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A review by abbier_14
The Inheritance Games by Jennifer Lynn Barnes
2.0
This is such a long review omg. I didnt realise i would have this much to say.
I want to preface this by saying that Knifes Out is in my top 3 favourite movies of all time, so an outsider receiving the inheritance a family expected to get is a premise that im familiar with and know I like. I also want to say that Rebecca is my favourite book of all time, so a new girl coming into a big house and being overshadowed by a previous girl who died is a premise that i have loved before.
The point is that the plot of this book being similar to my favourite book and movie made this feel very unoriginal and almost a ripoff. I know its not exactly a ripoff and more of a "retelling" but it was just something that i couldnt get out of my mind while reading (come on the author blatently stole the scene where Mrs De Winter accidentally dresses up like rebecca, i was rolling my eyes at how obvious that was). It also made me have way higher expectations as i know how great these plotlines could be (and because of how highly rated and hyped this is on tiktok and goodreads but ive learnt my lesson not to trust them)
The characters:
I didnt vibe with any character in this book im sorry. Avery was sooo bland, and just was always complaining and had a woe is me attitude that just got on my nerves. If i was a hawthorne and my money went to her i would have been like atleast it could have gone to someone who was actually likeable and a good human
I liked none of the hawthorne boys.
Jameson just needed to shut up
Grayson needed to get a life.
I kept forgetting that Xander is only like a year younger than avery because he behaved as though he was like a young kid, im not really a fan of 'golden retriever' characters.
And Nash just needed to let this cowboy thing go and thats coming from me who was actually excited that this book was set in texas, but unfortunately i think it was set in texas just to make sure there was specific laws surrounding wills and stuff.
All the other characters were just there to confuse me i swear. I kept getting Zara and Skye mixed up (still not sure which ones which), And Rebecca, Thea, and Emily are all a jumble in my head, like when rebecca came down into that safe tunnel thing i literally thought it was emily coming back to life as i forgot whos who. There were too many side characters for me to keep track of.
oh wait i remembered a character i like. Is is Alisa? idk the lawyer one. Mainly because she kept trying to put Avery in her place and i liked the tension between her and Nash.
The plot:
I know this isnt really plot but i have a love hate relationship with how short the chapters are in this book. For one im glad the chapters were this short otherwise i think i would still be reading this when im grey and in a carehome. On the other hand though the short chapters, to me, made the plot disjointed and clunky. Each chapter kinda had a different thing going on so they were completely unrelated to what had happened in the previous chapter. This made the plot feel very unconnected as it felt as if the author could have written all these chapters separately and then just put them all together randomly at the end as we would just jump from one thing to the next.
Another thing that is also linked to the chapter length is how surface level the "riddles", if you can even call them that, are. As the chapters are like 3 pages long and the author doesnt want to drag out the riddle for multiple chapters the characters often solve them wayy too quickly.
The characters would often just think and then the answer comes to them instantly, they also never really get it wrong or fail. I swear this grandpa guy was meant to be a mastermind riddler so why is it taking a bunch of teenagers this little time to crack the code. The book never really told us how the characters got to the answers they did, probably because they are characters in a book so the author could just give them the answer and make them "incredibly inteligent". I would have preferred to see them slaving away over books or stuck on a clue for months on end, but maybe the author couldnt think of anything that difficult that would take that much time to solve.
Another point on the riddles but i hated how, as a reader, we were so distant from them. There was never really an opportunity for us as a reader to solve the riddle ourselves before the characters, which is always something in mystery books that draws you in. This book however was lacking that for me. Even if it did i probably wouldnt have cared to solve it anyway as i wasnt invested.
I know this is part of a series and i should have known from the start that this would never happen but i hate how we dont get closure. I still dont get why Avery was picked or anything because i am not accepting that dumb stupid reason of "oh her name has a cool anagram". No absolutely not. The only thing you kinda get closure on is emily but i bet this is unraveled in the later books and its not actually what was said in this one. But omg how creepy is this hawthorne guy that he literally stalked a minor and hired people to take pics of her and keep updated with her life. How was avery not creeped out.
OK so the "love" triangle sucked. Ngl i usually love it when books have a romance subplot as it can draw me back in if im getting a little bored of the main plot. However i wish this book didnt have it at all. As you know i hate all the characters so that is probably the reason why, but i would just cringe every time the boys are described as hot or avery is checking them out.
This also felt a little insta lovey in the sense that Grayson and Jameson were obsessed with her from the start. The author blurred the lines between "im invested in you because you just stole all my family's inheritance" and "Im obsessed with you because i wanna date you". I dont know if this was just Avery's big head interpretting their interest in the wrong way but i wish the boys were only interested in the inheritance side of things first and then developed feelings.
But I wish there was no romance at all because none of them really had chemistry. OMG one of my pet peeves in books is when the characters kiss right after a traumatic event. I was literally cringing so hard when they kissed after the shooting because im like how unrealistic is this, the last thing on avery's or jameson's mind should be kissing. They should be panicking or hysterical idk just not this.
Another thing im scared is being hinted at is a relationship between Libby and Nash. I HATE when two siblings are dating another two siblings (idk if my description makes sense but oh well). I just find it gross and of course its never gonna work because if one of them gets married then you are dating your brother/sister in law which is just so weird to me. So please god if i ever read the sequal that this relationship does not happen.
Also what was max doing. She really added nothing but cringe and pain. I do not need to read fake swearwords just have her not say them at all.
I want to preface this by saying that Knifes Out is in my top 3 favourite movies of all time, so an outsider receiving the inheritance a family expected to get is a premise that im familiar with and know I like. I also want to say that Rebecca is my favourite book of all time, so a new girl coming into a big house and being overshadowed by a previous girl who died is a premise that i have loved before.
The point is that the plot of this book being similar to my favourite book and movie made this feel very unoriginal and almost a ripoff. I know its not exactly a ripoff and more of a "retelling" but it was just something that i couldnt get out of my mind while reading (come on the author blatently stole the scene where Mrs De Winter accidentally dresses up like rebecca, i was rolling my eyes at how obvious that was). It also made me have way higher expectations as i know how great these plotlines could be (and because of how highly rated and hyped this is on tiktok and goodreads but ive learnt my lesson not to trust them)
The characters:
I didnt vibe with any character in this book im sorry. Avery was sooo bland, and just was always complaining and had a woe is me attitude that just got on my nerves. If i was a hawthorne and my money went to her i would have been like atleast it could have gone to someone who was actually likeable and a good human
I liked none of the hawthorne boys.
Jameson just needed to shut up
Grayson needed to get a life.
I kept forgetting that Xander is only like a year younger than avery because he behaved as though he was like a young kid, im not really a fan of 'golden retriever' characters.
And Nash just needed to let this cowboy thing go and thats coming from me who was actually excited that this book was set in texas, but unfortunately i think it was set in texas just to make sure there was specific laws surrounding wills and stuff.
All the other characters were just there to confuse me i swear. I kept getting Zara and Skye mixed up (still not sure which ones which), And Rebecca, Thea, and Emily are all a jumble in my head, like when rebecca came down into that safe tunnel thing i literally thought it was emily coming back to life as i forgot whos who. There were too many side characters for me to keep track of.
oh wait i remembered a character i like. Is is Alisa? idk the lawyer one. Mainly because she kept trying to put Avery in her place and i liked the tension between her and Nash.
The plot:
I know this isnt really plot but i have a love hate relationship with how short the chapters are in this book. For one im glad the chapters were this short otherwise i think i would still be reading this when im grey and in a carehome. On the other hand though the short chapters, to me, made the plot disjointed and clunky. Each chapter kinda had a different thing going on so they were completely unrelated to what had happened in the previous chapter. This made the plot feel very unconnected as it felt as if the author could have written all these chapters separately and then just put them all together randomly at the end as we would just jump from one thing to the next.
Another thing that is also linked to the chapter length is how surface level the "riddles", if you can even call them that, are. As the chapters are like 3 pages long and the author doesnt want to drag out the riddle for multiple chapters the characters often solve them wayy too quickly.
The characters would often just think and then the answer comes to them instantly, they also never really get it wrong or fail. I swear this grandpa guy was meant to be a mastermind riddler so why is it taking a bunch of teenagers this little time to crack the code. The book never really told us how the characters got to the answers they did, probably because they are characters in a book so the author could just give them the answer and make them "incredibly inteligent". I would have preferred to see them slaving away over books or stuck on a clue for months on end, but maybe the author couldnt think of anything that difficult that would take that much time to solve.
Another point on the riddles but i hated how, as a reader, we were so distant from them. There was never really an opportunity for us as a reader to solve the riddle ourselves before the characters, which is always something in mystery books that draws you in. This book however was lacking that for me. Even if it did i probably wouldnt have cared to solve it anyway as i wasnt invested.
I know this is part of a series and i should have known from the start that this would never happen but i hate how we dont get closure. I still dont get why Avery was picked or anything because i am not accepting that dumb stupid reason of "oh her name has a cool anagram". No absolutely not. The only thing you kinda get closure on is emily but i bet this is unraveled in the later books and its not actually what was said in this one. But omg how creepy is this hawthorne guy that he literally stalked a minor and hired people to take pics of her and keep updated with her life. How was avery not creeped out.
OK so the "love" triangle sucked. Ngl i usually love it when books have a romance subplot as it can draw me back in if im getting a little bored of the main plot. However i wish this book didnt have it at all. As you know i hate all the characters so that is probably the reason why, but i would just cringe every time the boys are described as hot or avery is checking them out.
This also felt a little insta lovey in the sense that Grayson and Jameson were obsessed with her from the start. The author blurred the lines between "im invested in you because you just stole all my family's inheritance" and "Im obsessed with you because i wanna date you". I dont know if this was just Avery's big head interpretting their interest in the wrong way but i wish the boys were only interested in the inheritance side of things first and then developed feelings.
But I wish there was no romance at all because none of them really had chemistry. OMG one of my pet peeves in books is when the characters kiss right after a traumatic event. I was literally cringing so hard when they kissed after the shooting because im like how unrealistic is this, the last thing on avery's or jameson's mind should be kissing. They should be panicking or hysterical idk just not this.
Another thing im scared is being hinted at is a relationship between Libby and Nash. I HATE when two siblings are dating another two siblings (idk if my description makes sense but oh well). I just find it gross and of course its never gonna work because if one of them gets married then you are dating your brother/sister in law which is just so weird to me. So please god if i ever read the sequal that this relationship does not happen.
Also what was max doing. She really added nothing but cringe and pain. I do not need to read fake swearwords just have her not say them at all.