The Inheritance Games

Welcome back to The Exploring Reader! I want to start this episode by saying I honestly think this was one of the easiest reviews I have done so far because this novel was so poorly executed. Like for books I found to be exceptional such as Where the Crawdads Sing, bad novels can also lead to emotional responses and that can be laden with biases. That is to say that if I happen to say something inaccurate, I apologize in advance. I, of course, screen what I say and verify that the factual information I provide is true (like publication dates, awards, effects of elements of style on readers, etc.) and know I really try my best. Now, onto the real reason you’re listening. The Inheritance Games is the first recipient of my 1 star review! I’m really sorry for the morally-grey character lovers and the BookTok community, but this book fell very short of its potential. The novel was published in 2020 and was written by Jennifer Lynn Barnes. She has also put out other books in the collection: The Hawthorne Legacy, The Final Gambit, and The Brothers Hawthorne. Her newest addition, The Grandest Game is set to come out on the 30th of July 2024. As it has become so popular, it made the New York Times bestseller list and there was even talk of it being adapted for TV.

The Inheritance Games starts out with a poor high school student, Avery Kylie Grambs. She’s very determined to get a scholarship to be able to afford going to college. All of a sudden, billionaire Tobias Hawthorne dies and leaves her $46.5B. She is brought to Hawthorne house where she meets the whole family. Avery needs to live in the house for a year to keep her money and so, with the judgemental and vengeful watch of the family, she has to figure out how she ended up here and what are Mr. Hawthorne’s intentions with her.

Now let’s dig into the review. I’m going to start by getting the good part out of the way. The structure of the book is well done for the intended target audience. Teenagers are having a harder time concentrating and are reported to have shorter attention spans. By making each chapter on average 3 to 5 pages long, it keeps readers engaged and is not too long to make them lose interest. This book really facilitates the whole just-one-more-chapter feeling we get because they are just so short. Next thing you know, you’ve spent an extra 30 minutes when you just wanted 2 more minutes. I also think the idea of the novel and the general plot was good. It kind of goes against the typical generational wealth families where the patriarch/matriarch leaves everything to their kids/grandkids or to charity, you know, if they want to teach a lesson.

Their messy love triangle and the way Jameson and Grayson are characterized definitely appeals to BookTok fans and fits right into the category of morally-grey, misunderstood love-interests with past trauma.

However good the idea might have been, I think its poor execution got in the way of this book being great. You might be thinking, if it’s so bad, why did it end up getting so popular? As with a lot of novels now gaining fame on social media, I think it was propelled by the relationship between Avery and the brothers. Their messy love triangle and the way Jameson and Grayson are characterized definitely appeals to BookTok fans and fits right into the category of morally-grey, misunderstood love-interests with past trauma. It feels to pushed and I hate how a lot of their personality is just clichés. I also hate the nicknames because I feel like Barnes was trying to give them an underlying meaning and depth and she makes Avery hate them. This is supposed to be in a tantalizing way sort of enemies-to-lovers banter, but I just find it annoying. One of the older brothers, Nash, tells Avery that she’s not a player in the search for the inheritance. She’s just quote, “the glass ballerina — or the knife”. He means to say she’s a tool used by Mr. Hawthorne to toy with his grandkids. In my opinion, there are better ways to go about it. I think the author is trying to make it poetic, to add metaphors but I don’t see the sophistication. My advice for this series: please keep it simple. There is too much detail and EVERY - SINGLE - THING - HAS - A - MEANING! It’s too much. Tobias turned everything into a clue, from the letters, to the lights and books and pictures and rooms and doors and all elements on the property. It’s good to have unexpected things be clues, but when everything is important, it’s harder to connect all the dots and make sense of how all of these elements are connected to each other. This state of vigilance really puts a lot of tension on the mood of the characters which then trickles down to the mood of the reader. And we are reading this book to relax, not to be constantly prompted to investigate every 5 seconds.

Maxine's profanity substitutes make her seem like a child trying to act like an adult and this discordance just ends up diminishing her value as a character.

Another annoying element of style: repetition. Avery’s way of coping with all the events going on is to repeat what was said to her or what she overheard. Now, this is a good technique sometimes used to enforce that something might be so unbelievable and the repetition reinforces that. It can also be used to draw the reader’s attention to clues or important textual elements. In The Inheritance Games, this is such an annoying tick. I think the effects of repetition are lost because the sentences Avery repeats have already had their mystery or importance revealed. Take the previous sentence I was talking about, the glass ballerina or the knife. We already know she’s being used by almost everyone in the Hawthorne family and Avery herself is indecisive about her own role, if she’s going to be the fragile figurine or the weapon. After a while, I just ended up rolling my eyes. Another example: the fact that the Hawthorne brothers quote “destroy everything they touch”. One of the side characters mentions it to Avery and the brothers constantly repeat it to her as well. It all feels so dramatic and there is little foundation in the claim. Everyone makes mistakes, even rich people and these boys have had a lot on their shoulders. They need to stop villainizing themselves so much. This claim is just supposed to scare Avery away because of what happened to someone else Jameson and Grayson got close to. I won’t spoil, but another annoying repetition involves that event and Avery is so tormented by it. When you find out the truth, it’s not as dramatic as it seems. This is something Avery likes to do. She dramatizes minimal details and seeing that she is the narrator, we know about her every thought. It’s not even anxiety or fear. She’s portrayed as a very poor, but smart and eager orphan. Not even a few days after inheriting her money, she complains about press training and that she has to care about her appearance. Now this may be to show her in contrast with the Hawthorne family that have grown up with money and understand the importance and responsibilities that come with this kind of wealth. But come on, if Avery, who’s living out of her car, can manage to get excellent marks, she can certainly figure out that PR training and the image you portray to the world is important.

Another instance where I rolled my eyes: Avery’s best friend, Maxine and her swearing. Max comes from a conservative family and so she can’t use vulgar language. Instead, she finds words close enough to guess what he wants to say. Examples include “mother-faxer”, “go straight to elf”, or “eat a bag of ducks”. If you can’t swear, just please use other words to convey your emotions. There are better ways of saying what you mean. These substitutes make her seem like a child trying to act like an adult and this discordance just ends up diminishing her value as a character.

I will admit that I’m grateful Barnes kept this very PG, especially in terms of the romance. I saw this was a BookTok novel and they have a reputation for being misleading when it comes to sexual content. Just as there is no explicit swearing, there is no explicit sexuality.

Thank you for sticking until the end. I know it was a longer episode, but I really hope it was worth it. Next month I will be reviewing much better mystery, one involving murder! It’s called Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone and it was written by Benjamin Stevenson.

Until our next literary journey, keep exploring those pages!