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A review by noirverse
Reputation by Lex Croucher
2.0
This book was a mixed bag. The first half of the book was delightful and was a solid four stars, as the humor and introductions to all the relevant characters worked super well. I loved Francis and almost all the other female characters. Thomas was an endearing love interest for Georgina, and their awkward conversations in the first half of the book were endlessly entertaining. Georgina slowly descending into being a meaner person thanks to Francis' influence was fascinating. And then the second half of the book came along.
I knew just enough about the book to know that it would take a turn for the more serious, and was intrigued to find out how it would be done. Unfortunately, the heavy focus on rape and rape culture themes in the last half of the book considerably dampened my enjoyment. It's not the book's fault, to be clear, but the amount of focus on it was enough to make me wish that the book had gone in a different direction.
Another sticking point for me was Betty's character. Betty being treated awfully by Georgina multiple times and immediately forgiving her multiple times stuck out like a sore thumb, and did not feel believable. The set-up of Betty turning into Georgina's new best friend was incredibly contrived, and I felt nothing for their friendship, mainly because I never got any sort of compelling reason for why Betty would want to keep sticking around Georgina after being brought to tears by her.
The LGBT elements of this book were nice to see. However, I couldn't help but be a little disappointed when I realized that the book had no interest in letting Georgina have any romantic feelings for Francis, but that's entirely on me. Overall, I considered rating this three stars because I really did enjoy the first half of the story, but the back half is enough to make me drop a star in terms of how much I personally enjoyed it. I'm sure other people will like this one, but it sadly turned out to be not a great fit for my personal reading tastes.
I knew just enough about the book to know that it would take a turn for the more serious, and was intrigued to find out how it would be done. Unfortunately, the heavy focus on rape and rape culture themes in the last half of the book considerably dampened my enjoyment. It's not the book's fault, to be clear, but the amount of focus on it was enough to make me wish that the book had gone in a different direction.
Another sticking point for me was Betty's character. Betty being treated awfully by Georgina multiple times and immediately forgiving her multiple times stuck out like a sore thumb, and did not feel believable. The set-up of Betty turning into Georgina's new best friend was incredibly contrived, and I felt nothing for their friendship, mainly because I never got any sort of compelling reason for why Betty would want to keep sticking around Georgina after being brought to tears by her.
The LGBT elements of this book were nice to see. However, I couldn't help but be a little disappointed when I realized that the book had no interest in letting Georgina have any romantic feelings for Francis, but that's entirely on me. Overall, I considered rating this three stars because I really did enjoy the first half of the story, but the back half is enough to make me drop a star in terms of how much I personally enjoyed it. I'm sure other people will like this one, but it sadly turned out to be not a great fit for my personal reading tastes.