What the..? Good Rich People was a cast of terrible people who make a game of ruining other people’s lives just because they’re bored.
It started out strong but fell flat when certain things happened and the abrupt change in POV never gave any real context. I would have LOVED to have Graham and Margot’s POV thrown in along with Lyla and Demi’s.
Overall, this just made me really mad, but I get why people will enjoy this one!

Thank you to Berkley Publishing for an advanced digital copy in exchange for review via NetGalley

" You wouldn't think you would be able to eat with a dead body less than fifty feet away from you...You wouldn't think you would be able to do a lot of things until you do."

Oh and the things, the horrible things the awful characters do in Good Rich People by the disturbing creative mind of writer Eliza Jane Brazier will leave you cringing and often breathless.

Without revealing too much in this at times infuriating satirical psychological thriller be forewarned no one is likeable, worth rooting for or trustworthy. Disturbed Lyla is married to wealthy soulless Graham who is the puppet of his purely evil mother Margot. Graham is not filthy rich and he is waiting for mother Margot to die so he can live in filthy richness.

While they wait they play a game with real people. They find self made successful people and invite them to stay at their hidden guesthouse underneath their mansion on the edge of a cliff. Then they deviously dismantle and ruin the lives of their houseguests. After all new money is so gauche.

What they don't expect is that their next guest Demi is not their typical victim. In fact she is not who they think she is at all. Let the twisty games begin!

This book was such a weird reading experience. Normally I wouldn't keep reading a story where I couldn't stand anyone even the victims of sadistic behavior. Credit for keeping me engaged goes to the clever writing style of the author. I realized she knows these people are abhorring but that is the point. Their wealth makes them believe their entitlement is deserved and their manipulations have justification in their boredom. It was mesmerizing and compelling through every twisty curve I didn't see and the ones I saw a mile away. Read this one with a bit of tongue in cheek and know you are a decent human.

I received a free copy of this book from the publishers via #Netgalley for a fair and honest review. All opinions are my own.

Thank you Berkley Pub for inviting me on the Blogger Blitz Celebration for 𝗚𝗼𝗼𝗱 𝗥𝗶𝗰𝗵 𝗣𝗲𝗼𝗽𝗹𝗲!
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What a clever, wicked, sarcastic cat-and-mouse chase thriller!
Lyla and Graham are the ultra rich couple, who are so rich that everything bores them. So Graham and his mother, Margo, concocted a “game” where they invite successful tenants to live in their guesthouse below their house. Then they carefully plot to ruin…and even end their lives. The three of them take turns in this savage play.

Now it’s Lyla’s turn because Lyla “slipped” in the previous game and she must prove herself worthy to Graham and Margo. However the latest prey, Demi, doesn’t quite fit the mold of usual tenants. Demi makes even more money than Graham…but something is just…off about her. Will Lyla take Demi down and keep her position in the Herschel family? Or will Demi have the last laugh? You absolutely MUST read this book to find out!

Written in alternate chapters between Lyla and Demi’s POVs, this book is sure to keep you furiously turning the pages to the end. Y’all, I binge read this one in 2 days and it pulled me out of a huge reading slump! The sarcastic tone that permeates throughout the book may not be for everyone but it’s a book that gives a lighthearted feel while reminding us the huge divide between the rich and the poor. That huge twist with Demi that happens early on is also definitely worth reading because no one would see it coming and it propels the remainder of the story towards a new path. I highly recommend Good Rich People!
TW: Animal Death

This book is pure, fast-paced guilty pleasure reading, my friends. I read it all in two sittings and could hardly put it down the first time.

Heads up: One animal dies

I even got a bit of a Squid Game vibe with all the rich folks playing twisted games in fancy places.

Lyla and Graham are filthy rich. So rich that they have to invent ways not to get bored. Luckily, their mansion has a guesthouse which gives them the perfect opportunity to play a game in which they slowly destroy the lives of each tenant. Demi is the newest unsuspecting tenant and after a tough childhood, a life of poverty, and bouts of homelessness, she’s going to give them a fight.

The book is told from the perspectives of Lyla and Demi, which I loved. There’s constantly a balance of figuring out who knows what from chapter-to-chapter, which adds some delightful tension.

Also, the cover is fantastic! It really captures the spirit of the book.

No, this isn’t contemporary literature or anything and the characters aren’t exactly nuanced, but it sure makes for a mighty enjoyable read.

3.5 stars - I can't even describe what I just read. To say the main characters are unlikeable would be doing unlikeable characters a misjustice. These people are simply awful. To the point that it's almost laughable. They are rich, they are bored, and destroying others is what they do for fun. It's creepy and toxic and outrageous. And I couldn't stop reading!!!

I enjoyed some of the extremeness of the characters, but they were all unlikeable for the most part. I will say this was a fun read, the games, the REASONS (wow, little explanation you get) why they do things and the multiple view points. I like the way this is set up like a game and this time they make Layla play. They bring someone into their guest house to play with them and their life, that can be anything. They do some wild things! I found some of the conversations and actions to be really over the top. Overall it was a really fun read that I enjoyed.

Thank you to Berkley Publishing and Netgalley for my copy for honest review

I love morally bankrupt characters. I love morally grey characters. I love unreliable narrators. I love characters who are just empty inside, as empty as the color eggshell white. This book is absolutely filled to the brim with nothing but all of these things: morally bankrupt characters, morally grey characters, an unreliable narrator, characters as empty as the eggshell white on their walls and bedding, and their eyes as glassy as the windows in their mansions in the hills above Los Angeles.

This book is absolutely fabulous. I picked it up and was swallowed within the first couple of pages. Every time I had to put it down to attend to something else I was bitter and put out. I ate my lunch holding my Kindle in one hand and shoving food in my mouth with the other.

This book is told in two juxtaposed first-person POV’s: Lyla, the rich wife of a rich man who’s the son of an even-richer woman, and “Demi”, a homeless woman who has stolen the identity of the actual Demi who was meant to move in as a tenant in the guest house below Lyla and her husband. When Lyla is telling the story it reads like satire, almost like something Kathy Wang (who wrote Impostor Syndrome) would write. When “Demi” is telling the story it reads more like something gothic and suspenseful, like Meg Abbot (who wrote “The Turnout”) would write. This is reflected in how both women talk about their situations and each other in the narrative prose, and it’s a stunning writing style. It makes for a great tapestry.

The book has a texture to it, but a very claustrophobic feeling. All of the action mostly takes place either in Lyla’s home, the guest house, or on the grounds of the main house in its entirety. As such, you feel like these characters are all isolated in this ultra-rich location high in the hills above Los Angeles, where no one but the richest should be able to breathe the cleanest air available and build elaborate houses that might burn or fall down any minute.

As these characters play their games with each other, you will be revolted in some ways, angry in other ways, sad in some ways, and savage in some ways. This book isn’t a happy book. It’s a razor-sharp and suspenseful book that peeks over two different shoulders into the lives of people who have more money than sense, no moral compass, and are utterly bored with the game of life.

What a fun read! When you’re rich beyond wildest dreams and everything is in your hands you have to go bigger and more extravagant to entertain yourself. The overall sarcasm and arrogance lend themselves to this book about the games rich people play with those beneath them. Befriend them, learn everything about them, and then destroy them. Fast paced and smart writing will make this one of the top books of the winter!

IF YOU LIKE- Gillian Flynn, Ready or Not
NOTES- Ice cold characters with a twisted sense of horrific humor, Good Rich People is a glimpse into a billionaire family and the manipulative deadly games they play with us normal peasants. Every single character is a psychopath. Fun to read if you can handle not one likable character, the soapy vibes, and the constant startling “did she just say that?” moments. I ate it up with a fancy gold spoon. I love a unique thriller with cinematic qualities and an EXTRA as heck grand finale- keep em coming author Eliza Jane Brazier!

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I really enjoyed this book! I thought it was a really great dark thriller. The story was very fast paced throughout the whole book and I found it difficult to put this book down, I just wanted to keep reading to find out what was happening next. I appreciated the dual pov's that we got, I think showing the story through both main characters points of view made it more interesting. I didn't like any of these characters, honestly I think they were all crazy, but I enjoyed that! Sometimes its fun to root for characters that aren't traditionally good. Overall I really enjoyed this crazy book!

This took me some time to get into. It was a quick read, but for the first 20% or so I honestly was just reading words on a page. Nothing was clicking together and I really couldn't figure out what was going on. I only kept reading out of pure curiosity.

We have alternating points of views, and I think that might've had something to do with it. There's Lyla and Demi; however, once you're getting into Lyla's story we're switched to Demi, and it's on a completely different timeline. Also, let me tell you that Demi didn't interest me one single bit.

The entire premise of the game that Lyla and her husband, Graham, play on unsuspecting rich folk really made no sense whatsoever. Constantly, we readers are told that Graham needs this entertainment to be happy . . . okay, but what does the game really involve? I know that Lyla wasn't doing her "part" the way Graham wanted but it was just a bunch of nothing happening.

I was expecting some type of cat and mouse game. A psychological thriller that would keep me on the edge of my seat. Instead I got a lot of confusion, sadly.

Good Rich People by Eliza Jane Brazier is a psychological thriller novel. The story in this one is told by changing the point of view between the characters to give all sides of the story.

Lyla and Graham live in an opulent home overseen by Graham’s mother, Margo. Very wealthy Lyla and Graham often find themselves bored and to pass the time they like to invite unsuspecting individuals to their guesthouse and then conspire to ruin their lives. Demi is the latest target of Lyla and Graham’s sadistic games and Demi vows to not go down without a fight.

So, after reading Good Rich People by Eliza Jane Brazier I had to sit back and think a minute trying to figure out just what I had read. The characters in this novel fall on the satirical side and were often over the top in their actions making them not feel real at all. The story wasn’t bad but I couldn’t help some eye rolls along the way which was kind of a put off. In the end I rated this one at two and a half stars with it falling a tad over to the I didn’t quite like it side of my ratings wondering if it would have worked a lot better without the cartoonish feel to the characters.

I received an advance copy from the publisher via NetGalley.

An ultimately disappointing read for me. I thoroughly enjoyed Brazier's previous book, If I Disappear; it was a little weird and a little uncanny, but in a way that worked with the story and which I found deeply compelling and haunting. Good Rich People, on the other hand, is a little weird and a little uncanny in a way that I find entirely off-putting and unappealing. I'm game for unlikable (indeed, detestable) characters, but I still have to be interested in them, even if I don't like them as people. And I just wasn't interested enough in the horrible people who largely inhabit the pages of this book - they just weren't fun to read about. I also couldn't get invested in the convoluted twists and turns of what could have been a thrilling, weirdly fascinating plot if it didn't feel overworked, uneven, and uncomfortably self-conscious.

Thank you to NetGalley and Berkley for the advance copy in exchange for an honest review.

Good Rich People by Eliza Jane Brazier is a highly anticipated book, and it sounded like it was just my type of thing: a woman in danger, in a psychological thriller, the kind of book that you just CANNOT. PUT. DOWN. You know, pandemic escapism at its best.

The story revolves around a couple, Lyla and her husband Graham, and Graham’s mother Margot. Lyla turned me off immediate.y: “Sometimes I am scared by how beautiful I am…I am sad because I want everyone to see it, but I don’t want to see them.” They live in a fabulous house, which “...is decorated to Graham’s taste because I don’t have any. I acquired his taste the day we got married.”

Ugh. I really didn’t like anyone. And I didn’t care about their games. Graham and Margo get bored so they invite people to live in their guest house and then do whatever it takes to destroy them. WTF?

I didn’t care enough to finish it. I may go back to it when I have more patience or the pandemic diminishes…but maybe not.

Thanks to Berkley Publishing Group and NetGalley for a copy in exchange for this honest review. Ms. Brazier can definitely write, and I will happily pick up her next book. But this one didn’t do it for me.

I don’t know what I read. While it was disturbing and not like anything I’ve read before, I still quickly flipped through the short chapters to see where the story would go.

The book follows a wealthy family and the games they play with people who have less than them. It is so outlandish and unrealistic, and the characters are all unlikeable without any nuance to their personalities. I also was disappointed by the ending. I can’t say I’d widely recommend this one.

Thanks Berkley for my copy in exchange for an honest review.

3.5/ stars

When Lyla married the extremely wealthy Graham, she had to come to terms with her husband and mother-in-law’s peculiar taste in entertainment. The couple rent out their guesthouse to lure in those who have self-made success only to set them up for total failure and ruin their lives. Demi is someone who has consistently fought for survival, when an opportunity that she can’t say no to presents itself, she is unknowingly being caught up in the couple’s diabolical game. Lyla and Demi’s lives come to an explosive clash changing the rules of the game forever.

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Strap in your seat belts for a fast-paced, twisty thriller packed with unlikeable characters and LOTS of Moët. The story is told in two POV’s: Lyla and Demi. One thing that got me a little confused at times was how these POV’s overlap, the same scenes would be described in one characters POV and then later one from the others. It kept my interest throughout and had me turning the pages however, there were a lot of things that felt very unrealistic to me and honestly, everything could have been avoided with a simple google search. There is definitely a lot going on in this book so it’s good to take your time reading to make sure you don’t miss anything. The ending was a bit of a let down as well, it felt anticlimactic and a little rushed. I do think this was a unique and clever plot with some equally unique disturbing characters I just wish there would have been a little more organization and development.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Berkley Publishing Group for an eARC of this novel in exchange for my honest review. This title will be released on January 25th.

I am still reeling. There were so many “what the fuck am I reading” moments and I was 100% here for it. This was a new level of crazy, absurd storytelling that had me unable to look away. I read this almost cover to cover, if only my children didn’t need me for basic necessities.
I found this book disturbing, outrageous but at the same time really insightful about the human condition. Where we have Lyra, rich and entitled, we have Demi to provide balance. Demi is homeless with the chance to change her future, as long as she doesn't fall victim to Graham and Lyra’s game.

Lyra and Graham are easy to hate. There’s really nothing redeemable about them. Maybe the fact that Lyra has a small semblance of a conscience because she doesn't actually want to ruin someone’s life. But to her, it's not just win or lose its life and death and that's a sacrifice she’s willing to make.

Lyly, her husband Graham, and her monster-in law-Margo live an elite lifestyle secluded on a large estate in the hills and thus a bit out of touch with reality living in a rich bubble. They are super rich and super bored which turns out is a lethal combination! To overcome their boredom, Graham and his mom like to play a game where they invite a lesser rich person to become a tenant at the guesthouse and then they seek to utterly destroy that person for sport/fun. Lyla intervened during the last game causing dire consequences, so she is now being forced to play with the understanding that if she loses then she'll be ostracized. Enter Demi, the new tenant, a savage tech prodigy who has walked all over people to become who she is, oh and by the way she makes more money than Graham and has no need for friends or more money. Lyla thinks Margo has set her up to fail and she isn't wrong. Turns out Demi isn't actually who they think she is and she has nothing to lose so game on bitches!

I don't think this book will be for everyone. At times the writing seemed a bit choppy and there were a few plot holes. (i.e. the Astrid storyline....why??) The story is an over the top satirical exploration of the rich vs poor. All of the characters are vapid and extremely unlikeable, but that is the point. The short chapters and alternating POVs between Demi and Lyla made the pacing work well and it was a super fast read for me. If you are looking for a different kind of dark thriller with rich unlikeable characters behaving badly then you should check this one out.

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

Lyla and Graham are a wealthy couple and to them life is a game were they must always win, a game that ends when someone dies.

This is a fast-paced thriller with short chapters which made it a fast read. I liked the premise of the book, but the execution fell flat. It was told through two different POV’s of Lyla and Demi (a tenant living on Lyla and Graham’s property). The writing was choppy and at times I was confused. For example, there were multiple chapters of Lyla’s POV but then when you get to Demi’s chapter it doesn’t pick up where Lyla’s chapters end, it starts all the way back to where Lyla’s chapters started, it took me a while to get use to this. Also, I don’t think that a lot things were explained very well which left me with a lot of answered questions. Overall, it was an okay read, but I did really end up enjoying the ending!

A huge thank you to Berkley Publishing and Netgalley for an advanced copy in exchange for my honest review.

Good Rich People is a fast-paced thriller about a family who likes playing a dangerous game. While this book started promising, I feel like it did not deliver.

The characters felt flat with no motivations and like one personality trait each. Even Demi, who I thought was going to be interesting, felt very surface-level. This was nothing new, and I kind of wish I had put it down.