A hacker exposes secrets .... the cat is out of the bag for all those who have their private emails exposed for all to see!

This book had some Mr. Robot (a T.V. series) vibes. I loved the series and the chaos the hackers would unleash. In the book, a prominent surgeon, Greg Strausser is murdered. Could it be some kind of payback or revenge? Maybe he pissed someone off?

Who has a motive? Greg's wife, Kit was pretty upset over his indiscretion. And who is this Lolita person?

Plenty of secrets in this soap opera of a who-dunnit. I enjoyed the way the author weaved the story with many suspects that could have done it!

Some good cliff-hangers and twists. This one kept me guessing and changing my mind as to who the villain was. Just enough U turns to keep my engaged!

Thank you Netgalley for sending me this arc. I will be reviewing this book in the near future with an honest rating and review.

I looooooved this book. It was one of my favorites that I've read all year. I love this author, and it made me go back and read other books of hers! I will definitely recommend this to my audience. It was totally my style, and while it was a fast read, it will definitely be remembered. Can't wait for more!

What a ride this book was! Shepard has written a modern murder mystery in which seemingly, no one is completely innocent!

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, and no one is spared by the hacker. Things quickly take a more sinister turn when Kit Manning's handsome and reputable husband, Dr. Greg Strasser is found murdered. The book takes the reader through alternating narrators perspectives, until exposing who the real murderer is in the end... but in the meantime, there's still a killer on the loose.
Reputation is full of twists and turns, and I did NOT expect the ending! It's a story of the secrets we all keep, sabotage and how so many people can be affected by just one incident.
This kept me reading quickly and I was so interested to know what truly happened to Greg. I will say, my only complaint is that I wish some earlier parts of the story were shorter and the end/reveal was a bit longer, because I would have like to know more about that part more! Overall this was a thrilling, quick read.
I loved Shepard's previous young adult series, so I knew I'd really enjoy this adult novel!

An adult version of the Pretty Little Liars series? Um, yes please!

I have been indulging in Sara Shepard’s books since I was in high school (so for about 14 years now!), so naturally, I immediately hit the request button as soon as I saw Reputation pop up on Netgalley. Needless to say, I was thrilled when I saw that I had been approved for an arc of it, and as soon as I got home from work, I immediately snuggled into bed with a cup of coffee and my kindle and dove right into the book and I was instantly hooked.

Sara Shepard has a way of drawing you into her books and making it so that they are nearly impossible to put down until you reach the very end, and Reputation was no exception.

Reputation is told from multiple POV’s and is centered around a rich community in a college town filled with mystery, secrets, adultery, deception, betrayals, and the depths to which people will go to to hide who they really are and protect their reputations.

This book starts off with a hack that reveals hidden emails filled with secrets, some of them quite dark, which leads to a murder and then the real chaos begins.

Following the murder, the remainder of the story is set up to uncover two mysteries: who the murderer was, and who hacked the email system and why. Uncovering the mystery of who did each, and why, and what the motive was, and if it was even the same person for both, made for a thrilling ride, and every time you think you have it figured out, another shocking twist will be thrown into the story. The entire time I was reading, I was completely engaged in the story and everything that was going on with all of the characters, as I was desperate to know who dun it and how it would all unravel at the end!

This book was a fun, juicy, soapy ride full of twists and turns from start to finish, and I wouldn’t expect anything less from a Sara Shepard book!

Sara Shepard is a master at crafting juicy, scandalous stories that keep you on the edge of your seat the entire time you’re reading, and I am glad that I made the choice to pick this book up, as she continues to surprise me with how everything unravels in the end in her stories.

I would highly recommend this to anyone who is a fan of Sara Shepard’s previous books, especially the Pretty Little Liars series. Although I would like to add that readers go into this one with some caution, because although it is very similar in nature to to the Pretty Little Liars series in some ways, it is very much an adult oriented novel, and there are some particularly sexual graphic scenes that may be very disturbing to some readers. I would like to especially add a trigger warning for sexual assault.

Overall, another fun read from Sara Shepard and I cannot wait to see what she comes out with next!

Loved this book, but also love Pretty little liars. This book was just wow, in my opinion. Well written and chilling, with the right amount of thrills. Kept me turning pages well past bedtime. Look forward to more by this author and in hope this is the beginning of a long series!
Will definitely buzz it up!

I couldn't get into this book at all. I felt very disconnected from the characters and found many of the characters to be quite unlikable. It was also written in such a way that I lost interest almost immediately even though something very suspect happens at the beginning. I wish I could've gotten more into this but I couldn't.

I received a copy of this book from Netgalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

This book is a ride and a half! It's a breakneck mystery that throws twists and turns in away that's mind-boggling but makes perfect sense!

Seriously, if you loved the PLL books, this one is gonna put a huge smile on your face.

Well, it would if it weren't so intense and emotional.

Seriously just read my tweets about it.

Thanks to the publisher and netgalley for the opportunity to review this book.

What happens when your worst nightmare comes true? In this case murder. When hackers hack and publish a entire colleges records and emails everybody is in trouble. A fun and sadly realistic plot. 5 Stars.

This a very good book, the characters are all very interesting. It’s perfect for the longer nights that are coming. I recommend this book for anyone looking for a good mystery.

Campy, fun & a great whodunnit! Touching on important topics relevant to the #MeToo era while also not taking itself too seriously, Reputation is really the thriller I needed from 2019! Having been a mega fan of Shepard’s since the first Pretty Little Liars Book (and corresponding 10+ after), I was excited to delve into the deliciousness that is Reputation!

Opening with a prologue named for a Taylor Swift song (she does have an album named Reputation after all), the plot is soon revealed to us alongside a cast characters who all seem to have a motive for the crime, but who is the one who actually followed through with...murder?

I can honestly say until pages before the reveal, I had so many suspects in mind and enjoyed hedging my bets as I continued reading and the reveal was not an out of left field end which can be infuriating. With thrillers a dime a dozen nowadays, this one was really a fun ride, which is quite refreshing.

Sometimes, when life is crap for one reason or many reasons, I like to relax with books I’d filed under the sub-genre of Rich People Problems. Some people might find these sorts of books boring, and I sometimes do. But sometimes, when my mood is right – and by that I do mean grumpy and grouchy, I do get a pick-me-up from indulging in the lives of Rich People Problems. This works for fiction, especially, because actual rich people often get away with too much in real life.

I read Reputation by Sara Shepard in September, three months before it’s release. (Why not get ahead on some NetGalley ARCS, right? Especially when I’m so behind.) I need something different to read, after a heavy memoir, so I picked it. And I picked right. For the most part.

Reputation is the story of Aldrich University, a fictional almost-Ivy League college in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. You know it’s almost-Ivy because Aldrich gets hacked, along with the Ivies, as Shepard points out time and time again. It seems like a very important point and, to be fair, it more or less is. It creates a culture and setting without placing a ridiculous amount of scandal in a non-fictional university. Which probably is important if you don’t want to get sued by ‘Ivies.’

Anyway, a hack. Someone hacks the databases connected to the school (and to the hospital associated with it… see? prestigious setting). Everything gets posted online. Who’s dealing cocaine to their students, who’s sleeping with who, who’s got gambling debts up to their eyeballs, who’s been assaulted at drunken frat parties… all of it.

The book, to it’s credit, focuses for the most part on the adults and not on the students. Before I started I saw that Sara Shepard wrote/created Pretty Little Liars so it was a nice surprise to have a more adult mystery/thriller. Focusing on the adults also means you jump right into a wild world of romantic shenanigans. I mean, the book starts with Kit Manning-Strasser, daughter of president of Aldrich University, star of the fundraising department (adorably called the Giving Department… Rich People Problems, I tell ya), and wife of the renowned cardiac surgeon at the hospital, drunkenly toying with the idea of a one-night stand with a smooth-talker met in a hotel bar. Kit has all sorts of problems… dead husbands, unfaithful husbands, daughters with secrets, a bad relationship with her sister, and an absolutely awful taste in men.

This makes for excellent reading, if you’re in the mood to perk yourself up reading about someone else’s absolute train-wreck of a life. And she’s fictional, so no lives were actually harmed in the making of this fantastically wild ride.

The Strasser part of Kit’s name comes from Dr. Greg Strasser – renowned cardiac surgeon and lothario of Aldrich University and the ritzy neighborhoods that house it’s people.

Greg winds up dead (as the Goodreads blurb tells you so don’t yell at me about spoilers) and most of the book focuses on the sundry ways he was a creep. Wooing the wife of his dying patient, upping the wooing in the moments after said patient dies on the operating table, being a grouch on a fancy vacation in Barbados when his college student stepdaughter rejects his skeevy advances, sleeping with a nurse (or a few nurses), more or less stalking one of them, paying for a friend of his stepdaughter to attend Aldrich… apparently because he need a charity project and she’s from the wrong side of the tracks… and the list goes on.

Really, you walk away with the idea that murder couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy.

How the story wraps up, though, with the reveal of his murderer falls flat (and literally everyone was a suspect at one point, literally everyone). It’s too… perfect. Too much of a forced happily ever after. So, in the end, Reputation comes so close to being pretty damn good and just doesn’t quite make it.

Three Things It Does Wrong

The ending. The happily-ever-after for people that seems forced and… too easy. Nobody walks away from all that happened at Aldrich with any lasting damage. It’s not very believable.
The overuse of a toxic woman trope, in that most of the book is centered on women being awful to each other. (Somebody gets drugged, somebody sleeps with a friend’s husband, somebody cons people to get rich… it’s all there and it’s not always enjoyable.)
Stereotypes. So many stereotypes. (And I realize I’m saying that while admitting to enjoying reading about people suffering but… they’re fictional, they don’t mind.) The wrong-side-of-the-tracks character is stereotyped in every way possible except having an meth or opiod addiction.

Three Things It Does Right

Shepard does a fantastic job at giving everyone (again, literally everyone) a believable motive for wanting Greg Strasser dead. This makes for a compelling mystery.
Though not always handling it with the tact and sensitivity it might deserve, Reputation does confront issues like the rape culture on college campuses and the effect that such a culture has on survivors long after they graduation.
I don’t think the book takes itself too seriously. In the notes after the book, Shepard says she initially developed the idea for television and that might account both for some of it’s faults as a novel and for some of it’s merits as a quick, fun way to escape into someone else’s problems.
⭐⭐⭐

I received a copy of Reputation through NetGalley and Dutton in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts are my own.

On the surface, Kit Manning's life looks picture perfect--a handsome surgeon husband, who, as stepfather dotes on Kit's daughters, work at a prestigious college in a fundraising job involving parties and travel, a lovely home and glamorous vacations--but an encounter with an alluring stranger points to Kit's unhappiness. When an email hack reveals to the entire nation that Kit's husband seemed to be having a torrid adulterous affair and said surgeon winds up stabbed to death in their home, the circle of suspects is remarkable for it's breadth and tawdry secrets each person is desperate to hide. Fans of Liane Moriarity. Lisa Jewell and Kimberly McCreight will love this domestic suspense packed with the shifting perspectives of unreliable narrators.

As a huge fan of Pretty Little Liars, I was super excited about this suspense novel and I totally enjoyed the whole drama, all the twists and turns. If you are a fan of suspense novels with lot of drama, you should add REPUTATION to your TBR right away.

Aldrich University is rocked by a hack where all the emails of all employees are out open in the internet. You can then imagine what all secrets can come out and how much scandalous it can turn out to be. On top of the whole hack, Kit’s husband, a surgeon is found murdered right after hack and Kit is a key suspect. There are whole lot of other characters and pretty much all of them are suspects.

The story is told in multiple POVs and with so many characters, it takes time to catch up as there are multiple tracks going on, all converging at the murder. All the characters interconnect some way or the other with all the buried secrets. In short, it is whodunit mystery with twists no one will be able to guess according to me.

This book is fun from start to finish; a soapy ride. I've only read Sara Shepard's THE ELIZAS, but my guess is to readers/fans of hers this will read more like a growup Pretty Little Liars than The Elizas; good for those for whom The Elizas was too weird/noir. Shepard's has a gift with ultra-specific yet mainstream/normative characters that she gets you to care about, and interweaving multiple narratives/twists.

The main story of the hack is compelling, but then it's the murder that lands like a gut punch and drives the rest of the book. I loved all the layers with each character POV, and the twists. I did feel like there were two potential dropped plots--one I strongly wonder if it was there as the original twist/killer and dropped when a different conclusion was decided on, and the other is minor but feels like a missed opportunity for a final gut punch. But those are quibbles.

I would add some trigger warnings for certain readers. The book deals with sexual assault and edges into #MeToo, and some readers may find two particular scenes disturbing. One is a role-play that edges into questionable consent (and sexual assault); the other is a flashback/reference to a past rape. Neither is particularly graphic BUT the mere description of certain aspects may be upsetting for readers who have been in similar situations. Read with caution.

Recommended if you want a fun, frothy read with some compelling characters and good twists. I felt wrapped up in the world, and was turning pages to find out what happened.

I was lucky enough to get an advanced copy of this book from the publisher.

I really enjoyed Sara Shepard's series Pretty Little Liars. I was beyond excited to get an arc of Reputation. It was not a high school drama like her previous series and this one is definitely a stand alone. That being said, I loved this book. It was fast paced and had me hanging on the edge of my seat until the end. It had a Magnolia (movie) feeling because you quickly find out how all the main characters are tied together.

I would highly recommend this book to anyone who likes a ""who done it" mixed with the drama of modern technology.

An intriguing mystery set amid the prestigious fictional Aldrich University. In the preface, the author asks questions relating to the importance of reputation and what individuals will do to maintain their reputations. The author explores this by creating a scenario whereby email accounts are hacked and reveal secrets. Throughout the book the reader is reminded that things are not as they seem and people are not who you think they are. Shepard creates several characters that could possibly have motive and opportunity for murder and she provides many clues along the way to keep the reader guessing "who dunnit." However, for me, the ending did not hold together. The author took the many threads and attempted to tie them up into a neat little happily ever after bow that felt contrived.

The author kept me guessing to the end, although there were some hints along the way. So many different stories and people connected in so many ways. The lesson about reputation was a good one. I would have really liked to have read this i. A book so i could have discussed it with others.

I always like to read a few reviews of a book before I post my review (but never before I read it) to see what other people thought of it. I'm surprised at how many people disliked the level of crazy going on in this book, I mean, everyone had a secret, or they were plotting and conniving, and it was wonderful!!

Aldrich University has been hacked and the emails everyone thought were private, are out there for anyone to read. Secrets they thought were buried are coming to the surface and the entire school is on edge. Reputation is told in multiple points of view though I tended to lean towards Kit as our main character, and then everyone else's story sort of revolved around her.

I don't want to tell you about each of these women's quirks because I feel it will spoil the multitude of twists that are in Reputation. But I can tell you what I thought of Kit's husband, Greg, and he was a slimy, cheating bastard who was involved with so many people because of his position at the hospital it's no wonder that the storyline revolves around him and Kit.

Because this was an advanced copy from Dutton, I know there are going to be spelling mistakes and whatnot, (and there were) but Shepard wrote the word Patrick 13 times in a matter of a few paragraphs, and I think she could pull out half of those and write the word he, it was a bit overkill. (I probably wouldn't have counted but it was distracting).

I think outside of that easily fixable gripe, this was such a fun read. I found myself wonderfully hating the levels these women went, to get what they want, to arrange an outcome or a situation in favor for themselves, and I think Shepard wrote them so well. The storyline is super fun, it's well written and twisty and you're not entirely sure what's going to happen.

Thank you to Netgalley for providing an ARC in exchange for my unbiased review.

Trigger warning: rape, sexual assault, drugging, disturbing sexual encounters

I am a fan of shows like Dynasty and Greenleaf, so of course I requested Shepard’s latest book and spent a weekend with a bad cold and this uncomfortable book. I love books with scandal, and anti-heroes, but this book crossed a few lines for me. I’m surprised I finished it and I can’t say it improved anything by doing so.

The book follows a group of women, each offering their POV in relation to a number of incidents, these include and grand scale email hack of ivy universities where they work/attend school, a murder, and the ensuing investigation.

That’s a lot of stuff right there, but Shepard threw in one shocking twist and reveal after another to the point for my head was spinning - what started out as an intriguing (and very entertaining premise) quickly spiraled into the absurd. Throw in some uncomfortable rape scenes, women drugging one another, and a whole lot of #metoo dialogues and it became a hot mess.

But I have some real beef here - spoiler warning - toward the end a teenage girl is brutally assaulted in an attempt to extort someone. While an earlier rape destroys the life of one character and is explored in depth, this particular assault is just brushed off by both the character and the author, in fact it becomes a “haha, I’m going to use it to keep my husband in line you naughty people” kind of thing and I was so deeply upset by this. Later on, you read it’s not affected the rape victim at all, in fact it’s a boon for her bc of what she gets out of it. That’s not how it works!!! And it’s so insanely insulting to them spend all this time on an older woman who is having her own #metoo moment. I seriously hope the editors do something with this before it’s published.

Another spoiler - was the daughter sexually active with her stepfather? Or was it just kinky emails? Why isn’t this talked about? Is she in therapy? My gosh, it’s all enough to cause a nervous breakdown - real people can’t handle this!

So I give it a two bc it will sell to the new adult crowd, maybe, but the rape stuff is handled in a way that I hope disappoints everyone.