The Grandest Game
The Grandest Game Book Review by Jennifer Lynn Barnes
I feel like I’m writing about Jennifer Lynn Barnes constantly.
Thankfully, this is not a case of diminishing returns.
In fact, this might be Jennifer Lynn Barnes’ best novel yet, which is astounding to me.
The Grandest Game is now the…fifth book in the Inheritance Games series which is insane, but it’s also the first installment in a spinoff series.
So related but not a direct sequel, although you would be lacking in a significant amount of understanding if you had not read the first four books of the Inheritance Games.
At this point, Jennifer Lynn Barnes is becoming the new Cassandra Clare.
But back to The Grandest Game, one of the key differences is instead of focusing on Avery and the Hawthorne brothers, this novel focuses on other players that have either been invited to play or won themselves a nomination.
The Grandest Game itself is not that noteworthy, but the plot essentially boils down to this: Avery has set up a competition game where the prize money is $26 million.
Most of the game includes the players getting involuntarily put into teams and trying to solve a series of riddles and puzzles while attempting escape-room antics.
Avery and the Hawthrone brothers are in the novel, but they’re in the periphery and largely unimportant other than the history they have with the players and the fact that they have masterminded the game.
However, I can not emphasize enough how much better the book is by not focusing on them. Avery was never much more than a Mary-Sue from the get go and the Hawthorne brothers were all largely one-dimensional cliches.
The side characters who take center stage in this novel are a huge improvement, personality and interest wise.
Rohan we know from the last book, The Brother Hawthorne, and his POV is fascinating. I’ve always had a soft spot for characters who are selfish and conniving, two characteristics Rohan has in droves.
However, he also has a good motivation for playing the Grandest Game—getting money to take over the Devil’s Mercy, a secret club that he’s been a part of since he was a child. His penchant for winning always makes his POV fun to read.
His relationship with Savannah, while predictable, was also really charming. I love relationships that are fierce and fiery, have cat-and-mouse banter, and are between two very stubborn people who don’t want to admit defeat. Every chapter with them working as a team was titillating.
The POV I enjoyed the most was Gigi’s. Her fun, bubbly personality and bright way of connecting with people and seeing the world was fresh, fun, and authentic.
Her interactions with Knox and Brady were hilarious, but also strangely deep and intriguing, as they were both new characters with a sordid and complicated past with each other.
Gigi’s intellect shone through while others constantly underestimated her, a plot point that never got old. Gigi trying to piece together what happened with Knox and Brady, while at the same time learning she’s bugged and trying to untangle the larger mystery of who’s on the island, was the most riveting part of the story for me.
The last POV was for a character named Lyra Kane. Essentially, she’s Avery 2.0. I disliked her POV the most, especially as her motivation to win–saving her childhood home—while nice, was boring.
She also had the hackneyed story arc of being attracted to Grayson Hawthorne while incessantly telling herself to stay away from him (without success).
The most interesting part of this POV was Grayson’s and Lyra’s interaction with their third teammate, Odette, an older woman who was once involved with Tobias Hawthorne.
I liked Odette’s backstory and the diversity of having an older character, but she was too cryptic throughout the whole novel and then decided to give up her spot at the end, a choice that riddled me with frustration and made her character dip in the favorite department.
That being said, these three POV’s were still a huge improvement from the banality of Avery’s mind and the vapid love triangle she found herself in of the previous books.
Instead, we have two interesting perspectives (plus Lyra) to carry this new spinoff series forward, a journey I am wholeheartedly ready to embark on.
Plus, all the riddles are a lot of fun to try and piece together as a reader. It may not be the most complicated of plots, but it’s entertaining and the characters propel it forward with their intersecting relationships and personal motivations.
Recommendation: The best Jennifer Lynn Barnes novel yet. Read it and try to solve as many of the puzzles as you can (I got two of them!).
Score: 8/10
