The Inheritance Games Trilogy is a YA Fiction series that follows the story of Avery after she inherits a fortune beyond anybody’s wildest dreams, from the billionaire Tobias Hawthorne. But the Hawthorne aren’t happy that this stranger has claimed their inheritance, and this inheritance comes with certain conditions. Thus the inheritance games begin!
It’s been a while since I have delved into a popular YA series but the puzzle aspect of this one was quite intriguing. I hadn’t seen too much about this trilogy online but I had seen the covers being rereleased and something drew me to it. Sadly, I have the older version, but at least the content is the same.
To start this review, I’ll quickly go over how the three books are split.
In Book One (The Inheritance Games) we meet Avery Grambs as she is playing chess with an old man. From there, we find Out pretty quickly that she is being summoned to the will reading of Tobias Hawthorne. Grayson Hawthorne shows up at Avery’s school to inform her. This book basically introduces all of the characters as well as following the main question of if Avery will manage to keep the inheritance and why she got it in the first place.
In Book Two (The Hawthorne Legacy), we learn more about the history of Grayson Hawthorne and Jameson Hawthorne. There‘s a bit of a love triangle there but the main story still follows a new puzzle of a missing son. Avery is determined to find the answers to the missing son whilst at the same time dealing with bigger threats to her life now that she is securely in place at Hawthorne House.
The final instalment of the trilogy (The Final Gambit) offers a plot line with even higher stakes. The daughter of the lost son comes asking for help and this resurfaces a lot of old feelings with Grayson Hawthorne. There is a clear divide in who to trust and when there is a bigger and more dangerous threat to life, Avery and the Hawthornes must do their best to solve one last riddle.
Firstly, I’ll say it’s a pleasantly easy read in terms of pacing. The characters are likeable and the plot twists are ones that I couldn’t see coming. However, I found that the books were not memorable at all. The story’s were interesting enough but I found that after leaving a few weeks between books, I genuinely couldn’t remember what had happened in the previous book.
This confusion likely comes from the number of puzzles. Unfortunately, they are not presented in a way that allows the reader to solve them. Perhaps some can be solved such as Avery Grambs being an anagram, but as the story develops, the riddles are so particular to the family that we have no way of solving it. For example, there is one instance when a number is presented. As it turns out, that number relates to a bottle of wine from their antique wine cellar. Obviously we don’t have access to any of those numbers and have never encountered them previously in the book. This repetitiveness of puzzles that we can’t solve becomes tedious. There’s no “aha” moment.
One of my biggest problems with this trilogy is the romance. As with most YA fiction, there is a love triangle and to me, it feels wrong throughout the whole trilogy. We are introduced to Grayson first and there is clearly something between him and Avery. However, Avery and Jameson develop a relationship but the way his character is portrayed in the first two books is somewhat untrustworthy and selfish. His character shifts in the third book so that we route more for his relationship with Avery, but the overall feeling is wrong. I’m just not a fan of how it was done, especially as the tension between Avery and Grayson wasn’t transformed into something else. It would have made more sense if they had tried a relationship and it not working rather than leaving the impression they will always have this undeniable chemistry regardless that she is with his brother. Sounds for a great family dynamic…
The second book felt pretty redundant to me. There was a revelation but to have an entire book dedicated to that felt unnecessary to me. It was easy enough to read through but there was no real character development. The overall impression after I’d finished reading it was that nothing has actually changed from beginning to end. All of the characters were in the same position as when the book started. We just have more information now And went through another bunch of puzzles.
However, on a more positive note, the ending of the trilogy was quite a positive one with a good message for its audience. We should do our best to make a positive change in the world and not let greed consume us or dictate our actions.
Perhaps I had gone into this trilogy with high hopes and that’s what had let me down. It’s well-written and overall, it’s an interesting story. It’s just not something that I truly enjoyed and I was glad to finish it.
My Rating - 6/10