate: Infidelity, Child death, Domestic abuse, Injury/Injury detail, Death of parent, Death, Classism, and Car accident

niliii's review against another edition

mysterious fast-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Gun violence

Minor: Infidelity

rafaelabossoni's review against another edition

mysterious tense fast-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Minor: Grief, Domestic abuse, Death, Terminal illness, Alcoholism, Violence, Murder, Toxic relationship, Blood, Gun violence, Cursing, Death of parent, Infidelity, and Injury/Injury detail

mcc004's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark mysterious sad medium-paced

3.75

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Death of parent, Gun violence, Domestic abuse, Infidelity, and Stalking

Attempted murder by gun, attempted murder by car crash

foxo_cube's review against another edition

adventurous mysterious medium-paced

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

3.5

The writing style was good and I mostly liked the main character (bar the way her brain just turns off when she thinks a guy is hot - more on that in a bit, though!). At first, I thought the puzzles were a little bit too basic, but the way the ends tied up together was immaculate. The ending of this book is great: questions are answered in a satisfying way and a new plotline is teased, so you aren't forced to read the next one, but there's definitely a reason to.

Most of my qualms with the book are more down to personal taste. There are four Hawthorne brothers - the grandsons of the billionaire who left his property to our main character, Avery. Three of them are of an age range to make them romanceable options for her.

Nash, the oldest, is a cowboy. Why? I do not know. I like him and I was actually really rooting for him and Libby, Avery's older sister, to get together - I felt like they'd be cute together. Yeehaw.

Grayson is an arrogant twat

for most of the book

. He wears suits and has silver eyes and he's very nasty to Avery a lot of the time, but because he wears suits and has silver eyes, Avery can't help but swoon. Come on! He acts like such a pathetic little man. "Ooh, I've got money. I can sort things out because I have money." The most silver eyes in the world don't make up for that.

He does get a redemption arc and I actually ended up liking him. He had reason to be suspicious and standoffish (not excusing him, but explaining his actions) and he seems to acknowledge it was a him problem. He seems to be a decent-hearted guy.

Jameson is... I don't know. He has a personality. I just don't really get what it is. He starts out being drunk and speaking weirdly cryptically like he thinks he's the Sphinx who tells riddles. I was severely put off him when he used a secret passage to go to Avery's room and go "I am in your walls, let me in, let me in" in the middle of the night, and then, when she let him in, he was like "it would be a shame if we were related [with euphemistic intent]". That's nightmare fuel, and she's just like "he's kinda hot, though". What?! Although he becomes more likeable, I never really felt any real chemistry between them beyond her swooning over him occasionally. I just couldn't feel invested in them getting together even though that's clearly what the book's getting at. 

Xander is a good boy, a sweet boy, and a boy of many talents. For some reason, despite acknowledging he is tall and attractive (both traits commonly deemed attractive by straight female protagonists in YA novels), he is never swooned over. To be fair, this goes both ways. Xander is much more concerned with eating scones.

That, and facilitating the game his grandfather set up to get his brothers to work together to solve a puzzle, occasionally prodding Avery in the right direction when she hits a wall.

  Silly younger-brother-esque characters always activate the crumb of maternal instinct within me and Xander is no exception. He's my favourite of the boys both because I want to protect him and because we get to know him better than we do Nash. 

Avery is definitely a little bit of a blank slate in the YA protagonist kind of way where you're meant to project yourself onto her, but she experiences her own character development and she feels believable. 

I feel as though I'd have enjoyed this more if it weren't for the romance elements, which felt a little forced.

That said, I liked how the parallel was drawn between Avery and Emily in that respect.

  I don't know if I'll read the other books in the series, but this was an engaging book that made me want to know what happened next, and if you're more inclined towards this sort of premise than I am, you'll probably love it. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Blood, Injury/Injury detail, Stalking, Death, Gun violence, Violence, Domestic abuse, Death of parent, Alcoholism, and Physical abuse

Minor: Homophobia, Infidelity, and Biphobia

zoeelora's review against another edition

adventurous mysterious fast-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Alcoholism, Blood, Child death, Chronic illness, Death, Death of parent, Grief, Gun violence, Infidelity, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Stalking, and Terminal illness