Book Club Discussion: The Inheritance Games

[ufcasey]

This month's book club book is The Inheritance Games by Jennifer Lynn Barnes.

As always feel free to answer any/all/none of the questions below. You can just discuss your overall opinions about the book instead, if you would like.


1. Many of the people Avery encounters at Hawthorne House and Heights Country Day are not who they first appear to be. Who surprised you the most?

2. Which of the four Hawthorne brothers is your favorite? Who do you think Avery has the best rapport with?

3. Throughout the book, Avery hears about and participates in several of Tobias Hawthorne’s renowned games. Were you able to solve any of the puzzles before Avery? What do the games reveal about Avery and the Hawthorne brothers?

4. The book says that Tobias Hawthorne added on to Hawthorne House every year. Which room was your favorite? 

5. How do each of the brothers interact with Avery? How does her relationship with each brother change over time?

6. Which twist most shocked you? Why do you think it took you by surprise?

7. What clues to the mystery are woven into the book’s front cover?

[ufcasey]

Tagging people who might have read this book:

travella, rootbeerfloat, tcu2003, @dacingirl21

[charlatti]

I’m still waiting for my library copy! I didn’t expect it to have a long list, so I’ll join in after I’ve read it.

[bee20]

I started but didn't finish this one, I like other juvenile fiction but this one seemed too high-school and didn't grab me. For those who finished it, where did you feel it got good?

(I was reading on an e-reader so I'm not sure how far I got, but she had moved into the house and some things were happening and I just lost interest before it was due back to the library.)

[travella]

1. Many of the people Avery encounters at Hawthorne House and Heights Country Day are not who they first appear to be. Who surprised you the most?

I cannot say that anyone really surprised me because I had felt like I had watched a movie about this book already so I "knew" that no one was going to be what they seemed. I had to do some searching to figure out why it felt so familiar. Turns out in the beginning it reminded me of Knives Out which I half paid attention to while my husband watched the movie.

2. Which of the four Hawthorne brothers is your favorite? Who do you think Avery has the best rapport with?

There wasn't much character development of any of the characters IMO, especially the brothers. I don't feel like I know any of them well enough to have a favorite. I can barely keep them straight as I try to individualize them to answer this question. I'm hoping that the characters become more developed as the series continues.

3. Throughout the book, Avery hears about and participates in several of Tobias Hawthorne’s renowned games. Were you able to solve any of the puzzles before Avery? What do the games reveal about Avery and the Hawthorne brothers?

I didn't solve any of the puzzles, but didn't really try to either. I read this at a time when I was going through a lot of stress and didn't put must thought out effort into it.

I felt a little sorry for the boys as the story progressed because of all the expectations that were placed on them and how that environment fostered competition between them rather than a loving familial relationship.

4. The book says that Tobias Hawthorne added on to Hawthorne House every year. Which room was your favorite?

I liked the idea of all the libraries, but with all the different rooms the house felt surreal which just added to my losing interest in the book.


7. What clues to the mystery are woven into the book’s front cover?

I read this on my Kindle so I barely looked at the cover art.

My review:
The first half of this book was exactly what I needed to read during a stressful week- entertaining, short chapters, and easy to come back to. The second half of the book though lost my interest. As the magnitude of the time and effort that was put into this inheritance game was revealed and as the house felt more surreal, I started to lose interest fast. It just didn't feel plausible that a person would go to so much of an effort, spend such a long time creating the game, take such a huge chance, and then rely on it playing through as he wished to a complete stranger. With all that being said, I will probably give the next book a chance. I didn't see the final twists coming and am interested to see how that plays out since it made the whole thing a little more plausible.

[rootbeerfloat]

This book was fine. I read it in a day and have the next book on my Kindle. None of the twists were too surprising, and the plot moved quickly enough.

Xander is my favorite brother because he solved everything on his own with none of the angst of the two in the love triangle. I read enough YA to not mind love polygons, but it is irritating that these gorgeous genius brothers can only be interested in the same girls. I expect Avery to end up with Grayson, though.

I didn't think too hard about the puzzles. I thought the one with their middle names should've been obvious to the brothers. And what a lucky coincidence that the random girl Grandpa had stalked from a distance ended up having the same birthday as the day the first girlfriend died lol!

The house sounded both claustrophobic and fun.

[tacokick]

This must be popular because I’m still waiting for a hold to come in from either of my two library systems for the Kindle!

[mrspez07]

I enjoyed it ok, but at other times I had to remind myself it was for a younger audience, some of the gloss overs on details were annoying but probably typical for the audience. It was entertaining enough to keep me reading. Can’t decide if I’ll pick up the next one. I tried to convince my boys to read it, but so far, no go.

Also, I want to know how she scored on the 2nd physics test she had to take!

[dancingirl21]

I read it so long ago that I don’t remember it that well but I enjoyed it enough. It kept me guessing and I don’t think I figured out any of the games before we knew what happened.

I liked all of the brothers for different reasons. They were all their own person and had their own traumas around the family.

It was a very quick read and I have read the others as well.

[tcu2003]

It’s been a while for me as well, but I did enjoy it, and read the second book. I liked all of the brothers - Xander is probably my favorite, followed by Grayson, Jameson and Nash.

I didn’t try to solve any of the puzzles as I read it.

My favorite room isn’t a room but the secret tunnels - though they’d creep me out if I were Avery. But I’ve always loved the idea of a house with secret tunnels.

[litskispeciality]

I finally finished this book. Took me the full 3 weeks as it was hard to get motivated to pick it up. I think it could have been 100 pages shorter. I was a bit disappointed, I thought the plot would move faster, and the puzzles would be more complicated I guess? I'm not sure I totally understand the ending after all that.

[tacokick]

I finally read this and I still don’t understand why Emily’s dying on Avery’s birthday (fairly recently) matters. They bring it up a lot even after we know more details about both of them and what happened and why.

Maybe it will be addressed in the last book? It seemed like a weird thing to keep focusing on; at first I thought maybe it was a holdover from a earlier draft but it kept coming up.


I love the tunnels in the house! I thought the clues were pretty easy but I did feel like there were parts where they weren’t moving in a logical direction for no real reason.

I kept getting the brothers confused, which I feel okay about because it seems like more than one girl found them pretty interchangable! The one with the Rube Goldberg machines was fun.

[expectantsteelerfan]

I really enjoyed reading this book, but it was the kind of book that doesn't hold up to close scrutiny. Like when I think about the puzzles, and realize that there were very few actual 'puzzles' in a book that is supposed to be all about puzzles and the puzzles it did have were pretty lame and not something you could solve on your own without knowledge of the family/reading the book. Grayson was the only brother who really stood out to me, and that was because he seemed like a rip-off of a young Christian Grey archetype right down to the name and that annoyed me. I also didn't understand why Avery's birthday being the same day that Emily died was important. I'm just starting the 2nd book today though, so I enjoyed it enough to want to read more right away at least!