Oh my god, what a ride! I knew I would like Good Rich People as soon as I read the synopsis. It sounded dark, twisty, and absolutely gut-wrenching, and the early reviews were promising.

Eliza has crafted an impressive and unique storyline paired with a compelling cast of characters that made this an addictive read. I really wanted to savour this one, but ended up devouring the entire book in just a few hours, unable to put it down.

The first character we meet is Lyla Herschel, with the beginning of the story being told from her perspective. She's an interesting character, and through Brazier's prose, I really started to build a picture of her in my mind. She lives in a state-of-the-art home on the edge of a cliff in Los Angeles, which she shares with her attractive husband Graham and vicious mother-in-law Margo. On the surface, Lyla seems like the typical Beverly Hills housewife, filling her time and her wrinkles with plastic surgery and lavish Moët lunches with the ladies, but underneath it all, she's quite a complex and layered character.

The reader is then introduced to mother and son duo, Graham and Margo Herschel, two characters with too much time, too much money, and not enough excitement in their life. To combat their boredom, they rent out the guesthouse on the property and take turns playing twisted psychological games with the tenants who live there, conspiring to ruin their lives.

"The game is simple, in theory, but in practice it always gets messy. The tenant is the pawn. The landlord is the player. The family is the audience. We observe from a distance, talk it over at private dinners."

When a new tenant called Demi moves in, Graham and Margo decide it's about time Lyla steps up to the plate to play. As much as she doesn't want to, she's desperate to prove her worth to her husband and mother-in-law.

Once Demi is introduced, the suspense really starts building. She has an intriguing backstory that adds layering and depth to the plot. After her arrival, the story is told from both Lyla and Demi's points of view, so the reader gets a real sense of what's going on under the surface for each of them. The alternating points of view are seamlessly written, and there's much more to Demi than meets the eye.

So, will the new tenant be enough to satiate the Herschel family? Or is she smarter than they think? What's that saying, two can play that game?

Brazier held my attention from start to finish with this book. I became so completely absorbed by the characters and the constant unexpected plot twists. Eliza also manages to capture so accurately the complete ridiculousness of the ultra wealthy, to the point that it's hilarious at times.

Good Rich People is intoxicating, well written, and highly engaging.

Highly recommended for fans of literary thrillers.

I was not previously familiar with Eliza Jane Brazier, but I will now be looking for her other titles. She writes with a biting wit and sophisticated sense of satire, bordering on the surreal. She sets the scene extremely well so that the reader can picture what's going on in a very cinematic and entertaining way.

The narrative is twisted and dark, but very easy to follow and quite suspenseful.

The pacing drags a tiny bit as Lyla is trying to decide how to initiate the game. However, interspersing Demi's chapters managed to keep me turning the pages. I also appreciated how the characters' motivations are credible.

Graham is a little hard to get to know, but I believe this is intentional on the author's part.

Without giving anything away, I enjoyed the hints at what happened with the prior guest and how that comes full circle.

The ending is satisfying. Brazier is clearly a talented writer.

This is the most bizarre, outlandish, absurd, CAMP and downright disturbing story I’ve ever read…and I loved every second of it. I genuinely believe that if The Hunger Games, Gossip Girl and The Purge franchise had a love child - it’d be this. From the theatrics of showing the absurd lives of the rich and elite and how far they are willing to go to cure their boredom, to incorporating a sinister twist that involved scheming, strategy and survival between the classes was absolutely brilliant. I never read a story like this - every time I thought I had things figured out, it would take a completely different turn hitting me like a bus. Yes, a bus. I love psychological thrillers more than anything, especially when it keeps me on my toes and makes me crave more and more. Overall, I think this is a very unique story, definitely reminds me of that Jordan Peele-esque horror, where it’s just wicked and sinister more than Michael Myers or Friday the 13th scary/thrilling. Brazier did an excellent job at exploring class, social status, old vs new money and how others will view you, no matter how much money you have in your bank account, especially if you pulled yourself up by the bootstraps and earned it.

This definitely won’t be everyone’s cup of tea, but I thoroughly enjoyed the oddness/absurdity of this story.

QUICK TAKE: I am a big Eliza Jane Brazier fan and really enjoyed her previous book, IF I DISAPPEAR. I similarly liked a lot about this book, and the concept is dark and twisty and right up my alley (rich couple plays a twisted game with each other where they fuck with the unsuspecting victims who rent out their guest house). The characters here are almost on another planet, but I had a lot of fun with the cat-and-mouse antics and the ending is Alice in Wonderland tomfuckery (evening shootouts in the rose garden, anyone?).

I absolutely love this book. It’s a really original story idea and I couldn’t wait to see what would happen. The main character immediately drew me in as well.

I finished Good Rich People days ago and my pulse is still racing. I was gripped by Eliza Jane Brazier's prose from the very first page. The sentences are honed and propulsive, filled with startling insight and incident. I felt on edge reading and often found myself laughing--nervously--sometimes in surprise, sometimes in recognition. Many of Brazier's lines display aphoristic brilliance. The characters--rich and less rich competitors in a game rigged by the richest of them all--push into increasingly fraught and disturbing territory; the plot itself operates with an almost hallucinatory intensity. Incisive, satirical, vivid, disturbing, and wickedly funny, Good Rich People is a thriller flirting with the surreal, so as to shine a light on the murderous reality we might otherwise normalize. This is a novel you'll remember.

The description of this book sounded interesting, but I found it actually just a bit too weird. I'm sure it will appeal to other readers. A rich couple and the husband's mother play a game where they let someone live in their guest house for free and then make their life miserable. Couldn't get into it, it just seemed a bit absurd.

Eliza Jane Brazier is a profoundly talented writer. You almost miss her skill in the immediacy of the prose, so I urge you to take your time with this one and spend a moment or two in admiration. She layers breathtaking insight alongside tension and suspense with such intelligence. Her prose is spare and haunting and there are lessons to be learned in these pages. Highly recommend - you will remember her characters and her authorial voice for a long time afterward.

Oh my… This is fanfreakingtastic! The craziness levels of the characters and sarcastic tone of the story are even higher than my annual Chardonnay conception! Yes, they’re triple grandiose!

This book is extremely hilarious, absolutely disturbing and definitely smartest reads I’ve recently had and I one hundred percent recommend to the readers who are keen on trying something engaging, gripping, twisty, snarky, stimulating! It’s the best dark comedy meets twisty psychological thriller.

It’s psychological because most of the characters in this book suffers from mental illness: a narcissistic couple: a sociopath husband and emotionally unstable wife and a controlling, narcissistic, megalomaniac mother in law.

Let’s meet with not so lovely: mostly disgusting, irritating and easily hatable couple: Lyla and Graham and let’s not forget to mention Lyla’s monster in love Margot: You easily hate their guts! Not because they’re rich! They’re ultra callous, playing sociopathic games with ordinary people and enjoy to ruin their lives for fun. Everything is a game for them. They like manipulating, oppressing, gaslighting, threatening. When they finish with you: you want to be dead or you eventually died in their hands.

They live in Hollywood Hills: their house is built at 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. Margot decides to use it as storing people, caging them as her favorite pets by playing vicious , life destroying games!

Margot and Graham likes to play innocent tenants who never see what’s coming game and Lyla has to prove her worth to them by playing and winning at the end. Their last game ends with a person’s dead body is taken out from the fountain. And it’s all Lyla’s fault because she became so friendly with their prey.

Now Margot chose a new tenant and she insists Lyla should be the master of the game to intrigue her. New prey’s name is Demi and she’s workaholic tech prodigy, making annually more money than Graham. She’s risk taker and she can destroy any obstacles or people stand in her way.

Margot thinks at the end of game: only one of them will survive and she can manage to defeat Demi! Lyla thinks this is easy leash task. She can beat her in her own game.

But Lyla has no idea Demi is not the person who thinks she’s and she can play dirtier to win because she comes from nothing, she has to nothing to lose!

Let the heart pounding, high tension mind games begin!

I loved this book way too much than I expected! I want to see it adapted on big screen. Oh boy! This would be my dream job if I had a chance to adapt it! Eliza Jane Brazier knows how to play rock n roll and I’m telling you my friends this book is gonna be one of the huge hits of next year! You shouldn’t miss it!

Special thanks to NetGalley and Berkley Publishing Group for sharing this digital reviewer copy with me in exchange my honest opinions.

“So much of what I feel lives beneath the surface of me. It only occasionally swells and rises, when under extreme duress...for example...when I have to wait in line.”

Just an introspective nugget from Lyla, a woman who married into money. She and her husband, Graham, live on his mother’s land. His mother, Margo, lives in the sprawling towers. Lyla and Graham live in the house in front of it. There is also a guest house below that they like to rent out to tenants.

Not just any old tenant. They focus on self-made rich folks who rose from nothing. It’s actually a game. They like to take the tenant in and then ruin her life just for the thrill of it.

Demi has had a rough life, and finds an incredibly rare opportunity to live in the guesthouse. Little does she know what she’s getting into...and neither does Lyla.

I was a huge fan of Eliza Jane Brazier’s debut novel, If I Disappear. It was so oddly different, but very compelling. This one is also oddly different, but unfortunately - it’s also not very good.

This book is all over the place in terms of POVs and hard-to-follow timelines. I found myself confused by most of it.

There were also plenty of moments where Point A jumped to Point C, completely obliterating Point B.


****MINOR SPOILER****


For example, Character 1 brings Character 2 to a private lake, leaves her there, and tries to get her arrested for trespassing. First of all, I highly doubt someone would get arrested for trespassing at a lake if they weren’t doing anything else wrong. Maybe a fine? But I digress. Next, Character 1 ends up getting arrested for the trespassing, and has to spend a whole night in jail. Um, what? There is absolutely nothing given to the reader to explain what happened when she called the cops, or how it came to be that she was arrested instead.


****END MINOR SPOILER****


The head-scratching moments only increased from there. Everything about this story is so convoluted and over the top. The characters were atrocious, and not in a fun way! I’m a fan of despicable characters when I can still root for some of them. I wasn’t rooting for anyone here. The final scenes take an inordinate amount of time to get through, and it just wasn’t very pleasant to read.

I try not to be mean-spirited in my reviews, but I am always honest. I think this one could have benefited from another round or two of editing...because there is a good story in there somewhere - it’s just bogged down by ridiculousness. Regardless, I hope the book finds its audience, and I still look forward to Brazier’s next book.

TW: Death of a dog that I feel was included just for shock value.

Thank you to Berkley for providing me with a widget of the ARC through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Expected Publication Date: 1/25/22.


Review also posted at: https://bonkersforthebooks.wordpress.com

#GoodRichPeople #NetGalley
This book is some crazy s$$t. It is a twisted must read. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an e-arc copy of Good Rich People!!!

This book was an absolute delight to read. That probably seems like an odd thing to say about a dark psychological thriller, but from the very first page I found myself reveling in the excellence of the writing and the cleverness of the plot. I also found myself laughing quite often, because the narrative voices, Lyla in particular, were unexpectedly engaging and undercut constantly with a fabulous, subversive black humour. Eliza Jane Brazier displays here a mastery of language and storytelling which had me unable to put the book down, eager to see what conclusion she wrought for her fascinating characters. Highly recommended.

An interesting and disturbing read. Very thought-provoking and almost surreal. The writing is great and the characters...I was rooting for all of them even though they were trying to get one another. It was great, I loved how it pulled me in every direction at once!

You’ve always known rich people were different, and they are. In this book they are mean, twisted f%$$#s, but they’re about to meet their match from someone not in their social strata. Demi has never felt like she got dealt a fair hand, now she’s taking on someone else’s life and their home. What she doesn’t realize is that Lyla and Graham, the wealthy couple that own the property get their kicks from ruining the lives of the people who stay in their guest house. This time though, they may have met their match in Demi. The characters in this book are incredibly unlikeable, but then that’s the point