TITLE: Their Vicious Games
AUTHOR: Joelle Wellington
PUBLISHER: Simon Teen
RELEASE DATE: July 25, 2023
GENRES: YA contemporary, thriller BUY LINKS:
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.
First of all, I want to thank Turn the Page Tours for allowing me to join their tour for this amazing book as well as the author for giving me an ARC to read!
My heart was beating ferociously. My skin was itching with anticipation. My eyes at some point hurt because I just couldn’t stop swiping and reading and the rest of my body was aching from sitting too long in one position because I just couldn’t get out of the moment. I simply could not escape from the world that was created by Wellington.
I could not leave. I had to keep reading, in some ways, just like Adina had to keep going with the “game”. “Welcome to the finish.” Reading this book, I had sudden chills.
The Finish, as you read on, becomes more intense and tense and I bet you, you won’t be able to leave this book at all. You have to read on, you have to see what happens. You have to continue Adina’s story because in some way, the Finish is a game you are also participating in.
I read this book in one night. Never have I been so happy to have wasted sleep so I could finish this book. It was so good. It had me on my toes, it had my breath hitching, it had my heart skip a beat.
The premise of the book is so interesting with so much tension, so much action and a sense of dread that death would be near. You have to read this book if you enjoy mysteries / thrillers!
The synopsis says this book is like Ace of Spades - it kind of is. I really enjoyed Ace of Spades and so I enjoyed this book as well!!