A review by mesal
The Final Gambit by Jennifer Lynn Barnes

adventurous mysterious medium-paced

• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No

3.0

If I'm right about this being the final book in the series (I've heard things about more books, but I'm pretty sure they revolve around the brothers Hawthorne prior to meeting Avery?), then it was a decent ending that wrapped up all loose ends. I wasn't particularly fond of this book's main villain—he was too disconnected from the previous books despite JLB's best attempts at connecting him to the Hawthornes directly—which disappointed me when the mystery unraveled, but I didn't have any other major issues with the plot.

What I thought of the characters and their relationships, which is always a huge factor of any YA contemporary:

I may have said I was rooting for Grayson the whole time, but that's only because Jameson is truly the most stereotypical (and therefore boring) male lead I have met in recent history; otherwise, AveryJameson as a couple make sense. They're both adventurous, both daring, willing to test boundaries and cross limits to explore what's on the other side, and in that sense they work well together. Doesn't change the fact that at the end of the day these characters and the books they feature in mean next to nothing to me, and I will not be thinking about them ever again if I can help it!