This is a well done cautionary tale about the consequences of online rumors and how quickly they spin out of control and spark bulling. The main characters were well written and really drove home how out of control everything became. The setting was likewise well done and used the privilege and wealth to advance the story. I did find the pacing to be a bit off, it was pretty clear what was going on, so it was frustrating to see how long it took the students to start noticing what was happening. I would also like to note the book may be triggering for some readers because of the slut shaming and discussion of sexual assault and the racism directed at some of the characters.

The story was very drawn out in the beginning, which made it a quite boring to start. However, it explored a very interesting and relevant topic in YA - rumors. I felt this could have been explored even deeper. the diverse cast of characters was a plus!

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

“People can be so cruel, and your generation really misuses social media”…preach, mama!
This snapshot of the daily lives of teens who deal with bullying, racism, victim blaming, body shaming, ‘asking for trouble’ with what you wear, girls being shamed for wanting to be wanted, drug facilitated sexual assault, guilt, humiliation, friendship, entitlement and popularity; then come the lies and rumors circling within the cyclone of all of these things that takes out everyone in its path. Playing with people’s lives can take on a life of its own!

In the Rumor Game you can’t blink without a photo being snapped, a comment made, posted online, then bing! Another and another roll in without the need of truth, and you have a disaster. You also have the realities of high school, where people need to be reminded that there are humans behind the screens, and that they’re real people who matter.

Clayton & Charaipotra magnificently address all of these social issues head on and they’re not pulling any punches. Throughout this Rumor Game there are pieces of advice, warnings of what you shouldn’t try, and ultimately when to know it’s time to get some real help. The Rumor Game is exhausting, certainly leaves quite a mess, but man, what a book!

Bryn is a high ranking politician’s daughter who made a huge mistake, one that dethroned her from her Queen Bee position and tore her apart from her best friend, Cora. She needs to win back her status and rehabilitate her image, something she sees as necessary for her presidential run, something her politician father was ‘cheated’ out of due to a recent scandal not unconnected with her mistake. To accomplish this resurrection, Bryn creates a plan to destabilise her school’s hierarchy and recapture her place at the top using her neighbor/acquaintance, Georgie, who recently lost a lot of weight and is newly 'hot'. Georgie, another narrator, is discovering how her ideas of what she wants may not jive with her parents', all while grappling with a dark family secret from her past that forced her family to leave India. The drama between these three girls drives the story of their senior year as all their plans spiral out of their control.

All in all, this makes for a pretty good thriller, in the sense of plots and manipulation. It reminded me a little bit of Euphoria, being a little more revealing about high school life and having characters with very specific situations and skeletons. Because most of the 'secrets' are laid out by the narrating character, the twists are fairly predictable, but how the story unfolds made me keep reading way past when I should have been sleeping.

I liked reading from the perspectives of all three main characters, Cora, Georgie, and Bryn. I particularly appreciated for Cora the depiction of the difficult family life and loving relationship she has with her boyfriend, which made somebody who could have just been a mean girl archetype into a full character that I loved reading from. Cora's relationship with her sister Millie was one of my favorites in this book because it was a very realistic depiction of the slight resentment and abundant love these siblings have for each other. All three of them, however, had distinct pressures and psychodramas that covered a good range of issues typically experienced in high school such as body image, school performance, relationships, assault, harassment, parental pressure, etc. This broad range was actually very well done, feeling natural to all the characters and fitting with all the story lines.

Very surprisingly for me, this book landed its ending pretty well, mixing realism with closure in a way that is typically difficult for explosive YA thrillers. On another side note, the book takes place in DC in areas that I'm super familiar with and I loved all the accurate little restaurant and landmark details that made the story feel very authentic to the upper-crust DC environment.

tl;dr Highly readable and pace-y high school drama/thriller with plenty of gossip, manipulation, and great characters

A free e-copy of this book was received from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review

Bryn used to be Queen Bee at her rich private school full of the children of politicians. When a few bad decisions leads to her downfall, she'll do anything to regain her popularity. Hoping to win back her best friend Cora, Bryn takes newly thinner Georgie as a protege for winning the high school game. When rumors swirl around the girls, their boyfriends, and their weekend behaviors, things quickly spiral out of control.

The Rumor Game is an edgy look at how social media inflates even small rumors. The party lifestyle seemed extreme, but they had direct impacts on the lives of the characters. I wanted more from the ending, the consequences, and the discussion of consent.

I really enjoyed this book! Like Dhonielle & Sona's other books, I was gripped to the very end! I was positively gagged and gooped at the plot twist in this book and I loved the different points of view! No one does Intrigue in a private school setting like Dhonielle & Sona! I can't wait to get a finished copy!

I will note that the E-format was a little odd so somethings didn't make sense but didn't take away from the book, overall for me! I can't wait to see what it looks like printed!

In the world of Washington DC’s elite and their children, rumors are bound to fly. But when high school senior Bryn Colburn has her whole world upended by an accident and vicious rumors that follow, she wants nothing more than to get her life back. She befriends Georgie, her Indian neighbor who is finding her way after a summer at “camp” and who wants nothing more than to be seen. When Georgie becomes the victim of rumors, Bryn offers her expertise in terms of taking control and that involves her ex-best friend Cora. As the rumors swirl and the lies twist and turn, who can help them uncover the truth? A harsh look at the realities of rumors that is both eye opening and engaging for all.

I had to DNF this book. I just couldn't get into it. I didn't care about any of the characters and I had to force myself to try to pick it up everyday. I finally decided it wasn't worth the effort. The writing was fine, I think it just wasn't for me.

This book is so diverse it kinda hurts: blacks, whites, Desis, Asians, various LGBTQ+ characters, and yet none are particularly likable or well developed. And, of course, there's a dash (or more) of social media-as-bad-thing going on. As for the plot, that felt half-baked as well. With a little bit better editing and less of an attempt to be so inclusive (yes, I know it takes place in a private school in DC filled with diplomats children, which would make it diverse by nature) would have made this a stronger book. Same with less fat-phobia.

eARC provided by publisher via Netgalley.

As someone who is a teacher that works in a high school setting, this book easily hit home with what my students experience. While my students are not high class like these in the book, the rumor mill is all the same. The authors took the time to build the story, and just when you think you know who is spreading the rumors, you find out your completely wrong. I enjoyed this book and would recommend it to anyone interested in Young Adult novels, including my students.

This was a really interesting idea that just lacked the punch I was expecting and ended up pretty middle of the road. There are some great discussions on racism, fatphobia, mental health, bullying, and many more but the focus is the rumors and how it impacts three girls. The problem with this is that the girls themselves were pretty unlikeable so I never got emotionally invested in their stories. I think I could have accepted this more if it wasn't so obvious who had started the rumors. If it had more a thriller feeling with trying to figure out who did what, this could have worked but as it was, there was no intrigue and unlikeable characters and that combination left me not caring. (Side note: The book is actually billed as a social thriller which I find to be misleading as the reveal of who is behind the rumors happens really early on and wasn't even surprising when it was revealed as there are a ton of hints given before that.)

Georgie was definitely my favorite character and I thought her storyline was the most interesting. She makes some bad choices and the whole "plan" was really stupid but I could still get behind her. Her story alone or even with Cora as a counterpoint could have worked better for me than the 3 POV story I got. The chapters with Brynn really just took me out of the story because she is so delusional. Her whole story is her trying to get back with the in crowd after she does a pretty terrible thing that happens before the start of the book. How that storyline played out did not ring true to me at all and didn't fit with the rest of the book.

Overall, this wasn't bad and there will be people who really enjoy it I'm sure, but sadly, I wasn't one of them.

* I received a free ARC from NetGalley (thank you!) in exchange for an honest review.

** The mixed-media portions in this ARC were a formatting mess and really hard to read (some of the newspaper articles were unreadable with a jumble of text jumping between sentences). I assume this will be fixed in the final version and have not included this in my rating.

Bryn knows about rumors all too well, since she's the subject of most of them. After a car accident she caused that almost killed her ex-boyfriend, Bryn has learned to monitor the rumors and how to attempt to cope with them. When the rumors start to finally ease off her and onto her friends, if she can even call them that, they have to work together to navigate them, and figure out who started it all.

I'll start this off by saying that this is a VERY heavy story, full of a lot of difficult topics, as demonstrated by the trigger warnings above. I highly recommend waiting to start this book until you are emotionally and mentally sound for it.

That being said, I think the whole aspect of cyberbullying and rumors was definitely taken to the extreme for this, obviously for plot reasons. It very much was a lot of petty drama and an overemphasis on online drama. I know it's meant to show the impact of rumors and what it does to the lives of people who the rumors are about, but very early on it gets very stale, and the rumors at least don't have much impact until the one major one at the very end of the story. Even then, it was hard to read because of the graphic and foul nature of what occurred.

Because of all of this, there weren't many characters I did like. I only liked maybe one minor character but that's about it. Bryn has good reasoning but she comes off like a pity case. Cora is cruel except for the few times she isn't. Georgie I kind of liked because of her whole body image arc, which I related to a lot, but I can't really speak to the accuracy of which the "weight camps" hold true for this story. I also can't really speak to the representation of the marginalized communities in this story as I myself am not a part of those communities.

The nature of the book itself leads to the fact that it doesn't really have a linear plot. It's just a bunch of smaller events smashed together in an attempt of a plot. As a result, I just couldn't really get into the book until over halfway through. The formatting of the story on my Kindle as well was extremely wonky due to a lot of multimedia things within the story itself. That ended up taking me out of the story slightly.

Overall, the Rumor Game is reminiscent of Riverdale and other high school dramas, with a wide variety of difficult topics that can make it hard to read.

I received a copy of this story as an e-ARC from NetGalley. Any and all thoughts and opinions are my own.

This book was a slight change of pace in my recent psychological thriller reading streak, mainly because it was in YA category, although personally I considered it more of a suspense than a thriller. In any case it was a thrilling mind escape into the world of modern teenagers.

Bryn, the quintessential popular girl is starting her senior year at the fancy Foxham Prep no longer enjoying the perks of popularity. After an incident involving her now ex-boyfriend the rumor mill worked overtime ensuring her fall from grace. Now she's on the outs, estranged from her best friend Cora & at risk of losing her student council presidency. Cora is a cheer-leading captain and in a committed, loving relationship with Foxham's most popular boy. But is their love strong enough to survive once the rumors start. Bryn start hanging out with her next door neighbor Georgie whose dramatic physical transformation that happened over the summer all of a sudden brings her a lot of attention but it also puts her at the center of some of the latest rumors.

As much as I enjoyed the story, I absolutely loved the format it was told in. (alternating point of view between 3 girls but also graphic representations of social media posts, as well as post-its listing all recent rumors) There is a bit of mystery at the heart of the story which made the story really fun to read. Likability of characters is never an important factor for me, as long as I like the story but if you're a reader for whom that matters, just note that all characters are portrayed in shades of grey.

Grateful to NetGalley and Disney Publishing Worldwide for providing me with a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This book is gossip girl but with diversity, it shows the craziness that is high school in a world with social media.

This book follows three main characters, Bryn, Cora, and Georgie. Cora is the top girl at school. She throws the best parties, is dating the star of the lacrosse team, and is the head cheerleader. Georgie recently got back from fat camp and is finally popular, but is that really what she wants? Bryn's mom is in a psychiatric rehab and she almost killed her classmates in a wreck during the summer. She went from being elected as class president to being the most disliked kid in school.

When school starts back with all that happened during the summer- someone is starting rumors. These rumors are ruining Coras relationship with her boyfriend, Georgie has became the talk of the senior class-and not for a good reason-and the entire study body wants Bryn removed from office.

As the three girls try to navigate their senior year - social media is ruining everything.

In the end everything blows up in all of their faces- students are kicked out of school, charges are filed, and their senior year is ruined.

This book does have triggers for SA, Fat-phobia, drugs, and racism.

This was definitely not what I was expecting and I was very pleased. Definitely a must read. I would take breaks only to find myself wanting to go back and read more!

This is a terrifying and amazing book. Truly, I've never been so glad to have been part of that last generation of kids to go through schooling without social media as a dominating presence. That said though I'm so glad to have read this novel. It was hard to fully grasp the immense, crushing pressure social media has on the teenagers I have in my life or understand the worries of my loved ones who are teachers anxious over the oppressive, damaging impact they see it having on their students. I get it now, thanks to this story.

This is what fiction can do for people: put us in shoes that we don't wear so we can *feel* it, whatever 'it' is in that instance. As a reader I lived through ambitious Bryn, perfectionist Cora, and sweet Georgie. They're all desperate for similar things: acceptance, love, attention, control. They all live on a stage because social media puts them there, every action on display and rehashed by the masses. Their stories have really shaken me.

I can't tell you how many times this novel made my stomach churn, my mind rage, and my heart break. You can see yourself at that age in each of these girls, not necessarily by the actions but how it felt then. The authors beautifully and painfully captured the essence of that time in a way that stays with you after the final page.

I've been thinking about these characters and their stories since I put it down days ago, trying to decide what I wanted to say in this review. Sure there's the book part of it: the characters are uniquely-voiced and interesting, the plot is fast-paced and engrossing, the use of social media is fascinating and well-done. It's wonderfully written, which was no surprise from this writing duo.

But more than that I want to say this: if you have a teen in your life that you love, you'll read this book. Even if it hurts, you need to feel it. You need to know because, as dramatic as it sounds, I think I'm going to be a better loved one to the kids in my life due to this book. That's why I will recommend this book to every adult I know, even if they scoff at it being YA. It's important that we do our part and reading this is one small thing we can all do for them.

Note: I received a free electronic edition of this book via NetGalley in exchange for the honest review above. I would like to thank them, the publisher, and the author for the opportunity to do so.

A bunch of rich kids who don't care about being horrible to others until it affects them personally. Every generation think they have this horrible time that no one else can understand. However, everyone who came before knows that you bring a lot of it on yourself. This is The Rumor Game. Shallow pretending to be deep. Or just deep for people who haven't found the drop-off yet. Probably will appeal to gen z.

What I liked about this book was the social commentary. Bullying is a big issue in society today. And it is even worse due to social media. High school is hard enough as it is without rumors and gossip and social media. The authors do a good job with all the elements and makes me so glad I am no longer that age.

arc provided by netgalley for an honest review.

This plot surrounds several high school girls in an elite boarding school and how the rumours and social pressure deeply impact them all. Initially when I had heard about this book, it was advertised as a PLL/Gossip Girl sort of environment, which I think was not a good strategy at least in my experience because I had a far different expectation for the book. While they do deal with many pressures, unlike many of the shows or books that discuss these in this environment The Rumor Game also really showed how quickly people can change and alter themselves so they either fit in with said rumours or fight back.

I personally did not really have a strong connection to any of the girls other than Georgie at times but it was very interesting to see how each of the girls were impacted in different ways. The writing prose really was not for me and I struggled with it greatly. I’m not sure if it’s because I in particular do not enjoy books in a high school setting but the dialogue really did not catch my attention and how the social media aspect of the book was written is not something I enjoyed. I was very intrigued with this book but I had wished it was written more as a thriller, nevertheless I did think that in the end it was executed very well.

I made it 20% through this book before DNF'ing it. The concept intrigued me since I tend to love any dramatic, Gossip Girl-esque high school novel. However, I did not find the characters compelling and writing was not my style. I did find the portrayal of social media and teenagers to be fairly accurate, yet I didn't find the plot to be interesting or realistic.