The Rumor Game by Sona Charaipotra and Dhonielle Clayton | Housekeeping
Thank you Rockstar Book Tours for the chance to read and review The Rumor Game!
Long story short, The Rumor Game is a fantastic book and one that I wholeheartedly recommend! Here are just some things you need to know before you can get right into my really long review!
I can’t stress enough how much I like this book! I literally forgot there was a giveaway, I was so excited to just write my review!
The Rumor Game came out on the 1st of March and was written jointly by Dhonielle Clayton & Sona Charaipotra. It was published by Disney-Hyperion and is 480 pages long!
Find it:
Goodreads, Amazon, Kindle, Audible, B&N, iBooks(audiobook), Kobo, TBD, Bookshop.org
Book Review
The rumor game hooks you from the very start! Bryn, Georgie, Cora are all interesting characters, dealing with high school and a lot of pressure from their parents in different ways. We know that Bryn, the student body president, did something last year, causing a car accident, and has been dealing with rumors that it was intentional and the fallout of those rumors. We have Georgie, whose overbearing mother sent her to a weight loss camp over the summer. She’s come back looking very different but still dealing with the insecurities from years of being treated as wrong her entire life. We have Cora, with her insanely smart twin sister, who’s trying to keep things looking perfect under pressure.
When rumors circulate about all three girls, they need to work together, and on their own, to find out what’s true and what isn’t, and who to take down.
** Spoilers for The Rumor Game**
This book is set in an American high school, so there are loads of creepy dudes, who think what is assault is funny. All of these guys are the kids of politicians and rich businessmen, so they’re also incredibly entitled. We have the one nice guy Baez (he’s dating Cora), who also suffers from all these rumors.
I think Georgie was the character I loved the most, probably because I relate to her the most. Of course, we don’t have weight loss camps in Pakistan, but I’m sure my mother wishes there were. But its more than the weight thing. Being Desi, regardless of which country you live in means that you always have to be concerned with what people will say about you. You get how taboo it is to report or talk about sexual assault.
I also really related to how she felt in those situations with Jase; you feel powerless and freeze and don’t know what to do and how to be nice while also pushing someone away, when the answer is you can’t be nice (specifically referring to that photo booth scene). The way that when you do lose weight, you feel like you can try on another personality; try things that you couldn’t as a chubbier chick.
I also loved how the authors set up Baez. He’s one of the three nice guys that we see in the book, and has to deal with these rumors as well. Not only does he have Cora angry at him, but he’s questioned by the police in the aftermath of the party.
He’s also made more interesting because while he’s nice to everyone, we see that he doesn’t like Cora’s friends. Now, the authors could have gone for a more typical route with him and made him the toxic ass, but they didn’t basically made him right. He’s right to feel that Bryn is off especially after what she does (SKYE WARD was insane), and I get the feeling he’s very right about the rest of Cora’s friends. It’s pretty sad to see that he leaves school after this just to keep his head down.
I wasn’t a big fan of who Skye Ward turned out to be, which is the one big thing I have against this book, but that being the only thing isn’t a big deal to me.
** Spoilers Over **
I LOVED the text messages, Instagram comments, and emails included in the book. If you’re writing a book set in this day and age, you need to have this stuff in there.
I wasn’t a big fan of one of the big reveals at the end of the book, but that’s my only complaint.
Giveaway!
3 winners will receive a finished copy of THE RUMOR GAME, US Only.
I’m actually just a bit annoyed that the giveaway is US only. COMPLETELY UNFAIR!
Blurb
All it takes is one spark to start a blaze.
At Foxham Prep, a posh private school for the children of DC’s elite, a single rumor has the power to ruin a life.
Nobody knows that better than Bryn. She used to have it all—the perfect boyfriend, a bright future in politics, and even popularity, thanks to her best friend, cheer captain Cora. Then one mistake sparked a scandal that burned it all to the ground.
Now it’s the start of a new school year and the spotlight has shifted: It’s geeky Georgie, newly hot after a summer makeover, whose name is on everyone’s lips. When a rumor ignites, Georgie rockets up the school’s social hierarchy, pitting her and Cora against each other. It grants her Foxham stardom . . . but it also makes her a target.
As the rumors grow and morph, blazing like wildfire through the school’s social media, all three girls’ lives begin to unravel. But one person close to the drama has the power to stop the gossip in its tracks. The question is—do they even want to?
The authors of The Rumor Game
Dhonielle Clayton
Dhonielle Clayton is the New York Times best-selling author of the Belles series, The Mirror: Shattered Midnight, and the coauthor of Blackout and the Tiny Pretty Things duology, now a Netflix original series. She hails from the Washington, DC, suburbs on the Maryland side. She taught secondary school for several years and is a former elementary and middle school librarian. She is COO of the non-profit We Need Diverse Books, and president of Cake Creative, an IP story kitchen dedicated to diverse representation. She’s an avid traveler, and always on the hunt for magic and mischief. Up next: The Marvellers, her middle-grade fantasy debut. You can find her on social media @brownbookworm.
Sona Charaipotra
Sona Charaipotra is the author of Symptoms of a Heartbreak and How Maya Got Fierce, and coauthor of the Tiny Pretty Things duology, now a Netflix original series. She earned her master’s in screenwriting from NYU and an MFA in creative writing from the New School. A working journalist, Sona has held editorial roles at People, TeenPeople, ABCNews.com, MSN, and most recently, the Barnes & Noble Teen Blog (RIP), and contributed to publications from the New York Times to TeenVogue. She is a former We Need Diverse Books board member, and co-founder of CAKE Literary, a boutique book packager focused on high-concept diverse titles. Find her on the web talking about books, Bollywood movies, and chai.
The Girl Who Reads 
Leave a Reply