Series Review: The Inheritance Game Trilogy

Hello everyone! I hope you all are safe and happy, and that your week is going well. I am having a pretty good week, reading-wise, because I have finally started a book that I have wanted to read since forever so… that’s good! And today I am here to talk to you about a series I have just finished. It is an unusual series, especially for my standard because it is YA and I don’t know which other genres it is, I think it is a mystery, a peculiar one, at that, but mystery can cover it, so let’s start!

Series: The Inheritance Games
Books: The Inheritance Games #1/ The Hawthorne Legacy #2/ The Final Gambit #3
Author: Jennifer Lynn Barnes

Avery Grambs has a plan for a better future: survive high school, win a scholarship, and get out. But her fortunes change in an instant when billionaire Tobias Hawthorne dies and leaves Avery virtually his entire fortune. The catch? Avery has no idea why — or even who Tobias Hawthorne is.
To receive her inheritance, Avery must move into sprawling, secret passage-filled Hawthorne House, where every room bears the old man’s touch — and his love of puzzles, riddles, and codes. Unfortunately for Avery, Hawthorne House is also occupied by the family that Tobias Hawthorne just dispossessed. This includes the four Hawthorne grandsons: dangerous, magnetic, brilliant boys who grew up with every expectation that one day, they would inherit billions. Heir apparent Grayson Hawthorne is convinced that Avery must be a conwoman, and he’s determined to take her down. His brother, Jameson, views her as their grandfather’s last hurrah: a twisted riddle, a puzzle to be solved. Caught in a world of wealth and privilege, with danger around every turn, Avery will have to play the game herself just to survive.
(synopsis of the first book)

I am not usually the biggest fan of YA out there, but from time to time, it happens that there is a YA that I don’t only like, but really really enjoy, and this series is the perfect example of it. I liked all of it. The writing, the plot, and the characters.
As I was saying before, it is a mystery, albeit a peculiar one. We don’t have a murderer on the loose (we have a lot of wannabes, but this is another story), but we have a ton of mysteries to solve.

Avery, our MC, is a girl who lived a not-really-happy life. Poor, orphan (sort of), and with a sister with a penchant for abusive men, and so on and so on. She really wasn’t in a good place. Up to the day when she becomes the heir of a fortune.
Tobias Hawthorne is a very very rich man, a powerful man, connected and with ginormous assets. And a numerous family. And he decided to leave everything (or almost everything to Avery). A dream right?
Yep… you just have to leave out the fact that the family is not so happy to have been left with nothing, and Avery and Tobias are not related. They did not know each other if not for a short meet and greet when she was six or something so… the dream becomes complicated.
Tobias was rich and powerful, but more than anything he was brilliant. He loved riddles and dares and plans and twists, and all things related. He brought up his four grandsons to love the dares, the challenges, the games, and the riddles as much as he did, and he constantly challenged them in unusual and convoluted ways. The results? Four boys who are geniuses and who love games (and riddles and all that), highly driven, and now that they are dispossessed also highly motivated. And a game that the old man is steering from the afterworld (not in a literal sense, we don’t have ghosts here. The only supernatural thing in the whole book is the brain of the boys and Avery. They are monsters!!!). Or to be more precise a game inside a game inside a game. And now Avery has to be part of it.

This cover in some way the plot. I can also say that the book is full of twists, riddles, action, and mysteries. There is not a single boring moment in all the books. I was constantly turning page after page because putting them down was inconceivable. I needed to see what would happen next, or what was the solution to the riddle or mystery at hand. And the writing is really smooth and neat and helped along. To stop reading was simply not an option.

And then we have the characters. Avery is an amazing MC, she is brilliant, she is resilient, she is strong-willed but also kind and compassionate, with a visceral need to belong somewhere. And she is also fun. I really liked her, and for once I also liked her sister, Libby. And since sisters in books tend to be one of my most hated pet peeves, this is something for sure. But the real stars of this trilogy are the boys, Nash, Grayson, Jameson and Xander. Nash is the older one, and the one that we get to know less, but the other three… oh guys, they are so worth meeting. My favorite is Xander, because you just have to love him, the “little” mad scientist of the family (or, the mad inventor!) with a phantasmagoric brain and the biggest heart. He is the cheerier one, even if it’s not like he had it easier than the other brothers. Grayson is the more “perfect” one, the one who takes all the world on his shoulders, and Jameson is the daredevil of the group. But they all are unique, they are so smart, so brilliant and so flawed (because, rich they may be, but what they are as a family, above all, is dysfunctional).
And then we have a really good cast of secondary characters! Oren and Max are at the top of the list. The first is Avery’s head of security, and he was just the best! And Max is Avery’s best friend, and she is fantastic!
We have a lot of characters that would steal your heart so… what are you waiting for???

Also, we have just to take a moment to talk about Hawthorne Mansion. It is just the best place ever! You have to go and visit it! Like, right now!

And what about you? Have you read this series? Or are you planning on starting it?? Let me know!

Happy reading!
S.