A review by starrysteph
Their Vicious Games by Joelle Wellington

adventurous dark emotional 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

4.75

Oh hello, new autobuy author! Seriously, THIS WAS SO GOOD.

Their Vicious Games was pitched as Squid Games meets Ace of Spades, and that wasn’t too far off. It’ll definitely bring in the right audience. But this is something new: it’s fast-paced and murderous but also very fun satire.

Adina is a Black teenager about to graduate from the prestigious Edgewater Academy - a school for the richest kids in New England that she attends on scholarship. She knows she has to work twice as hard as the other students to prove herself, to be perfect. But one student targets Adina to the extreme, and an incident takes away her acceptance to Yale and her dreams for the future.

She knows there’s only one opportunity to get it all back: The Finish. It’s an elusive, elite competition held by the most powerful family in Edgewater: twelve promising seniors compete in three events in order to win access to the wealth and power of the Remingtons.

But as Adina enters the fold, she realizes The Finish is more than just a simple competition. It’s life or death, and the only way to survive is to win their vicious games … unless she can somehow shift the world she’s never truly been a part of.

This is a biting condemnation of the world of the wealthy and elite, where to succeed means to forgo empathy and compassion and humanity. Each character with power has had to sacrifice themselves just to hold onto it. They’re always teetering on loss and terror, desperate to shove others down just to keep the status quo.

And those who perceive themselves as allies to those beneath their social standing? They never actually risk themselves to protect others. 

The pacing is swift and the dialogue is biting. Adina is a messy character, but I liked her all the same. The set up of the plot & stakes leads to moral messiness, and it’s hard to take a step back as a reader and remember that you want to break this cycle, not see Adina adapt and succeed within it.

Themes like classism, racism, and privilege are explored - especially the ways in which they all intersect. Adina is the only not-ridiculously-wealthy competitor and the only Black competitor, and the others never let her forget it. She’s manipulated and fetishized and reviled. 

Mostly everyone else has varying levels of villainy, but they’re interesting characters all the same. Adina’s earnest roommate Saint is desperate to prove herself and show off her skill & independence, Penthesilea’s perfect facade is wavering, rejected Remington brother Graham has mysterious motivations, and even the nasty Esme and her sidekick Hawthorne have moments of depth.

Their Vicious Games feels like an act of catharsis and a challenge to the societal structures that force anyone outside of the 1%’s ideal to lessen, to adapt, and to serve. It’s got feral girls and systemic violence and an actually-satisfying resolution to a potential love triangle. 

The character arcs!! The viciousness of the competition & the manipulative set up of the games!! The devilish, insidious webs of the ultra-wealthy and the attempted cycle-breaking!! It was all so good.

CW: death, murder, violence, racism, blood, gore, injury, classism, toxic friendships, gun violence, vomit, misogyny & sexism, gaslighting, animal death, bullying

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(I received a free copy of this book; this is my honest review.)
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