Reviews with content warning for Kidnapping - The Hawthorne Legacy

im not very sure what to say about this book. did i hate it? no. did i lose my mind over it? not really. i guess i am somewhere in the middle of those two terms.

it took me a while to get over the beginning but i know im not the only one who struggled to get through it. then, maybe right after reading a 70% of the book, it caught my attention and i started reading it faster. actually, if im 100% honest, i dont remember many details about the plot but i think i mostly felt the same way about the characters as i did in the first book.

xander is still my favorite brother and it makes me a bit mad that everyone (aka avery, jameson and grayson) wouldn't fully let him participate in the mystery solving. like, cmon, even though they all like mysteries, this one was for xander :/ nash and libby still own my heart btw!

i dont think i have any strong feelings towards avery. she's just okay, i guess? i think the part where i related to her the most was when she said she could not imagine herself with anyone in the scenario that max proposed. about max... yeah she was fine but she would have been better if it wasn't bc of the fake swearing.

in this book i just gave up with the love triangle because i was afraid the author would pull up an ending similar to the "the summer i turned pretty" one (mental note: try to avoid love triangles, especially if there's brothers involved) so, even if during the first book i was slightly rooting for jameson, i didnt really care about the endgame this time.

however i was glad to read about grayson finally opening up about not feeling enough and jameson deciding avery wasn't a game for him anymore after the accident.

there are some characters i couldnt really understand such as mellie. like ok i understand that

both her and eli were spying for grayson's dad

but tbh i still cannot fully understand what happened at all.

the little plot twists in the family tree had me checking every once in a while if there was incest going on lmao (fortunately, there wasn't) but i think the plot twist that shocked me the most was learning that

was learning that toby is a laughlin. like idk, i truly wasnt expecting it

so yeah, even though it felt like a filler book to prepare the setting for the end of the trilogy, i think it was pretty entertaining!

Content Warnings

faythfarrar's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional mysterious medium-paced

Loveable characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

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claireisagrisha's review against another edition

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adventurous hopeful mysterious fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.75

The Hawthorne Legacy by Jennifer Lynn Barnes … wow!! Amazing!! Loved it!

If you need a mystery book with an adventure and flirting, then this book is for you.

Spoilers below:

The whole Jameson and Avery relationship is cute. He said he doesn’t see her as a puzzle anymore … that’s good. She’s not an object bestie. Avery flipped the coin and kissed Jameson - that made me so happy. I was rooting for them.

I know Ricky and Skye were not behind the bomb, but still they are the worst people ever. Sheffield Grayson is also horrible.

Mellie and Eli = eh not sure how I feel! I mean not the way to get to Toby, but I guess it worked.

Toby saying Avery is not his biological daughter but in his heart, she is. He also came up with her name and wow of course he did.

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nehanaomi's review against another edition

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mysterious fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

bruh how can it be this hard to just pick a boy

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oceanwriter's review against another edition

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adventurous mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

Having felt somewhat let down by the ending of the first book after so much build-up, I was pleasantly surprised to find myself liking this book even more. Some questions are answered from The Inheritance Games, and some questions are asked presumably ready to be answered in The Final Gambit.

Picking up right after the events of the first book, we follow Avery and the Hawthorne boys as a new game begins. This time their quest is more of a cross between friendly competition and working as a team now that Avery has been accepted by the Hawthorne boys as one of their own. She stands to lose the most (though not necessarily financially). Having uncovered some family secrets, she's determined to find connections and answers. Who is her father? Is she really of Hawthorne blood? What had her mother kept from her for her entire life?

Part of what I've been enjoying about this series is the absurdity of it all. I'm not the target age group so I have little patience for the high school drama that inevitably comes in a YA such as this, but something about the eccentricity of the Hawthorne family is intriguing. It's grandiose and impractical but dang it, it's fun.

This book definitely reads as a lengthy bridge into the next book (though doesn't end on as much of a cliffhanger as the previous), however, I enjoyed the intricacies of the family. I'm not quite sure what to expect going forward but I'm excited to find out!

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