Everyone thinks they know Jewel Van Hanen. Heiress turned actress turned social media darling who created the massively popular video-sharing app, Golden Rule.
After mysteriously disappearing for a year, Jewel makes her dramatic return with an announcement: she has chosen a few lucky Golden Rule users to spend an unforgettable weekend at her private estate. But once they arrive, Jewel ingeniously flips the script: the guests are now players in an elaborate estate-wide game. And she’s tailored every challenge and obstacle to test whether they have what it takes to win--at any cost.
Told from the perspective of three dazzling players--Nicole: the new queen of Golden Rule; Luna: Jewel’s biggest fan; and Stella: a brilliant outsider--this novel will charm its way into your heart and keep you guessing how it all ends because money isn’t the only thing at stake.
Jewel Van Hanen created the social media app; a video sharing app where the user's face must be in view at all times, rigorously policed for bullying or trolling. It's a safe place for millions. And for just a few of those millions, Jewel changes the world, inviting them to one of her many homes for mentorship and scholarships and everything they need to make their lives great. Last year, she vanished from the public eye...but this year, she's back, and she plans to make this year's festivities the best ever. Six teens, from various backgrounds and levels of engagement with the app, arrive at her opulent mansion...and discover they are now part of a game, winner takes all. With new challenges and rules showing up all the time, can the teens figure out Jewel's game and win?
Hmm. How to review this.
The writing style is great. Breezy, fun, enough description to picture things without overwhelming the reader. The mansion is crazy; I'd never be able to think of that many rooms, let alone describe them so clearly.
Sadly, the story itself is only so so.
The story is written from three different points of view. But there's no headers to tell us who's who, and they don't follow in any consistent way; it's not #1, #2, #3, #1 and so on, it could be #2, #1, #2, #3, #3, #1 and so on. Every time the chapter changed it took me a while to figure out whose head we were in now. And for me, personally, everyone sounded the same; I traditionally have trouble telling people apart anyway, but it was especially bad in this one. I had to keep notes to remember who was who.
I also couldn't really follow what was going on at the end, so I'll ignore that.
I've read a few 'locked house' mysteries now, and I certainly enjoyed the setting and setup of this one. Jewel wasn't trying to get revenge on anyone, which is refreshing. The teens worked together where necessary and used their best skills to good effect; no one was trying to undermine anyone else at any point, and that's unusual too.
The author says that one of the characters is ace and that she says it once on 'screen'. I don't remember that, and I usually notice ace rep as it's so rare. Also, the character explicitly gains a boyfriend during the novel. I know that ace people can and do have boyfriends/girlfriends, but I feel the rep could have been a little clearer. That is just my personal opinion on it, I'm very interested to hear yours.
Overall I enjoyed this, but it did confuse me and I feel the characters could have been better defined.
The Marvelous publishes on the 8th of June, 2021. I received a free copy and am giving an honest review.
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