Book Tour: Review: Their Vicious Games by Joelle Wellington

Talk about a book I finished in a few days, Their Vicious Games is compulsive. It’s one of those books which takes a hold of you and demands to be read. I could not stop reading. Keep reading this book review for my full thoughts.

Summary

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 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.

Review

(Disclaimer: I received this book from the publisher. This has not impacted my review which is unbiased and honest.)

Their Vicious Games is indescribable. It is like part competition book, part examination of our future, and part a pointed glance at racism and elitism. About the ways our future can feel decided, the rules of the game set, but how everything can change if we will it to be so. If we are strong enough, clever enough, to see the way to turn the tables.

Their Vicious Games is all about our definition of success and what it means to fall. To fail. To succeed. It is about how we fight back when we lose, when everyone counts us out. Full of deadly betrayals, Their Vicious Games immediately hits the ground running with action. With stakes higher than we ever thought before to gain rewards which we think will set us up for life.

For each of the characters, Their Vicious Games asks them what they would sacrifice and who. Who will they become on the other side? If they sacrifice friendship, loyalty, honor, what do they have left? Family? Legacy? And what do we make of those who watch on the sidelines? Their Vicious Games balances a character study of motivation with a captivating competition with thorns.

Book links:

About Joelle Wellington

Joelle Wellington is the author of Their Vicious Games. She grew up in Brooklyn, New York, where her childhood was spent wandering the main branch of the Brooklyn Public Library. 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.

Author Links:

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/22575762.Joelle_Wellington

Website: https://www.joellewellington.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jowellington

Twitter: https://twitter.com/joelle_welling