Tag Archives: game

Review: The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin

The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin

The Westing Game
Ellen Raskin
Puffin
Published June 1, 1997 (Orig. 1978)

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About The Westing Game

A Newbery Medal Winner

“A supersharp mystery…confoundingly clever, and very funny.” —Booklist, starred review

A bizarre chain of events begins when sixteen unlikely people gather for the reading of Samuel W. Westing’s will. And though no one knows why the eccentric, game-loving millionaire has chosen a virtual stranger—and a possible murderer—to inherit his vast fortune, one thing’s for sure: Sam Westing may be dead…but that won’t stop him from playing one last game!

Winner of the Newbery Medal
Winner of the Boston Globe/Horn Book Award
An ALA Notable Book
“Great fun for those who enjoy illusion, word play, or sleight of hand.” —The New York Times Book Review

“A fascinating medley of word games, disguises, multiple aliases, and subterfuges—a demanding but rewarding book.” —The Horn Book

My Review

I’ve seen this book on must-read YA lists for a long time, so when I spotted it recently on a sale table at a bookstore, I decided to pick up a copy.

It seems like a convention-setting story. As I read the book, it reframed some of my thoughts about similar stories published more recently. It didn’t detract from anything, but maybe just gave me more context in the genre of game mysteries in the young adult market.

Since it was originally written in 1978, the story contains some of the dated language that we’ve since acknowledged is harmful, particularly to Chinese Americans and disabled people. There are also some references to a character who died by suicide before the story begins that reflect the understanding of mental health more typical of the time the story takes place.

The Westing Game also has a lot of named characters. It involves sixteen people and a few peripheral characters. They’re introduced rapidly at the beginning of the story, as the setup for the game begins almost immediately. I tend to struggle with books that have a ton of named characters, especially when they’re introduced all at once, so this definitely posed a challenge for me.

The narrative moves from an omniscient perspective to a close third-person point of view, highlighting different characters’ motives, thoughts, and responses to various events in the text. The author does a great job differentiating one character’s voice from another, which helped me keep the characters straight once I got deeper into the story.

I liked the mechanism of partners and clues within each round. I also liked getting to see how each team approached the game, who was messing with the other players behind the scenes, and why. There was a lot going on, and the pieces all fit together nicely. It reminded me a little bit of the show Who Is the Mole? on Netflix, but with an added mystery to solve.

Content Notes for The Westing Game

Recommended for Ages 12 up.

Representation
The Hoo family is Chinese. One character is a wheelchair user with an unspecified disability. Another pretends to need crutches for attention.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
One character uses words and language condemned as bigoted by another character. (It is.) Some ableist descriptions of the boy who uses a wheelchair. Some racist descriptions of or references to the Chinese family. There are also some harmful stereotypes repeated within the text.

Romance/Sexual Content
References to marriage.

Spiritual Content
None.

Violent Content
Several references to a character who died by suicide. A child encounters a lifeless body.

Drug Content
A married couple goes to a cafe and returns drunk.

Note: This post contains affiliate links, which do not cost you anything to use but help support this blog. All opinions are my own.

Review: Thieves’ Gambit by Kayvion Lewis

Thieves’ Gambit
Kayvion Lewis
Nancy Paulsen Books
Published September 26, 2023

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About Thieves’ Gambit

The Inheritance Games meets Ocean’s Eleven in this cinematic heist thriller where a cutthroat competition brings together the world’s best thieves and one thief is playing for the highest stakes of all: her mother’s life.

At only seventeen years old, Ross Quest is already a master thief, especially adept at escape plans. Until her plan to run away from her legendary family of thieves takes an unexpected turn, leaving her mother’s life hanging in the balance.

In a desperate bid, she enters the Thieves’ Gambit, a series of dangerous, international heists where killing the competition isn’t exactly off limits, but the grand prize is a wish for anything in the world–a wish that could save her mom. When she learns two of her competitors include her childhood nemesis and a handsome, smooth-talking guy who might also want to steal her heart, winning the Gambit becomes trickier than she imagined.

Ross tries her best to stick to the family creed: trust no one whose last name isn’t Quest. But with the stakes this high, Ross will have to decide who to con and who to trust before time runs out. After all, only one of them can win.

My Review

This book deserves more buzz than it got. The beginning started a little slow, and I kept forgetting it was young adult because Ross seemed so young. Though the seventeen-year-old lives this wild, heist-filled life, she is really young because she is so secluded from others. As I got to know her more as a character, that young-sounding voice made a lot of sense.

By the time she enters the Gambit, she already sounds older than the girl in the opening pages. As she reaches the final phase of the game, she sounds older still. I’m pretty impressed with the author’s ability to seamlessly shift the writing with Ross’s maturity while the story careens around hairpin turns with the stakes climbing all the time.

I also really liked the characters, especially the team Ross works with during the middle of the book: Kyung-soon, Mylo, and Devroe. They each add something different to the team, and the experience of working with them changes Ross in ways she wasn’t prepared for. I loved that.

I think readers looking for an Inheritance Games meets Ocean’s 11 story will not be disappointed in this wild ride of a tale. I’m eager to read the sequel.

Content Notes

Recommended for Ages 14 up.

Representation
Ross is Bahamian and Black. The other players in the Gambit are a diverse, inclusive group.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
Swearing scattered throughout. No F-bombs.

Romance/Sexual Content
Kissing between boy and girl.

Spiritual Content
None.

Violent Content
Situations of peril. Ross works as a thief, stealing items for clients who’ve hired her and her mom. She enters a high-stakes game in which she must race against other players to steal things. One character gets shot. Another threatens people with a firearm. The plot involves kidnapping and ransom.

Drug Content
Some characters use a drug to make people too intoxicated to perform specific assigned tasks. A character pours a glass of champagne for another.

Note: This post contains affiliate links, which do not cost you anything to use but help support this blog. I received a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are my own.

Review: Fortune’s Kiss by Amber Clement

Fortune’s Kiss
Amber Clement
Union Square & Co.
Published November 12, 2024

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About Fortune’s Kiss

The legendary Fortune’s Kiss has returned to Ciudad Milagro for the first time in ten years. The magical gambling house shows up twice a year in a new city during the solstices to lure those worthy enough to wager their souls for wealth, the realization of their greatest desires, and, even, immortality.

Known by many names throughout the years, it returns to Milagro as El Beso de la Fortuna . . . and the game is Lotería. And best friends Mayté Robles and Lorena (Lo) de León are determined to change their lives, escape the dangerous men who threaten them, and gain riches.

Mayté, the sole daughter of the disgraced Robles family, wishes to leave her family and become a successful painter, while Lo suffers at the hands of her powerful and abusive father and seeks to find her mother, who escaped to Fortune’s Kiss years ago but never returned.

When Fortune’s Kiss finally returns to their city, the pair follow on their childhood blood pact to enter the gaming salon. But once inside, Mayté and Lo quickly realize that beneath the marvelous glamour, the salon is hiding dangerous secrets and the house always wins. And the game of Lotería is not the children’s game they grew up playing—it is a deadly lottery of chance.

With the help of a young, handsome croupier, the girls embark on a mission to unravel the mystery of the salon’s magic, find Lo’s mother, and try to win a nearly impossible game as their friendship is put under the greatest of tests.

My Review

This book has a lot going on in it! The relationship between Lo and Mayté sits at its center, though, and I loved that celebration of friendship and sisterhood.

In some places, I thought the narrative was a little heavy-handed, reminding readers or repeatedly dropping hints that the bad guys are bad and the good guys are good. Once Lo and Mayté entered the game, I thought that smoothed out, though.

Some elements of the book reminded me of Hotel Magnifique or The Splendor. The chaos of the game reminded me a bit of The Marvelous, which also invites its players into shifting alliances and rivalries with one another.

The world in which the girls live before the game has some references to colonialism and a very patriarchal society which leaves them both no choice but to find husbands to care for them in order to secure a future– something Lo desperately wants to avoid, and Mayté isn’t sure she can achieve with her family’s fallen status.

Entering the game not only offers the girls a chance to change their destinies but also forces them to face secrets and betrayals from their pasts. I liked the way the tension built and ultimately led to the story’s resolution. This is a really ambitious debut, and I’m excited to see what Amber Clement writes next.

Content Notes

Recommended for Ages 14 up.

Representation
Most characters are Latine. A few are from a colonizer class.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
Mild swearing used infrequently. There are a few places in which Spanish swears are used.

Romance/Sexual Content
Kissing between boy and girl.

Spiritual Content
References to God and other deities. Some characters have the ability to use magic. The game enacts curses and other consequences on its players, both negative and positive.

Violent Content
Situations of peril. A girl stabs someone with a knife multiple times. A girl uses a piece of broken glass to kill an injured person. References to abuse and domestic violence. A man hints that he would kidnap a girl and traffick her because her family owes him money.

Drug Content
Some characters drink potions which cause positive or negative effects. For example, a potion puts someone to sleep. Another heals someone’s wounds.

Note: This post contains affiliate links, which do not cost you anything to use but help support this blog. I received a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are my own.

Their Vicious Games by Joelle Wellington

Their Vicious Games
Joelle Wellington
Simon & Schuster
Published July 25, 2023

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About Their Vicious Games

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 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.

My Review

This book reads something like an upper-class LORD OF THE FLIES. At first, the girls committed to the game called the Finish believe it’s a week of puzzles and games. At the end, a powerful, well-connected, wealthy family grants the winner’s wish. Once the game begins, they learn they’ll be expected to play hard, sabotage one another, and even kill the other competitors.

At first, they seem reluctant. But as the game progresses and the stakes ratchet higher, it seems that Adina, who is determined to survive without killing anyone, maybe the only one unwilling to shed blood.

The pacing is quick, with challenges and social games often happening in back-to-back scenes. At times, the characters seemed a bit caricature-like. However, that exaggerated style lent itself well to the kind of twisted, psychologically on-edge story told here.

I liked Adina’s character and her determination to stay true to herself despite the chaos and danger around her. I also liked the way the romantic elements were handled in the book. If things had wrapped up neatly, I think it would have been unbelievable or too easy.

On the whole, I think readers looking for a dark, twisty game with a commentary on classism will find a lot to like in this book. Readers who enjoyed THE MARVELOUS by Claire Kann or TO BEST THE BOYS by Mary Weber will also want to check out THEIR VICIOUS GAMES.

Content Notes for Their Vicious Games

Recommended for Ages 16 up.

Representation
Adina is Black. Her best friend is biracial. Another friend is Chinese and lives in Europe. Two minor characters (girls) are maybe in a secret relationship.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
Extreme profanity used pretty frequently.

Romance/Sexual Content
Kissing between boy and girl. In one scene, a boy and girl sleep in the same bed.

Spiritual Content
None.

Violent Content
Several scenes show characters violently attacking one another. In one scene, a game of Simon Says turns torturous. The caller asks the players to slap each other and stab themselves with a fork.

Drug Content
Some characters (including Adina) drink alcohol. One character is rumored to drink too much and use recreational drugs. Adina finds a bag of weed on someone’s dresser.

Note: This post contains affiliate links, which do not cost you anything to use, but which help support this blog. I received a free copy of THEIR VICIOUS GAMES in exchange for my honest review.

Review: The Marvelous by Claire Kann

The Marvelous
Claire Kann
Swoon Reads
Published June 8, 2021

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About The Marvelous

Everyone thinks they know Jewel Van Hanen. Heiress turned actress turned social media darling who created the massively popular video-sharing app, Golden Rule.

After mysteriously disappearing for a year, Jewel makes her dramatic return with an announcement: she has chosen a few lucky Golden Rule users to spend an unforgettable weekend at her private estate. But once they arrive, Jewel ingeniously flips the script: the guests are now players in an elaborate estate-wide game. And she’s tailored every challenge and obstacle to test whether they have what it takes to win–at any cost.

Told from the perspective of three dazzling players–Nicole: the new queen of Golden Rule; Luna: Jewel’s biggest fan; and Stella: a brilliant outsider–this novel will charm its way into your heart and keep you guessing how it all ends because money isn’t the only thing at stake.

My Review

The concept of this book had pretty much already hooked me before I ever opened the first page. And then, the writing hit me. Wowza. I am a huge fan of Kann’s style in this book. It’s smart, a little bit sharp, and just never stops delivering great moments.

I’ve read some solve-the-riddle type stories before that, when I got to the finish of the riddle, left me feeling like, wait that was it? THE MARVELOUS absolutely delivered on an ending as fabulous as its setup.

So that’s the plot in all it’s amazing, twisty, high-stakes glory. I need to talk about the characters. At first I think I had a tendency to mix up Luna and Nicole. Maybe because of the similarity in them both not living with parents? I’m not sure. Once I was a few chapters in and knew them both better, I was mystified at myself for ever having confused them.

I loved Luna’s exuberance and her easy friendship with Alex. Nicole’s more self-contained nature and her compassion totally won me over. And then there’s Stella At All Times. At first I wasn’t sure what to make of her. Once she found her feet in the game and once I felt like I really got into her head, I couldn’t wait for the chapters from her point-of-view.

THE MARVELOUS is one of those books that I thought I’d enjoy but not rave about, and I was so wrong. There’s SO MUCH about this book that I loved. If you like twisty, mystery-slash-riddle stories with strong characters, you have to check this one out. I think fans of ONE OF US IS LYING will love THE MARVELOUS.

Check Out Twinkl’s 2021 TBR List

My review of THE MARVELOUS is featured on a book resource site called Twinkl in their 2021 TBR List! You can see it and a whole bunch of other great reading recommendations in that list. It’s totally worth checking out.

Content Notes

Recommended for Ages 14 up.

Representation
Major characters are Black. A couple characters are LGBT+

Profanity/Crude Language Content
Extreme profanity used infrequently.

Romance/Sexual Content
References to attraction, some hand holding. A girl falls asleep with a boy.

Spiritual Content
None.

Violent Content
Some dangerous situations. No blood and gore.

Drug Content
None.

Note: This post contains affiliate links, which do not cost you anything to use, but which help support this blog. I received a free copy of The Marvelous in exchange for my honest review.

Review: Legendary by Stephanie Garber

Legendary (Caraval #2)
Stephanie Garber
Flatiron Books
Published on May 29, 2018

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Goodreads

About Legendary
A heart to protect. A debt to repay. A game to win.

After being swept up in the magical world of Caraval, Donatella Dragna has finally escaped her father and saved her sister, Scarlett, from a disastrous arranged marriage. The girls should be celebrating, but Tella isn’t yet free. She made a desperate bargain with a mysterious criminal, and what Tella owes him no one has ever been able to deliver: Caraval Master Legend’s true name.

The only chance of uncovering Legend’s identity is to win Caraval, so Tella throws herself into the legendary competition once more—and into the path of the murderous heir to the throne, a doomed love story, and a web of secrets…including her sister’s. Caraval has always demanded bravery, cunning, and sacrifice, but now the game is asking for more. If Tella can’t fulfill her bargain and deliver Legend’s name, she’ll lose everything she cares about—maybe even her life. But if she wins, Legend and Caraval will be destroyed forever…

Welcome, welcome to Caraval . . . the games have only just begun.

My Review
I really enjoyed Caraval (see my review), but Tella’s character in that story seemed shallow, and I didn’t like the way she treated her sister, Scarlett. At the end of Caraval, I wasn’t sure if I was going to read Legendary. Then a few people said how much they enjoyed it, and that Tella’s character in Legendary is a lot different than the way she comes across in Caraval, so I decided to give it a try.

And I’m really glad I did. As soon as the story begins and we get to see Tella’s point-of-view, it’s clear there’s a lot more going on in her heart and mind than fun and adventure. She carries some deep wounds from her mother’s disappearance. She’s promised herself never to love because she believes it will only lead to heartbreak. Ultimately, I found her much more compelling in Legendary than I expected.

I also totally got into the way Caraval gets switched up. When Scarlett played the game, everything was magic and make-believe, and she was constantly cautioned not to take the game seriously. This time, over and over, Tella is told that the game is real. There are a lot of layers of intrigue. Tella searches for clues to the identity of the game master and races to find her mother before the game ends. The stakes were high, the plot was fast-paced. It kept me hooked from start to finish.

The last book in the series, Finale comes out later this year, and I’m already eager to read it.

Recommended for Ages 14 up.

Cultural Elements
Legendary takes place in a fantasy world which feels like it has a lot of European/Spanish influence. Tella and her sister are fair-skinned. Julian is described more like he’s Spanish.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
None.

Romance/Sexual Content
At the beginning of Legendary, Tella wakes up after spending the night with a young man in the woods. She’s still dressed, and other than kissing, details about what happened between her and the boy are vague. She has a personal rule for herself never to fall in love and rather to just have fun, only kiss someone once, etc.
Some descriptions of kissing between a girl and boy get pretty intense. At one point, he puts his hand under her top and over her heart.

Spiritual Content
Tella visits a tattooed fortune teller looking for information. She also depends on readings from an oracle card which shows the future.

Violent Content
Masked opponents attack a young woman, critically wounding her.

Drug Content
None.