Their Vicious Games by Joelle Wellington
BOOK REVIEW
Synopsis:
A Black teen desperate to regain her Ivy League acceptance enters an elite competition only to discover the stakes aren’t just high, they’re deadly, in this searing thriller that’s Ace of Spades meets Squid Game with a sprinkling of The Bachelor.
You must work twice as hard to get half as much.
Adina Walker has known this the entire time she’s been on scholarship at the prestigious Edgewater Academy—a school for the rich (and mostly white) upper class of New England. It’s why she works so hard to be perfect and above reproach, no matter what she must force beneath the surface. Even one slip can cost you everything.
And it does. One fight, one moment of lost control, leaves Adina blacklisted from her top choice Ivy League college and any other. Her only chance to regain the future she’s sacrificed everything for is the Finish, a high-stakes contest sponsored by Edgewater’s founding family in which twelve young, ambitious women with exceptional promise are selected to compete in three mysterious events: the Ride, the Raid, and the Royale. The winner will be granted entry into the fold of the Remington family, whose wealth and power can open any door.
But when she arrives at the Finish, Adina quickly gets the feeling that something isn’t quite right with both the Remingtons and her competition, and soon it becomes clear that this larger-than-life prize can only come at an even greater cost. Because the Finish’s stakes aren’t just make or break…they’re life and death.
Adina knows the deck is stacked against her—it always has been—so maybe the only way to survive their vicious games is for her to change the rules.
Their Vicious Games reminded me so much of The Inheritance Games but with a twist. Adina Walker will do anything to regain a Yale acceptance, even walk mindlesslv into a competition that can end deadly.
Joelle Wellington really packed a punch in this novel with the dangerous games. I was shocked at how far they went. With a group of girls, all selected to compete, I could not imagine how they felt waking up every day to a new task. Adina and Saint had the sweetest friendship, and you love to see it! I was eager to see how everything played out, and with the stakes so high, every girl had their reason and motivation for being there, which made the games more intense.
If this book could have been written as an adult mvsterv/thriller - horror. it would have been even better. There would have been no limits. and the games could have been deadlier.
I loved this book!
The intrigue was solid, the games were fun, and I really enjoyed the relationships that were cultivated. If I could, I'd write a whole book about how much I loved it.
Adina is an amazing main character. especially her will and determination. If you haven't read it yet, do it!!
Joelle Wellington grew up in Brooklyn, New York, where her childhood was spent wandering the main branch of the Brooklyn Public Library. Her love of the written word led her to a B.A. in Creative Writing and International Studies. When she isn’t writing, she’s reading and when she’s not doing that, she’s attempting to bake bread with varying degrees of success or strengthening her encyclopedia-like pop culture knowledge. She is represented by Quressa Robinson of Folio Literary Management.
Thank you Turn the Page Tours for having us on this tour!
While Tina and Taylor were both provided a book, our reviews are written voluntarily, and all opinions are our own.
Purchase your copy of Their Vicious Games, here.
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