The Inheritance Games

 The Inheritance Games (2020) by Jennifer Lynn Barnes

Avery Grambs, who has an absent father and a mother who died unexpectedly, lives with her half-sister and both have to work extraordinary hours to get by. Avery is highly intelligent and puts in just enough effort to keep her GPA in the scholarship range, but devotes every other bit of energy to earning enough to help Libby make the rent. And then everything changes. 

One day, Jameson Hawthorne shows up at Avery's school with a summons from his grandfather's lawyers. Avery must appear in order for Tobias Hawthorne's will to be read. Avery is certain she has never heard of, let alone met Tobias Hawthorne and she and Libby can't figure out why the elderly billionaire wanted her to be at the reading of the will. When the family and Avery (and Libby) gather to hear how Hawthorne left his money, they are astonished to hear that almost everything has been left to Avery. She is set to be the richest teenager in America. While Hawthorne's four grandsons and two daughters get chicken feed in comparison. In fact, the servants get more than they do. The only catch for Avery is she must spend one year in Hawthorne House--living with the family members who have every reason to hate her and wish her dead. Except even if she dies, they won't get the money.

She learns a lot about the man who left her practically everything he had. Everything except why he chose her. Most of all, she learns that he loved puzzles and games and everything around her is a puzzle to be solved--from figuring out which key on a huge bunch full of odd-looking keys fits the front door to what the brief messages he left for her and his grandsons really mean. She and Jameson, Grayson, Xander, and Nash aren't sure they can trust each other--but if they're going to solve Tobias Hawthorne's last riddle they're going to have to work together.

Okay...this is a bit of a mixed bag for me. I picked it up for one of the challenges I'm doing (big surprise). For this part of the challenge, I have to read books that other people have picked. This makes it even more challenging for me because my tastes don't seem to coincide with most the others in the challenge. Having steered clear of the books that were what I call trauma drama and the intense thrillers, I opted for a young adult mystery. Young adult isn't one of my go-to genres either, but the premise sounded good. And, for the most part, the premise is good. I liked the puzzle-aspect to the plot. But there wasn't enough of it and the puzzles and riddles weren't the all-time best. As far as the characters go, I like Avery. I like Grayson and Nash. Jameson gets on my nerves. I'm just meh about Xander. And I really like Avery's newly-acquired bodyguard Oren. Libby, I'm not so much a fan of. She needed to kick Drake to the curb and leave him there a long time ago. I also wasn't terrible keen on the little romance triangle Avery had going on with Grayson and Jameson. I'm guessing that sort of thing is standard in YA, but it didn't do anything for me. And I was disappointed that the end of the book isn't really the end of the story. We didn't find out exactly why Avery was chosen. I have this sneaking suspicion that there is a connection between Avery's mom and Hawthorne given that they both loved games. And Avery's mom repeatedly told her that she had a secret. Overall, I liked it, but didn't love it. ★★★

First line: When I was a kid, mom constantly invented games.

Last line: Find Tobias Hawthorne II.
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Deaths = three natural