We know right from the start, via the book description, that this book is about a young woman getting revenge for being bullied. A teenager's desire to fit in costs her dearly as the unrelenting harassment and the caustic and unexpected humiliation by those whose favor she hoped to gain scars Ava for life; she comes to believe what is said about her, that she is not only unworthy, she is evil.

Ironically this comes back to bite the bullies. Because Ava believes she is evil, she is determined to ruin their lives as they have ruined hers.

This is an old story told exceptionally well by Anna Snoekstra. I really enjoyed how she sets the stage for what comes!

Many thanks to NetGalley and Mira Books for allowing me to read an e-ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you NetGalley and Harlequin for letting me read The Spite Game by Anna Snoekstra for an honest review. All opinions are my own!

My first time reading that author.
I loved the cover and was hooked by the first line in the summary "Everyone does bad things when no one is watching", so true!

I give it 3.5 stars. I liked it but didn't love it.
Ava wants revenge for being bullied in school... Some parts you can relate to, some you don't!
It is well written but not always that interesting.

Review shared online on NetGalley, Twitter, Goodreads...

I think that this is a good story, but couldn’t say I enjoyed it, as being inside the head of the most unlikeable protagonist in a long time was deeply uncomfortable. Don’t get me wrong - I don’t need them to be lovely people, but if I’m going to read about a psychopath I want them to be smart, witty, charming and amoral, not angsting over how awful they are.

Ava sits alone in a Melbourne police station, waiting to speak to a detective and rehearsing her confession of her role in the disappearance of a young woman. Flashing back to her high school days, we hear about her obsession with three cool girls who are bullies and all-rounded bitches. To get into their gang, she hatches a plan to bring down a predatory teacher, which they eagerly go along with. They are awful people, but Ava is desperate to be friends with them, and this was my biggest problem with her - they didn’t make her into a horrible person, she already was one, and it’s their rejection that spawns her decade-long obsession with revenge. Lurking like a malignant spider, she stalks each one until she can find a way to ruin their lives.

I normally quite like revenge plots in thrillers, but Ava is so messed up that I found I had no sympathy for her whatsoever. This is partly due to the back & forth narration - by the time we found out exactly what happened to her, Ava’s actions seem completely out of proportion. Don’t get me wrong, what they did was awful, and they probably did mostly deserve it, but the way she revels in her plotting made for an unpleasant read. I couldn’t understand why sweetie Evan had any time for her, and was also annoyed at her ghost of a mother and mouse of a sister who let it all happen. 2.5 rounded up because despite all this I did want to get to the end to find out what happened. I may have liked this more if I were younger, and the traumas of being a teenager fresher!

Thanks to Harlequin and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for a voluntary honest review. The Spite Game is available now.

From my blog: Always With a Book:

Anna Snoekstra is an author I have really come to enjoy for her psychological thrillers and this latest one is certainly no exception. It definitely has a bit of a different feel to it, but is still a great read.

This book absolutely has a Mean Girls vibe going on...filled with characters that will definitely have you cringing at. I was sure I was going to figure out where this was going to end up, and while I did put some of the pieces together, there are quite a few good surprise that come up at the end that I did not see coming.

I really liked the way this story is told - in the present but with flashbacks to the the past, and all through Ava's point of view. At times, it might seem like it wanders a bit, but it just seems to work. You feel the angst that Ava felt when she was in high school, you feel her pain when those "mean girls" were bullying not only her but others. And as much as she might have gone over board, you sort of get why she felt she needed to get even.

Throughout the book, my feelings about Ava were all over the place...I loved her, then I couldn't stand her, and then I felt sorry for her. Each and every character will cause you to react in some way...they are so well drawn and developed. This book will have you digging up all your high school memories about pranks and cliques and all that nonsense that went on during that time. It really is a book that you can't help but connect to on some level.

Anna Snoekstra has definitely found a fan in me and I cannot wait to see what comes next from her! Have you read this or her other books?

This story follows Ava who was bullied (quite maliciously, to be honest) and between the past and present, we see how she gets plagued by her need to get revenge over the years. And just like it sounds, it is your standard revenge plot - so if you like that, you'll like this. Just don't go in with expectations of anything more thrilling. It is a pretty flat plot with a lot of blatant "psychopathic" behaviour from multiple characters which would've been more enjoyable if the characters were more 3-dimensional.

Part of me felt like the plot didn't really find it's footing - the present scenes were just the MC speaking ominously - to no one - and practicing how she'll recite what she did (which becomes the flashback scenes) and the main antagonist who's demise we should really be looking forward to is just mean, and a psychopath, for no real reason and we still don't get a <b>*real*</b> satisfying ending anyway.

I guess this book was supposed to be a cautionary tale about bullying...? Which it was. but everything around that was... eh.

The bright side - luckily there is one - is that somehow the writing was able to keep me invested enough to finish it. So... there's that.

Thank you to the publisher and Netgally for this e-arc in exchange for an honest review.

Started off a little slow but got better as the book went along. Timely as it is about bullying and how that can affect people's lives. Both the bullies and the person being bullied. Granted, this was a bit extreme but it was a very good read. And the ending, wow ! Easy, quick read. You will enjoy it !

Set in Australia, Anna Snoekstra’s latest, the Spite Game, explores the mind of Ava, who was a victim of bullying in high school and becomes obsessed with seeking revenge upon her tormentors. The plot is narrated by Ava and weaves back and forth between 3 time periods. We learn Ava’s motives and why she has come to be in her current life-changing predicament.

The title is a bit of a misnomer, being that life becomes not a game, but a bitter obsession for Ava, whose sole focus in life becomes revenge seeking. I felt like I really got inside her disturbed head and, at times, I just wanted to shake her for making such unfortunate choices and not claiming the happiness that was rightfully hers. I felt that the beginning and middle moved along more quickly than the end, parts of which I felt didn’t totally work. I did find the conclusion to be thorough and satisfying. An overall original and fun read.

Many thanks to Netgalley, Mira and Anna Snoekstra for my complimentary e-copy ARC in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

The Spite Game by Ana Snoekstra is a psychological thriller.

First, let me thank NetGalley, the publisher Harlequin - MIRA, and of course the author, for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

My Synopsis:
Ava is at the police station, waiting for the detective to come in. She has a confession to make.

As Ava sits in the interrogation room, she thinks back over her life, and the reason she is in this room.

She remembers being rather shy in high school, and wanting to be one of the cool girls instead of being one of the nerds. But she never felt good enough. She longed to be part of the clique consisting of Mel, and Sanvvi and Cass, and when an opportunity finally presented itself, she was in. But was she really? She ended up being mercilessly bullied, and her last months at school were a nightmare.

But out in the real world, Ava has never forgotten, nor forgiven her tormenters. Saanvi is now an architect, Cass a psychologist and Mel an actress…or so they say. Ava is following them, and sees that they are still not what they say they are. Ava is going to get revenge on each of them…when the time is right.

My Opinions:
This is the first book I’ve read by this author, and I rather enjoyed it. Not sure if it should be classified as YA, or adult thriller. A lot of it went back to high school days, where there are always different cliques of students – the rich, the poor, the nerds, the bullies, the stomped-on. This is a tale of what happens to some of these when they grow up, and how some of them never change, and now some of them never forget.

The narrator is Ava, and it goes back and forth between high school and present day to tell her story.

The characters were good, and you either loved them or hated them. You really felt the shallowness and cruelty of the three girls, while you felt Ava’s aching need to be popular. You also felt the love Evan, Bea and Celia felt for Ava, and the lack of love Ava felt for herself. I loved Ava, even when she was planning revenge, because she really tried to be better.

It’s a quick read, and although it started a little slow, it picked up and ended up being fairly suspenseful.

Ava was bullied in high school, and even though she has graduated and seemingly moved on, she is obsessed with the people that were responsible for her torment. Told as a confession, Ava unfolds the story of what happened years ago in Grade 12 while also outlining the ways that she tracks down and evens the score on each of the players. The ringleader, Mel, knows that Ava is following her. In the end, who will win?

Ava has allowed her bullies to hurt her and she has to put the past around her .
But she can’t .
But Ava finds a plan to end it all
I had an ARC by Harlequin

A fast paced read about bullying and the result it has on a person's life. A definite must read thriller that will leave you shocked at the end!

his book has killed all my revenge fantasies for a very long time. Ava is the queen of revenge and this book is all about the people who have wronged her and the often passive-aggressive ways she finds to get her own brand of justice. Ava knows she is operating beyond normalcy, but continues for years. The ending is chilling. This is not my cup of tea.

Thank you to Harlequin and NetGalley for providing a digital ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I love a good revenge story, and The Spite Game delivers. It wasn't without its flaws but if you're looking for a compelling voice in adult thrillers, this is your book.


I think the biggest obstacle an author has when writing about revenge is to make the reader hate the person the MC is getting even with. If you make them too soft or sympathetic, you'll fail; but if you make them into too much of a caricature, a cartoon villain, it all seems silly. Snoekstra struck the perfect balance in this book. I hated these girls from the get-go. Ava was not particularly sympathetic as an adult, but that doesn't even matter when you look at how horrible Mel, Saanvi, and Cass could be. I wanted them to pay for what they did.


I didn't find the plot itself to be particularly twisted and surprising. We know from the beginning that Ava is in a police station preparing to confess to something, we just don't know what she's confessing to. From there she gives us her story with the three mean girls, how they became "friends" in high school and how everything went terribly, terrifyingly downhill. This is definitely a story about bullying and it's pretty upsetting if you've ever been on the receiving end yourself. What I didn't understand, though, was why Ava was going to confess. By the time we reach the end, Ava has basically declared herself a psychopath, says she's incapable of feeling things like love, guilt, or remorse. So I don't understand her motive for turning herself in. It doesn't make any sense to me.


My favorite parts of the book were when Ava was exacting her revenge. The author knows how to ramp up the tension to the perfect degree; my heart was pounding. The ways Ava got back at her bullies were so clever, particularly Saanvi's demise. I was on the edge of my seat each time Ava was almost seen, almost caught, almost called out. Another surprising aspect that I liked a lot was Ava's incredibly slow burning relationship with Evan. When the time finally came for them to be together, I was actually swept up in Evan's moment and I don't know how it happened. You certainly don't expect that in a thriller, even less so when the main character is so detached from humanity.


All in all, while I wish this had more surprises and more twists, and I wish I had a better answer for why Ava was going to confess to everything, I still found this compulsively readable. In a time when the reading slump is really getting to me, I practically flew through The Spite Game. I thought Ava's voice was compelling and sharp, and her revenge plan, while obviously evil, was enough to have me on her side against some really terrible, awful people.

3.5 stars
This was a fun thriller that follows the rather vindictive yet strangely sympathetic character of Ava as she carries out a vendetta of revenge against a group of so called friends who bullied and shamed her in high school.
The book jumps between several time periods, with a significant portion of it set during Ava's school years, as she tries to ingratiate herself with a trio of classmates ,only to find that they have been having fun at her expense the whole time. As the action flashes forward in time, we see how she plots and schemes to have her vengeance on each of them in turn, targeting careers, relationships and any other aspects of their lives she thinks she can.
This was a fast and fun read, though the jumping back and forward in time got a little confusing in places. As the book progressed and the almost pathological need of Ava to destroy these women reaches its climax , the tension was almost edge of the seat.
I read and reviewed an ARC courtesy of NetGalley and the publisher, all opinions are my own,

This is a story of a girl, Ava, who gets revenge on a group of people who bullied and played tricks on to her in high school. It goes back and forth between past and present.

I was hoping for a new spin on this narrative but it kept to the same plot devices as other books with revenge plots. Ava presents some psychopathic tendencies but so does almost everyone else in the story so the shock value of her deeds are lessened.

The ending wasn’t shocking nor unexpected. Those who enjoy revenge plots may like this, but I would recommend passing.

As an aside, my advanced copy had multiple grammatical and spelling errors. Sometimes the completely wrong word was used (think instead of thing) or a necessary word is missing (i.e. as). I’m hoping these get caught before the final copy gets published.

This book had me hooked! I had to read it in one sitting, there was no way I could put it down. From the first page to the last, I absolutely loved it and couldn't stop turning the pages in anticipation of finding out more about Ava and what was going on in her head. The transitions between the past and present were seamless and easy to follow and really made me appreciate her current psychotic self after learning and understanding what she went through. What she did to all of them was horrible but justified by being in her head and discovering her struggles and feelings of being bullied and never fully recovering from it. And the ending....I mean, it could only really end in one way couldn't it? As horrible it may have been, I'm happy she got her (sorta) happy ending, although I do feel like she will definitely be haunted at Lakeside by a certain someone.

Thank you for this incredible read!

The cover of this book is what really drew me to this thriller. Unfortunately I did not enjoy the overall story. The book is about the main character Ava getting revenge for being bully in high school. I just wasn't invested in any of the characters, and found the revenge plot(s) not that interesting or dark. The story just felt like it was all over the place and that made it difficult in certain areas. The motivation for Ava's revenge and overall character development was weak. The "game" wasn't really game it was just one woman, desperately clinging onto high school. I think I was expecting more of a back and forth between her and the characters, and some dark twisted revenge drama, but overall the game was boring. Thank you NetGalley and the publisher Mira Books for advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

Anna Snoekstra really knows how to write a great book. This was a killer and I couldn't put it down.

Tl;dr: If you call someone a psycho enough in high school you can turn them into one?!? A disjointed and disappointing muddle.

The Spite Game is nominally a thriller, though it's very clear from the opening how things are going to go. And go it does, through page after page of one increasingly unbelievable set piece after another.

The mc, Ava, was bullied by three girls in high school (well, one of them was a bystander) and spends the next decade or so pondering revenge and then sort of exacting revenge and then thinking about the past and then back to revenge and then wondering if she is a psychopath, then knowing she is, then wishing she wasn't, then back to revenge. Oh, and along the way she goes to Paris (thwarted revenge), falls in love, and gets rich. Or maybe she gets rich and then falls in love. It doesn't matter, really.

The problem with The Spite Game (besides the tissue thin characters and the wisp of a plot) is that it can't decide what it is. A cautionary tale about bullying? A novel about dubious morality vs. delusional morality? A woman, made (maybe) insane getting revenge on her (probably) more insane tormentor? By the end, I thought, "Well, that was...less than something."

I'm all for dark psychological thrillers, but you have to give me characters I'm interested in or a plot that makes sense. (Obviously, having both is preferable.) This had neither.

The sad thing is-- and the thing that kept me reading to the end-- is that this really could have been something. But the sum of The Spite Game's lumpen pieces just make a mess.

Ava was terribly bullied in high school by three girls she idolized: Melissa, Cass, Saanvi. One particular incident so traumatized her that she cannot move on and years later, she finds herself unable to get past it. So she watches her former classmates--online and in real life--and she plots. If she can just find a way to get even, Ava thinks, then she can move on with her own life. But Ava's stalking threatens to overtake her life and perhaps her sanity. She finds herself in a police station, waiting to tell her story to a detective. What has Ava done?

"The bad thing inside of me took root there. Like mold, it grew in that hot moist place. You won't want to hear any of this. My story. I know that. But if you want me to confess, then you'll have to listen."

This one reminded me of a lesser version of Roz Nay's Our Little Secret, where so much of the tale is our main character telling her woes and recapping her life while in a police station. I didn't love Ava or hate her: I often felt sorry for her. Her inability to move past high school basically crippled her entire life, and her revenge mission is all she has.

This was a weird book. It switches in time frequently, going between whatever the present moment is and then Ava remember moments in high school. I found the timeframe to be confusing at times. Ava's singular focus on her former classmates--and getting even--could be frustrating at times, yet the book was also oddly compelling and somewhat addictive. It certainly did a good job at capturing the meanness of high school girls. What a terrible time that is.

"I was so naive, so ready to give those girls everything: my loyalty, my trust, my devoted friendship. I was ready to spill every secret I ever had, to follow them to the ends of the earth. I guess the last bit turned out to be true, in some ways."

It was a creepy read at times. I guessed the ending a bit early, but that didn't really make it any less enjoyable. Overall, I found this one a little odd and a little off-putting. It was a strange read, with a singular focus on its main character (and her own singular mission). Still, it was rather readable. 3.5 stars.