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Book: “Their Vicious Games” by Joelle Wellington
Publishing Info: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Adults, July 2023
Where Did I Get This Book: I received an ARC from the publisher at ALAAC2023.
Where You Can Get This Book: WorldCat.org | Amazon| Indiebound
Book Description: 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.
Review: Thank you to Simon & Schuster for Young Readers for providing me with an ARC at ALAAC23!
One of the most stressful aspects of my old job as an interpreter at a Gilded Age/Victorian Era historic house was when a coworker and I would have to run the Finishing School Summer Camp for a week. Picture it: Me and my coworker, decked in Victorian garb, leading about a dozen young girls on a history based summer camp where they would learn about Finishing Schools of the era and all the culture, etiquette, art, and history that came with it. I would lead various activities, involving tea parties, dress up, and putting together a LITERAL CONCERT involving dancing, singing and poetry, all to be performed at the end of the week, and when it was all over I would surely pass out at 8pm on Friday night and sleep for about twelve hours. Finishing School was high stakes for me, it was high stakes for the women back in the day, but it could NOT compare to the Finishing School-esque competition of Joelle Wellington’s thriller “Their Vicious Games”, in which a number of ambitious young women are plucked to participate in a wealthy family run competition that will place them into a prestigious societal position…. Except on the years when it’s a death match for the hand of the heir apparent. Does this sound like a fun book? Because IT IS.
But really, the premise of this is super fun and it definitely made for an entertaining read. While I haven’t watched any of “The Bachelor”, I am familiar enough with its ins and outs due to pop culture osmosis to just love a bit of a satirical death match dating competition (with some sprinkles of “Ready Or Not” as toxic wealthy family dynamics play into it as well). We follow Adina, a recent high school graduate whose future plans were shattered when a fight between her and a classmate went viral, and she lost her scholarship and acceptance to Yale. It’s already difficult for Adina, as she is one of the only Black students in her graduating class and has to deal with classism and racism alike. So when she is selected to participate in The Finish, a competition for college age teenage girls run by the school’s founding family the Remingtons, she thinks that perhaps winning will get her life back on track… Except, as mentioned above, the Finish this year isn’t the Finishing School set up she expects. I liked the set up of the Finish, as Adina has to maneuver through a cut throat competition based on background, privilege, and entitlement, as not only an outsider, but also as someone with perhaps even more to lose than the other competitors at first glance (you know, until it’s clear that most of these teenage girls are going to die). Seeing her go through this competition and learning how to function with strategy, manipulation, and cunning is definitely a story that has high stakes, and I liked the action sequences and the altercations as the contestants try and do ANYTHING to win Pierce Remington the Fourth’s hand, and to win their life. I also liked the soapy moments between Adina and the contestants (especially between her and Esme, the girl who she fought with initially, and Pen, Pierce’s high school girlfriend who is a surprise competitor), as well as Adina and Pierce Remington as she tries to gain his favor as protection, as well as the relationship between Adina and Pierce’s older brother Graham, the black sheep who is training her for the fight of her life behind closed doors. It’s a fast read as the action and conflict keeps it going at a clipped pace.
That said, it isn’t really anything new when it comes to the satire of the evils of the Haves and their exploitation of the Have Nots. This kind of satire of a privileged and uber wealthy family bringing harm to those below them is seen a lot lately, for pretty understandable reasons, but while it’s understandable and evergreen, I also want there to be something more to it to make it stand out against other tales that have come before it. I also think that we could have used a bit more background and context for The Finish and the Remington Family as a whole, as some of them came off as more cardboard cut out villains who could have benefited from a little more exploration. But I did like the metaphors of women tearing down other women as they try to get the spoils of patriarchy, even more so when white women target Black women within these systems, however, so that did give it a bit of an original edge in spite of well worn territory in other ways.
“Their Vicious Games” is fun and engaging, a young adult thriller that kept me interested and had some wicked fun moments of drama and gore, as well as social commentary that will connect with its readers. If you have some travel coming up with the holidays and anticipate down time, this will be a fun popcorn-y read.
Rating 7: An entertaining young adult thriller that feels like a blend of “Ready Or Not”, “The Bachelor”, and “Squid Game”, though it doesn’t really break new ground to stand on its own.
Reader’s Advisory:
“Their Vicious Games” is included on the Goodreads lists “YA Thriller Games”, and “2023 Dark Academia Releases”.
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