Book Review: The Inheritance Games

Author: Jennifer Lynn Barnes

Genre: YA Mystery

Release Date: 09.01.20

Publisher: Little Brown Books for Young Readers

Source: Purchased

My Rating: 3/5 stars

SYNOPSIS: “Avery Grambs has a plan for a better future: survive high school, win a scholarship, and get out. But her fortunes change in an instant when billionaire Tobias Hawthorne dies and leaves Avery virtually his entire fortune. The catch? Avery has no idea why–or even who Tobias Hawthorne is. To receive her inheritance, Avery must move into sprawling, secret passage-filled Hawthorne House, where every room bears the old man’s touch–and his love of puzzles, riddles, and codes.

Unfortunately for Avery, Hawthorne House is also occupied by the family that Tobias Hawthorne just dispossessed. This includes the four Hawthorne grandsons: dangerous, magnetic, brilliant boys who grew up with every expectation that one day, they would inherit billions. Heir apparent Grayson Hawthorne is convinced that Avery must be a con-woman, and he’s determined to take her down. His brother, Jameson, views her as their grandfather’s last hurrah: a twisted riddle, a puzzle to be solved. Caught in a world of wealth and privilege, with danger around every turn, Avery will have to play the game herself just to survive.”

I feel like anyway that I write this review will make it sound like I didn’t enjoy this book, which isn’t true. I had a fun time reading this and found myself flying through it. However, The Inheritance Games got overhyped to me and my overexcited expectations led to me feeling let down.

As said, I had a great time reading this! My reading patterns have been slow recently, so it’s been refreshing to fly through this as quickly as I did. It was a fun story with an interesting mystery that kept me hooked! My biggest good note for this book would be that I was entertained and intrigued while reading.

Then, I think that the hype for this book made my expectations too high. I heard tons of amazing things about this novel and it didn’t live up to that for me. The mystery was addicting, but it didn’t shock me with the reveal. Honestly, I had some suspicions that made the ending much less impactful; I was disappointed to see that my guesses were so close to the truth.

My other big thing was the characters. I enjoyed Avery, she had a lot of potential that I hope is pursued in the next novel. I was hoping to watch her develop into this badass character that wasn’t there, but hey! There’s always some potential for the sequel. I wasn’t a huge fan of the Hawthrone boys. My love for them grew with time, but their overly fancy dialogue and demeanors felt fake to me. Fake, forced, maybe even annoying at times. They grew on me with time, but I was irritated enough at the beginning that the sour taste of it stuck in my mouth.

Like I said, this review makes it sound like I didn’t like this book, but that’s not true! I had an enjoyable time reading this and I am planning on picking up the sequel when it is released in 2021!