So, The Grandest Game by Jennifer Lynn Barnes came out around a month ago, on July 30th, and I've only just gotten around to it. I finished the book in pretty much one sitting, and it was pretty amazing.
So, if you need some more context, this is the fifth book in the Inheritance Games saga, which features the original trilogy around Avery Grambs and the fourth book, The Brothers Hawthorne, which introduces most of the main characters in this book. In this book, we see seven of our favorite characters playing a game to win 26 million dollars, a game which contains a series of riddles and stiff competition. All of these characters are complex and have different motives, which is one of the things I loved about this book.
Now, I'm a die-hard Jennifer Lynn Barnes fan, and I'm chipping away at her books slowly but surely (love The Naturals), and I feel like in this book, her writing got even better. It made me remember why her books always leave me wanting more, which is why I am so glad she's not only writing more books, but more books in this saga.
Okay, let's talk about the characters. In this book, Avery and the Hawthorne brothers (except for Grayson) took a backseat and introduced us to the new players, Rohan, Savannah, Odette, Gigi, Lyra, Knox, and Brady ;). My favorite character has been Rohan since his introduction, so I loved seeing more of his character, plus his romance with one of these characters made me want to squeal and throw myself across the room. He was one of the POV characters, and I must say, I think I enjoyed his POV the most.
Another POV character is Gigi, which is to be expected. Of course, I love Gigi, but she was pretty naive and useless in this book, and her love triangle between Knox and Brady was unnecessary (Team Knox though). I feel like this book didn't build on her character - now her sister, Savanah, definitely got some more screen time. Savannah improved massively in this book. She's like the female version of Grayson, and we get to see other, sharper sides of her which makes me love her so much more than I did before.
The last POV character is Lyra Kane, who's name I have been and probably will continue to pronounce as Lie-ra rather than Lee-ra everytime. She's also been introduced in the last book, as the girl on the phone - the girl whose father killed himself and told her, "A Hawthorne did this." Personally, Lyra's character didn't have a massive impact on me as I wasn't really fond of her. However, it was refreshing to see that the reason she was in the competition wasn't for revenge, but simply for financial means, to help her family. So I didn't hate her (or any of them). Plus, her romantic build-up with Grayson was really cute.
The only character whom I didn't feel really added anything to the story was Odette (and perhaps Brady). Odette, of course, had her own relations to the Hawthorne family, but they didn't give her enough of an importance in this book for me, and same with Brady (whom I maybe did hate. What a jerk). Again, these were new characters, and the four other main characters were returning from The Brothers Hawthorne. And though this book was advertised as a stand-alone, I don't really think that it works like that as you need to have a background with the Inheritance Games series, etc.
As for a plot, I didn't feel like I could focus on just one because there were lots of different storylines going on. Majority of the book was spent with them split into teams and working on an escape room of sorts, so there was not as much group interaction as there was one-on-one, which I honestly didn't mind. In fact, I think it worked for this book because it allowed there to be more focus on the puzzles (the fun part), and the storylines all overlapped well so it wasn't overwhelming.
The original trilogy was a bit more plot-based, and this one is more character-based. I'm definitely not complaining, but I will say, I think the reason for that was that this book ended on a cliffhanger... because yes, there will be second book!
Overall, I'd give it five stars, and I'd definitely recommend it if you've read other JLB books because it fits in with her brand pretty well.
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