Title: The Revenge Game
Author: Jordyn Taylor
Genre: Young Adult, Contemporary, Thriller
Publisher: Delacorte Press
Source: Publisher via NetGalley
Format: Ebook
Release Date: November 7, 2023
Rating: ★★★★★
Goodreads Synopsis:
A wickedly comic feminist mystery about the dark side of a hopeless romantic’s seemingly perfect love story—for readers of Jessica Goodman and Kara Thomas.
Alyson is a romantic, and sometimes it gets her into trouble. Like last summer, she thought her co-worker was into her, when in reality he found her flirting pathetic.
Then she meets Brenton Riggs Jr., and right away she knows that their connection isn’t just in her head. When he swoops in to save her one night from a less than savory party encounter, she falls head-over-heels. Finally, someone Alyson likes who likes her back!
But when she finds out about the King’s Cup—a competition the guy’s at their boarding school started to see who has the most sexual prowress—she’s put on edge. Does Brenton really want to be with her, or is he just trying to win? Then Alyson and the other girls at the school start a competition of their own: The Queen’s Cup. It’s all about reclaiming their power. But as the compeition heats up, Alyson’s relationship begins to fall apart—and it isn’t long before the cracks in her perfect love story start to show through.
Review:
Alyson loves romance novels and is looking for her perfect romance. She fell for her colleague at a bookstore in the summer, but then she heard him call her desperate. She meets Brendan Riggs Jr. in her AP English class when they’re paired up for an assignment. After he saves her from an aggressive classmate, Alyson begins to fall for him and he likes her too. When she finds out about the King’s Cup, a competition the boys have where they get points for doing things with girls, she’s hopeful that Riggs isn’t participating. Alyson and her friends start up the Queen’s Cup, which is a competition to humiliate the guys in the most public and hilarious way possible. Despite coming up with the idea for the Queen’s Cup, Alyson is certain that what she has with Riggs is real, and he would never use her for the King’s Cup. However, when their relationship starts to crack, Alyson has to wonder if they have a perfect love story after all.
This was a fabulous feminist revenge story. I could relate to Alyson and her desire for a romance like she had read about in her romance novels, because I felt that way for many years. Almost all of the guys at her school were horrible misogynists. There was also a mystery throughout the story which was that Riggs went missing after prom later in the school year, but we don’t know why or what happened to him until the end. Since Riggs seemed like a genuine boyfriend, I wasn’t sure what his fate would be but I was hopeful he would turn out to be a good guy so that Alyson didn’t get hurt again. Though bullying is never good, I found the way the girls got revenge on the guys entertaining, since they had done much worse things to begin with.
The Revenge Game is a great story about feminist revenge!
Thank you Penguin Teen Canada for providing a copy of this book.
Content warnings: bullying, sexual assault (off page), rape (off page), assault
Have you read The Revenge Game? What did you think of it?
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