As always Sara Shepard has built a universe of characters you love to hate. In a world of privilege, wealth and secrets she manages to pull you in and get you all twisted up in the lives of her characters. This book is full of twists, turns and surprises that will keep you reading and wanting more.

I was looking forwards to this book since I was a huge fan of PLL, unfortunately I just count get into this one, dnf after about 4 chapters, maybe I'll give it another try in a few months

I tore through this one over the holiday. It definitely had me hooked with a very strong beginning...

Summary:
Aldrich University is rocked to its core when a hacker dumps 40,000 people's e-mails—the entire faculty, staff, students, alums—onto an easily searchable database. Rumors and affairs immediately leak, but things turn explosive when Kit Manning's handsome husband, Dr. Greg Strasser, is found murdered. Kit's sister, Willa, returns for the funeral, setting foot in a hometown she fled fifteen years ago, after a night she wishes she could forget. As an investigative reporter, Willa knows something isn't right about the night Greg was killed, and she's determined to find the truth. What she doesn't expect is that everyone has something to hide. And with a killer on the loose, Willa and Kit must figure out who killed Greg before someone else is murdered.

There are a good number of characters and a lot of different threads to follow in this.
The majority of the characters are fairly shallow and self-serving, although that can be sensational good fun to read sometimes. I wished the story would have focused more on Kit, since the strong beginning connected me to her. In some ways, this felt like YA with adult themes, although I give Shephard massive credit for making such outlandish characters and situations seem real.

There are LOTS of twists, shocks, reveals and definitely a fair amount of bad behavior. This is fiction meets reality TV, to a certain extent. It’s shallow, but cracky...the bookish equivalent of eating marshmallows.

But who doesn’t want to eat marshmallows from time to time??

And these are good marshmallows, I gotta say.

I think there are people who will love this book. Obviously it will tickle the fancy of those who like Pretty Little Liars. It also seemed rather Big Little Lies-esque to me. If that’s your thing, pick this book up and enjoy!

Thank you NetGalley and Dutton for the ARC!

This book started off strong and then petered off into common tropes. A hack! Secrets! Betrayal! Whodunit! Cheating! Cover ups! Recommended to fans of soap operas only.

A special thank you to NetGalley and Penguin Group/Dutton for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

When a hacker dumps 40,000 people's emails onto an easily accessible database, the entire student body, faculty, staff, and alums at Aldrich University are rocked. Secrets, affairs, scandals...it's all there.

But when Kit Manning's husband, Dr. Greg Strasser, is found murdered in his kitchen, things take a dramatic turn. Kit's sister, Willa, returns home to attend Greg's funeral. She fled fifteen years ago after a night she desperately would like to forget. Willa is an investigative reporter and knows that something is off with the events surrounding Greg's death—she's determined to find out what actually happened before someone else ends up dead.

Sara Shepard is always a standout. This explosive, sharp, and propulsive novel is full of twists and shocking reveals. Her writing is captivating, clever, and above all, entertaining. It is framed more like a TV series, with Shepards foot firmly on the gas, but it works. There are several moving pieces to this story—none of the characters are innocent and they all have something to hide. She skillfully tells the story from multiple female perspectives. None of these characters are particularly enjoyable, but that just amps up the drama and pettiness.

Given the number of twists and turns the narrative takes, unfortunately the #MeToo tie-in gets lost and ultimately ends up as more of a comment in passing. For me, this was the difference between 4 and 5 stars.

Reputation is a soapy story of intrigue, sabotage, secrets, and the lengths we go to keep them. I devoured it for the gossipy treat it was.

First line: Maybe you got it at birth.

Summary: Aldrich University is rocked by a recent hack that published private emails of university staff and students online. As secrets are revealed the world learns who they truly spend their days with.

Dr. Greg Strasser is one of these people. A high profile surgeon and married to the daughter of Aldrich’s dean, his world is rocked when emails detailing an affair with another woman is made available for everyone to read. But this could be taken care of or covered up until he is found murdered in his home. Who killed him? His scorned wife or the mystery mistress?

My Thoughts: I have been a huge fan of Sara Shepard for years. I read every one of her Pretty Little Liars books and loved them all. This is her newest adult thriller and it was lots of fun. There are multiple story lines which is one of the major faults with the book. She tries to lead us in too many directions which makes the big reveal at the end not nearly as shocking. It gets overpowered by the other nonsense going on. I enjoyed that the audiobook had different actresses to read the different parts. I liked this book and will continue to read her books but nothing can compare to her YA series.

FYI: This is a stand alone novel.

Reputation - Sara Shepard

Thank you to @netgalley and @duttonbooks for the comlimentary ecopy.

Aldrich University has a reputation to uphold. As do it’s faculty, alumni and stakeholders. When the universities server is hacked and all past and current emails are released for the world to see, everyone’s reputation is at stake.

Reputation is full of corruption, manipulation, lies, murder and so much more. Often, when a novel has many different characters I find I struggle to get into the story because I’m too busy trying to keep all of the characters straight, but Shepard does an excellent job making it easy to differentiate! Each character has a clear unique voice in Reputation, and they all have something to hide, but none of it falls beyond the realistic realm of possibility. Despite the fact that Reputation has multiple different story lines, each one crazier than the next, it all felt believable to me! I thought the ending was absolutely perfect! Willa was probably my favourite character from this book but I loved to hate all of them!

I flew through this in one day while travelling and my biggest annoyance is that I didn’t read it sooner! It’s such a ridiculously wild ride (and I definitely say that as a compliment!) I couldn’t get enough!

Reputation was highly anticipated on my TBR this year and it did not disappoint. Being a huge fan of Pretty Little Liars and The Perfectionists, I knew I had to get my hands on this ASAP.
I feel like the book was a slow burn at first leading up to the big reveal and then as everything began to unravel, it became fast paced. I don’t think I could have read the last 1/4 of the book any faster than I did tonight.
There were so many secrets, juiciness, and all the drama. And the ending, well I never saw that coming.
I love that it was told from multiple points of view and how everything/everyone was connected in that way too.

3.5

Thanks to @netgalley and @duttonbooks for the free ebook. Since I loved Pretty Little Liars I was really excited about this book. Told in different perspectives we learn how Aldrich University is hacked and staff and student emails become available to the public. Soon after a doctor is killed and his emails show he might have had an affair.
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So many secrets and intrigue and so many possible suspects. Everyone seems to have some type of secret and nothing is as it seems. I really enjoyed the different perspectives and how it showed that you never know what is happening behind closed doors. I also really liked all the twists and turns and the different mysteries in the book.
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What brought the rating down for me was the the way it ended. I felt like the pieces of the puzzle didn’t really fit. The reasons that were given left with me with more questions. I felt let down by the time I finished it. Overall, I was still able to enjoy it and it kept my attention. It is now available to read.

Thank you to Penguin, Dutton publishing group and NetGalley for the ARC of Reputation by Sara Shepard. I read The Elizas and loved it, so I was very excited to read her next adult thriller.

A hacker releases all of Aldridge University’s emails onto a public server, revealing the secrets and scandals of faculty, staff and students. Then, a prominent cardiologist is murdered. Who killed Dr. Strasser and why?

I had a very hard time getting through this book. It played out like a soap opera with too many coincidences, twists and perspectives. I didn’t really believe that any of the characters were this deviant, superficial and shallow. It just didn’t seem realistic. Literally every character has something to hide and I just didn’t buy it because the plot seemed too contrived. I had difficulty finding any of the characters likable enough to get invested in hoping they would come out okay in this scandal. I’m not sure that this should be classified as an adult book, as it had more of a teen vibe with an adult subject matter. Also, the #metoo movement association felt very rushed and like an afterthought. I wish that it would have been more seamlessly introduced.

3/5 stars

Reputation centers around a tight-knit college town, as it’s rocked with scandals, following a campus-wide email hack. Caught in the cross-fire is Kit Manning’s husband Greg. The situation turns serious when Greg is found mysteriously murdered in his own home. Kit’s sister Willa begrudgingly returns to town for the funeral. As an investigative journalist, Willa believes something is strange about the way Greg was murdered and she and Kit set out to find out the truth. Told in four different points of view, Reputation is full of twists, turns, and scandal.

I read Reputation over a weekend. It was an incredibly quick read, filled with drama. As much as I really wanted to like this book, it was not my favorite. It felt forced at times and overly dramatic. I’m not sure if I just wasn’t in the right headspace while I was reading or if Reputation was just not for me, but I found it somewhat contrived. A big part of that was that I did not identify with any of the characters and found most of them annoying.

Thank you to Netgalley and Dutton Books for the review copy!

Having been a HUGE Pretty Little Liars fan, I was super excited to have received an advance copy of Reputation by Sara Shepard. It did not disappoint!

If you love a good mystery set amid a prestigious University this is the book for you! Lots of clues to keep you wondering “who dunnit”. This book kept me guessing until the big reveal.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for an advance copy in exchange for my honest review.

When hackers enter the system of some high profile universities and publish all emails sent by staff and students, people get nervous. Which secrets will be exposed? Aldrich University in Pittsburgh is unprepared for what is to come, especially Kit Strasser-Manning who never suspected her husband Greg of any wrong-doing. But then there are the emails which insinuate he had an affair with a very young woman. Kit does not get the chance to really find out what her husband did or didn’t because she finds him stabbed in their kitchen after a charity event that she hosted only hours after the whole scandal broke lose. She has lost all her memory and cannot recollect when or how she got home or what she did then. Yet, that’s only just the beginning for the whole community.

Sara Shepard’s novel is a tour de force of characters in an extreme situation. There is nobody who can escape since all have their small or big secrets that are suddenly threatened to be exposed. And they are, one after the other, they let down their guards and reveal what they hoped to be deeply buried and forgotten. At the beginning, I had some trouble keeping track of all the characters and understanding how they link, but then suddenly, the pieces all fell into place and an incredibly brilliant picture formed.

The motives are actually very old and well known: pride, hubris, greed, lust, wrath, envy – just consult the seven deadly sins and you’ll find them well portrayed in the novel. It is the core human faults that drive the characters. Along the way, Shepard also addresses hot topics such as the fraternity culture and spying on your beloved ones thanks to modern technology. Thus, not just the question about what each of the characters hides and the search for Greg’s murderer keep suspense high, but also current societal developments make it an entertaining and interesting read.

Due to the multiple points of view, the story is fast paced and keeps you reading that just one more chapter until you are all of a sudden through. Not just the plot, but also the author’s perfectly pitched foreshadowing make it a highly diverting novel.

I received this book as an ARC and finally got to reading it and all I can say is wow what a crazy book!
This one was filled with so much drama and suspense that it had me wanting to finish it and find out what was going to happen. It was filled with so many twists that I was not expecting and had me shocked.
The one downfall I had about Reputation though was all the characters. In the beginning I was getting confused because this book has about 5 different characters that you read from and it just got a little confusing as to whom was who and what their situation was. They all finally came together and made sense but I don't usually like books with that many characters, it can get overwhelming.
Also the beginning started off a bit slow so I was kinda nervous at first and was afraid I was going to DNF this book but I read other people's reviews and said it got better more towards the half way point and they were right.
So yes, this book was good, I loved the twists that the story threw in there which I think is what made this story way better.

A prestigious university got hacked and all the e-mails of the students, faculty, and everyone who is connected to the university are put on an online database accessible to the public. On top of all the rumours, affairs, and revelations that are surrounding the community, a doctor has been murdered and the killer is on the loose.

Reputation, Shephard's latest novel, kept me intrigued. I read 200 pages of this book in one sitting which says a lot. It was fast paced and definitely a page-turner read. The story is told in multiple points of view of five different women who are greatly affected by the hack and all their stories are intertwined. The characters are unlikeable and far from endearing but I still had fun reading their perspectives. Each and everyone of them has their own secrets. All of these were revealed towards the end which has led to an overwhelming amount of twists. Some of them were really clever but others are far-fetched. At some point, they became too much for me that it didn't surprise me anymore when the murderer was named. Also, I wasn't personally satisfied with the ending probably because I was expecting for a different outcome instead of a very conventional one. Overall, I enjoyed the drama and the mystery. The author mentioned that this book actually began as development for a TV series which somehow was quite obvious but still, this was a very entertaining read. Plus, the theme is pretty relevant.

**Thanks to DuttonBooks/NetGalley for my free copy. This did not affect my overall opinion of the book.

Reputation describes what happens when Aldrich University's email system is hacked and the resulting controversy when the hacker releases the contents of the emails of every single person who is connected to the University. Everyone's business is out there for anyone to see so you can just imagine the resulting scandal - secrets, affairs, cover-ups and gossip are exposed and then there is a murder. I liked this book although I didn't love it - This is going to be one of those books people are either going to love or hate. It reminds me of an episode of one of the reality shows I like to watch or a soap opera. The book started out strong for me but as it went on it seemed difficult for me to keep up with everything going on. Quite possibly this book had too much going on in it. I'm glad I read it however and encourage you to do the same as you may actually love it. I give this book 3 1/2 stars.

This book could definitely be a TV show. The large cast of characters keeps things interesting and exciting to read. The many secrets that each character kept hidden were mostly unexpected! Thank you for letting me review this book.

This book did noting for me. In the beginning I was intrigued by the hacking of the mass emails and the secrets that were being revealed. Yet, what was the problem for me when it came to this book are the characters. None of them were likable in my opinion.

In fact, the characters came off as more childish than adults. I wanted to like this book but I just couldn't. Also, it seemed that the story kind of repeated itself with details which made the pacing slow down. After getting a third of the way into the story; I kindly put the book down.

This was an interesting read for me. It had some pluses (intriguing characters, a good mystery, and good writing) but on the other hand there were some elements that I really didn't like. Toward the end the book got a little disturbing and I wasn't expecting that element. I liked some of the characters but the rest were disturbing and I just didn't enjoy reading their stories. I also felt like the book had a couple too many POV's. I prefer just a couple and this book had a whole handful. Which means I was left not really getting to know any of the characters very well. The end was an interesting one, a couple twists I didn't completely guess, but at the end of the book I just felt meh.

This book was a decent mystery/thriller at its core, but it had WAY too many POV narrators. It was so difficult to keep them straight, even when I paid attention at the beginning of the chapter, I found myself having to turn back to re-confirm who it was. And to top it all off, two of them are sisters and two others have names start with the letter "L".
Some of the twists are pretty good, and others I just rolled my eyes because seriously, every single character has some sort of secret and terrible parts of themselves.
The premise is interesting, but honestly kind of dated. I mean, who really communicates that much via email these days? Even in 2017 when this book is supposedly set, I'd think you would do your covert communication via text or a WhatsApp type of messaging system that couldn't be seen by your employer or others you are trying to keep secrets from.
Overall, if you can get past the plethora of characters, this is an entertaining way to pass a couple of days worth of reading.