A thrilling, medium burn story with absurdly high stakes.

MV Rating: 6.5/10
•Lyla engages in a game to gain favor with her husband and MIL, and her lavish life is on the line to win. Demi is pulling herself out of poverty and will literally do anything for a slice of normal.
•Reminiscent of that story we all read in middle school - “The Most Dangerous Game” - but make it LA.
•The lines these two women are willing to cross to win get blurrier and blurrier as time goes on, but can either one truly gain the freedom they truly crave?
•The characters are laughably absurd at some moments, which totally fits with the mega rich setting. I found the satire in the story to be really enjoyable, and the characters to be very well written.

Thank you to Netgalley for the ARC access!

Wow this book is insanely good!!!!!!!! I read it in one sitting it was so good!!!! It is evil at its most charming & so tantalizing you are pulled in from the first page until it spits you out leaving you thinking "what did I just read and devour???!!!!" I highly recommend this book!!!!!!!

Okay this one, I had a hard time deciding between 2.5 and 3 stars for this one but ended up giving it 3 stars. This story just wasn't for me. I usually like thrillers and mysteries but this one left me feeling like my mind was messed with in ways I don't particularly like.
This story is a strange and disturbing one about a married couple, Lyla and Graham, and a warped game they play. Lyla has always thought of life being a game, but Graham takes it to extreme and dangerous levels. They invite self-made success stories to live and rent out their basement guest house and then work to ruin their lives. Demi is a person who has had a hard life and seizes an opportunity to take over someone else's life and live the good life. Demi unknowingly puts herself in the path of the couple and their wicked entertainment, but she's not one to give up easily.
Things, of course, go awry and come to an explosive conclusion. I thought I had the story and ending figured out for this story, but it wasn't quite what I expected and it left me with dark and disturbing thoughts. If you like stories that might catch you off guard and are dark, disturbing, and mess with your head then you'll probably like this one.
Thanks to NetGalley and Berkley Publishing Group for letting me read and review this book. All opinions are my own.

Omg sooo sooo Soo good!!! Highly recommend this book and it’s a top favorite read this year! Curl up by the fireplace, grab a cup of tea and be ready to read long thru the night!

Good Rich People by Eliza Jean Brazier is a really powerful book. The writing is compelling, lyrical and extremely thought provoking. Lyla, Demi and Graham are not good people yet I couldn’t stop reading about them. I would have loved to hear more about Graham’s past but even without that, Good Rich People has good substance and the satire is hilarious.

GOOD RICH PEOPLE by Eliza Jane Brazier is a dark and disturbing psychological thriller that left me very unnerved from beginning to end. Lyla marries into the extreme wealth of her husband, Graham Herschel and his mother, Margo. The couple lives in a glass mansion below Margo, who owns a massive compound on the edge of a cliff above Hollywood Hills. There is a guesthouse located below them that the family rents out to self-made, less rich tenants. To overcome the extreme boredom of being so incredibly rich and never wanting for anything, Graham and Margo play a cruel and twisted game. They take turns trying to ruin the lives of their tenants. They go to bizarre and shocking lengths to win the game, including murder. When Lyla is forced to take a turn at the game with the latest tenant, Demi, things quickly get out of control. The story is told from the alternating points of view of Lyla and Demi with some confusing timeline switches. While I knew there was a social message about the contrast between wealth and poverty in the book, the senseless violence completely put me off. I see that there are a lot of conflicting reviews on this book and some readers may enjoy this dark story, but it just wasn’t for me. Thank you to Berkley Publishing Group and NetGalley for the chance to read and review an early copy.

This book was not what I was expecting and it was certainly unique. The story was told through two main perspectives Lyla and Demi and neither one was very like able, but the story still kept my interest. I will say there were som times that each perspective told about the same event but one perspective was a bit behind so timeline was it was a little weird. Lyla is married to Graham and they live in Graham’s mother’s home. Graham and his mother have a game where they invite self-made rich people into the guesthouse and take turns ruining their lives. Lyla doesn’t want to play, but Graham said she must. All of the characters are horrid and it’s an interesting look at those that have more than they could ever need. It’s definitely a book that is staying with me, I give it 3.5 stars rounded up for star selection.

This book started off strong but then it got really weird and boring. Plus, a dog dies.

Thanks, Netgalley, for my arc.

This is one of the most unique and twisted thrillers of the year! This one was dark and kept me on my toes from the jump.

Genre: thriller
Pub date: 1/25/22
In one sentence: Lyla and Graham like to play games, and when you're as rich as they are, the games are very dangerous...

I had no idea where this book was going, and boy did it get dark. All the characters were super unlikeable, but I really wanted to know what would happen to them. There were a few good twists, and I did not see the ending coming. The reason it's a 3 star read for me is that I didn't feel totally sucked into the story like I hope to with a thriller. But I think readers who like dark satire and lifestyles of the rich and famous may like this one!

Thank you to Berkley for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
Review posted to Goodreads 1/16/22, to be posted to Instagram closer to pub date.

I read this book in one sitting. It was fast-paced with twist and turns from start to finish. You'll never guess the ending!

Thank you NetGalley for providing a copy of this ARC in exchange for an honest review!

Published: January 25, 2022
Berkeley
Pages: 329
Genre: Psychological Thriller
KKECReads Rating: 4/5
I received a copy of this book for free, and I leave my review voluntarily.

Eliza Jane Brazier is an author, screenwriter, and journalist. She currently lives in Los Angeles, where she is developing If I Disappear for television.

“When you’re rich, you can control everything.”

Lyla married into an extremely wealthy family, and she had adapted to their thinking. Mostly. Demi has struggled and gone without her entire life, so when she has an opportunity to see his other half lives- she takes it. Graham is entitled in all the ways you’d expect of someone who grew up disgustingly wealthy. And he and his mother, Margo, have a unique relationship. And now, they plan to include Lyla. Welcome to the game.

This was a well-written book, and the storyline was well thought out. The balance of rich vs. poor was played very well, and the characters reflected that.

There isn’t much to like regarding the characters. They are all extreme victims of their circumstances. Whether they are rich or poor, the likability is low. But that is the point.

I loved that a huge theme throughout this novel was redemption. The precarious balance between good and evil, wanting to be good, and being good. It was very well represented and well portrayed.

This was a hard book to put down. The story is told engagingly, and even when you hate the characters- you have to know what happens next.

I enjoyed this story a lot. Very fresh, unique, and a beautiful game of cat and mouse. The twists and turns were well done, and the game is more than entertaining.

I"m still not completely sure how I feel about this book. This story was so unique and I didn’t love it at first but once it picked up, I couldn’t put it down. I loved the back and forth of the story. The book was the perfect length and perfectly paced.

My only complaint is that Lyla and her husband, Graham were so unlikable. Like almost too unlikeable. Lyla was so boring and awful, Grant is an absurd jerk. I don't really get why they're together other than money? For being so rich, they're lives seem incredibly dull. Nevertheless, their awfulness makes you want to keep reading to find out what happens to them.

Would recommend if you want a quick, unique thriller.

This is one of the smartest and most unique books I’ve read in a long time! Completely over-the-top, the satire was turned up to eleven and I LOVED it! For example, in the first chapter, Lyla goes to the grocery store, but can’t figure out which pasta sauce to buy, because none of them are expensive enough. She ends up buying ingredients to make sauce from scratch, because it costs more than buying a jarred sauce. The writing was so clever and page-turning, with dual POVs that gave us different perspectives of the same scenes. I read this in a day, because I just couldn’t put it down. As long as you know going in that this is in no way realistic, you’ll have a blast reading it like I did!

Thank you NetGalley and Berkley Publishing Group for providing me an e-book copy of GOOD RICH PEOPLE. This book is … WEIRD. In a GOOD way.

This is a story about rich versus poor. Or is it poor versus rich?

Lyla and Graham are very rich. They get bored easily. As does Graham's mother, aka Lyla's mother-in-law. They like to play games. The object is to destroy their latest tenant - always somebody who needs help and is specifically chosen by Lyla's mother-in-law.

We find out about the past tenants and their newest tenant, Demi, who has her own treasure trove of secrets. Demi is the Draw Four card to their UNO game. She is the Go Straight to Jail card in their Monopoly game.

While I don't think people with loads of money to burn have fun trying to destroy other's lives, I do think they get bored quite easily. I have no money, you see, so I'm never bored. le sigh.

I wasn't sure what to expect from this story, but I ended up enjoying it. It will make you mad, sad and glad you aren't Lyla.

GOOD RICH PEOPLE, with the perfect cover, publishes on January 25!

I rate GOOD RICH PEOPLE four out of five stars.

I struggle with how to rate this one.

I appreciated the premise and I certainly didn't dislike it as much as I did Brazier's previous book. There are a couple of decent twists and a plethora of unlikable characters.
Are there plot holes and things that are just unbelievable? Yes for sure.
There's really not a huge amount of plot overall if I'm honest.
But in the end, I thought it was a kind of tongue-very-far-in-cheek snarky tale about how the rich think they are so far above everyone else to the point they will do bizarre and shocking things to avoid being bored. And what might happen if someone outside of that crowd entered their world.

Reminded me a lot of the movie Ready or Not. Dark and subversive, yet it doesn't go quite far enough in that direction to make me really love it. Still it will have fans for those who can get where the author was going with this.

Warning that a dog dies in the story. I didn't get to know the dog much ahead of time so it didn't bother me as much as it probably could have.

This was definitely a different type of story. One that you could actually see becoming a reality with how depraved some people are....especially if they have the money and influence to hide their indiscretions.

Lyla and Demi are very relatable characters. You have one woman who has had some struggles in life, but has ended up with the elite. The other is about as rock bottom as you can get and has literally nothing left to lose.

One who is playing to preserve her way of life and the other that is playing for her survival. Nothing good can possibly come from this particular game, but as long as the proper people are entertained it doesn't really matter.

A story that takes you through both sides of the tracks. Showing you the upper elite that has no regard for a human life and the life of a woman who has nothing to lose and everything to gain. Especially when everyone counts her as the underdog.

A great way to spend your weekend.

A wealthy family devises a bizarre game to alleviate their boredom. They invite a self-made person to live on their family compound for the sole purpose of destroying them. Their next target is Demi. Have they finally met their match?

Demi stood out amongst a book full of obnoxious characters for me. In addition to being complex and full of secrets, Demi is a fighter who does whatever it takes to survive. Even though Demi isn't innocent, she has the misfortune of being caught up in this family's web of mind games. They've underestimated Demi, and she makes their lives anything but dull!

Good Rich People was on my 2022 most anticipated list. Unfortunately, I didn't love it as much as I thought. I struggled with the confusing and frequent retelling of events from different points of view. That said, there's a lot to like in Good Rich People.

If you enjoy cunning, unlikeable characters, a disturbing story with unexpected twists, and satirical humor, you should give this dark thriller a try.

Thank you to Berkley Publishing and NetGalley for a digital review copy. All opinions are my own.

#GoodRichPeople:

“Our house is built on the edge of a cliff. And underneath it, between those concrete plinths, is a hidden guesthouse. It was built to hold up the house above. Margo once used it to store her exotic shoe collection, but now we use it to store a person.”

Well hot damn. 👀 I didn’t really know what I was reading going in blind and the I saw the above line and had to read the synopsis. (Not a spoiler) and I was so pumped.

This book is so good. It has this.. dark.. Pulp Fiction vibes that I can get down with. It gives me The Most Dangerous Game or Ready or Not feels. It’s so twisted with this cat and mouse game between the elite and those that started from nothing and became wealthy. I didn’t think I’d enjoy it and here I am, loving every page.

Not everyone is going to like this book. This was wild and weird and dark and I am a fan. The people are so out of touch with reality in their own rich world, they don’t understand. “How rude. I hate when people don’t want to know everything about me, especially things I can’t tell them.” It had a bit of dark humor, which had me laughing at lines like this.

Thank you so much Penguin for the gifted copy! Good Rich People is out January 25th!

OMG how great. This Author can do no wrong. This book is beyond incredible and totally unputdownable! Just go in blind and you will read for hours. It's that great.
Thanks to Netgalley.