The deal: Imagine Mean Girls but in the Bridgerton cinematic universe. (PS - I received an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for this review.)

Is it worth it?: If you’re into relatively fluffy rom-coms and said Mean Girls x regency crossover, you’ll probably love this. I found the back half a bit disappointing — enraging in an “ugh, really?” way vs. a “these crazy kids, c’mon!” way. The beginning also had me stoked for this being queer as hell, and it’s only like, 8% queer. Womp, womp. Alas, if you willingly sat through HBO’s Gossip Girl adaptation, this should be fine.

Pairs well with: Everything mentioned above and also the surprisingly delightful NBC “Bachelorette but make it recency” situation — The Courtship

B

thank you to NetGalley for giving me this arc in exchange for an honest review!

so a little while ago, I marked this book as a temporary-dnf and talked about going back to it eventually but since then, I think I'm just going to finally admit to myself that i will not be finishing this book.
my main qualm with this book based on what I've read as well as some of the reviews that I've been reading is that this book is just not what it was packaged to be at all. "Reputation" is described as being a funny rom-com and it most certainly is not. setting aside the fact that this book is much more intense and dark, it's barely even a romance. i had gotten well over 2/5 of this book and the main interest was only ever seen on two occasions and from the reviews that I've read, that seems to be a running theme. i also hated frances' character and how she was written. it felt like the author put most of the representation into a single character and ended up making her the worst person in the book. amongst a cast full of white people, the black bisexual character is the toxic "Regina George" of the universe and that does not sit right with me at all.
i might have enjoyed this more and been able to get through it had it not been as long as it was. i felt like from the first page forward i was constantly forcing myself to read and even after everything that i read, so little of substance had actually occurred.
Of course, it goes without saying that i am in no position to fully judge this book as i did not finish it and if you want to try this out and it seems interesting to you, by all means read it. but please take the time to look at trigger warnings because this book is not the fluffy rom-com it is packaged as being.

I wasn’t a huge fan of this book; while it had some incredible one-liners, I think the overall writing style just wasn’t for me. But the humor was great, and the story was super interesting!

I don’t post reviews on social media or in my column for books I didn’t love, so this is the only place my thoughts are going!

Mean Girls meets Jane Austen in Lex Croucher’s Reputation. Except… the girls are REALLY mean. I was expecting the scandal, gossip, and partying based off of this book’s premise, but I really just didn’t like any of the main girls. They are entitled, they complain, they put themselves in bad situations, they treat other people like dirt, and they’re just plain awful. Betty, a side character whose conversation skills include talking about gravel for long periods of time, and Thomas, a respectable man with a library (heyyyy) were the only two likable characters. The ending had some redeeming arcs for the characters, but overall, this just wasn’t for me.

Thanks to St. Martin’s Griffin for the ARC!

Georgiana Ellers has practically been abandoned by her parents as they move off to the seaside for better air. This leaves Georgiana with her aunt and uncle where she still feels utterly alone. When off to one of their boring parties, Georgiana meets the enigmatic Frances Campbell and is immediately thrust into the fold of the rich set. Of course, their reputations are something more to be desired...

However, Georgiana finds that although they imbibe in a few raucous activities, she feels as though she belongs and is no longer lonely. The mysterious Mr. Hawksley has her intrigued, and the summer is looking like it will be such an adventure.

This Regency era romp was so good and hard to put down. I was a little sad when it ended. Georgiana's character is very likeable and has the reader cheering for her throughout the tale. Adversities are faced and lessons are learned, and friendships prove to stand through any trial.

I highly recommend Reputation by Lex Croucher, a very fun and loveable read. Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the digital ARC. The opinions expressed are my own.

When I saw the premise of Reputation, Mean Girls meets Jane Austen, I was intrigued. I like Regency era stories as much as the next person, but I find them hard to navigate, as the complex social rules are so foreign to me as to make the characters' circumstances feel rather remote. Am I qualified to evaluate the historical accuracy of this book? Certainly not. Did concerns of historical accuracy affect my reading experience? Not at all.

I love stories that resist the impulse to make historical settings stuffy and let its characters have full, messy lives. I wanted a salacious historical melodrama in the vein of the Bridgerton series, and that's exactly what Reputation offers. All the best Regency balls, social class drama, and courtship will-they-won't-they in a more raucous hedonistic setting.

I appreciated the author's efforts to include LGBTQ+ characters, a multicultural setting, and various relevant social issues to counterbalance the tendency to romanticize the era by recognizing how stifling it could be for individuals who don't fit the strictly defined social mores. These themes were not always introduced elegantly, given the tone and story, but I appreciated them nonetheless. I would offer a trigger warning for sexual violence, as it becomes a major plot point in the third act. While the resolution of this plot line was a little too neat to be believable, it was nice to have some wish fulfillment in a setting where rich men had absolute power over the women in their lives.

Despite some uneven pacing and tone, I couldn't put the book down. Maybe it was a little trashy, but I had an absolute blast.

Abandoned by her parents, bookish and sheltered Georgiana Ellers is spending the summer with her stodgy aunt and uncle at their home in the English countryside. At a particularly dull party, she meets the enigmatic Frances Campbell, a wealthy member of the in-crowd who delights Georgiana with her disregard for so-called “polite society.”
Lonely and vulnerable, Georgiana quickly falls in with Frances and her wealthy, wild, and deeply improper friends, who introduce her to the upper echelons of Regency aristocracy, and a world of drunken debauchery, frivolous spending, and mysterious young men. One, in particular, stands out from the rest: Thomas Hawksley, who has a tendency to cross paths with Georgiana in her most embarrassing moments. Sparks fly, but Thomas seems unimpressed with the company she is keeping. And soon, Georgiana begins to wonder whether she’ll ever feel like she fits in––or if the price of entry into Frances’s gilded world will ultimately be higher than she is willing to pay.
Set against a backdrop of lavish parties, handsome men on horseback––and in a time when one’s reputation was everything––this edgy, hilarious romantic comedy explores sex, consent, belonging, and status through the eyes of an unforgettable heroine that Austen herself would have cheered for.
This is about a lonely girl who would do anything for. attention.
Georgiana is that girl! Thomas is wonderful in the role of suitor.
I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher and NetGalley. This in no way affects my opinion of this book which I read and reviewed voluntarily.

Reputation sounded interesting, Bridgerton meets Jane Austen but it felt more like a regency Mean Girls.

Told from Georgiana’s POV, she is sent to live with her aunt and uncle. She meets Frances, a rich and popular girl. Georgiana starts hanging out and partying with Frances and her friends. There was a romance for Georgiana but the main focus of the story felt more like one of friendships, growing up and finding oneself.

I struggled with the slow start and some of the characters. To be honest, I’m not sure this story was a good fit for me but I can see how others enjoyed it.

Thanks to St Martins Press and NetGalley for the advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

I ended up not being able to finish this one. I wasn't a fan of the writing and even though I respect the mean girl narrative, that is not the type of book that I want to be reading right now.

Reputation by Lex Croucher is an unusual, quirky, and snarky, young adult regency-era romance. It is Mean Girls, set in Regency England, with both the formal language of the time mixed with some modern language of today. As I said, it’s very unusual and highly entertaining. The book also deals with some heavy topics, that young people deal with both in the past and in modern times.

Georgiana Ellers has moved to the countryside to live with her aunt and uncle after her parents moved to the seaside to help her mother’s health. Georgiana’s aunt and uncle are very good to her, but they live a boring life, and Georgiana becomes lonely and depressed. Until she meets vivacious Frances, daughter of Lord and Lady Campbell, and a fast friendship ensues. Georgiana is introduced to the wealthy friends of Frances and she becomes one of their circle of friends.

I said before this was a strange book, but it was also fun because it’s so different than what I expected. The author did an excellent job at highlighting the issues that young people face with peer pressure and the effects of drinking heavily. This book covers some dark topics as well, heavy drinking, sexual assault, and depression, and doesn’t hold back. However, the antics of these younger characters will make you laugh, and then cry. And the issues are handled in a compassionate way.

I’m not 100% sure what the author was trying to do here. It’s set in regency times, but the manners and formality of that time are only represented in the older adults. The younger characters behave and talk in a much more modern way, which I’m not sure is representative of this time period. But, it would appeal to a younger and more modern audience and I believe this was done on purpose in order to make the characters very relatable. So, if you’re hoping this book is going to be accurate, based on the time period, this may not be for you. But, if you can suspend belief and go with it, you’ll find an immersive story with rich characters that are a delight to read.


I recommend this book to anyone who enjoys Young Adult books set in historical times. I received a complimentary copy of this book. The opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

The book is a solid Austen like romance read very reminiscent of Mansfield Park and Emma. It did take a while for the book to get going but it was a fair read. I would recommend buying it for my library.

What exactly was this book? It certainly wasn’t a Regency romance. Just because the characters use carriages instead of cars while acting like completely modern twenty-year-olds doesn’t make it Regency. And, there was very little in the way of actual romance. Then, there was the fact that at times it read like a YA book despite some rather adult themes. And, frankly, I cannot imagine any Jane Austen fan being anything but horrified by it. There was, however, a bit of humor; unfortunately, not enough to save the book or recommend it.

My copy of this book was provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. My thanks to the the author, the publisher, and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review it.

For those that liked the Bridgerton show, this book is very similar, and originally one of the reasons why I picked it up. It's a bit of a twist on a historical fiction romance, with a dash of Mean Girls thrown in. Overall, I enjoyed the book.

This book took a long time for me to get into. It provides a lot of character and location description, which I found very distracting. I found that at the beginning of the novel there were some storylines started, but did not go anywhere. Meanwhile I found some main storylines there were large gaps in order for me to follow. This did even out about mid-book, and once storylines were well established I found them intriguing.

The end of the book I was very into, the storylines picked up, there was some drama and I was hooked, I just wish it had hooked me earlier in the story.

There was not a lot of character development in my opinion, and there were a lot of characters introduced - would be nice to include a family tree or overall character list.

I also would caution that this book needs to come with some trigger warnings, and I don't remember reading about those in the description.

3 stars, rounded up from 2.5 stars

When I started reading Reputation, I wasn’t sure at all if I was going to like it. I’ve seen descriptions calling it “Bridgerton meets Mean Girls”, and I suppose that’s fairly accurate. I was taken aback by what seemed to be anachronistic actions and phrases (was “cross-dressing” even a word back in the early 1800s?). However, the more I read (or listened!), the more I was drawn into the story, despite disliking virtually all the characters and thinking it would make more sense set in the modern era. Georgiana is the female main character and she really just wants to fit in with the “in crowd” of the day, all very rich (she’s middle class), and all very inclined to indulge in alcohol and drugs at unchaperoned parties. She will do most anything to fit in with the people she thinks are her new friends. She totally ignores and/or is rude to a young woman named Betty who is decidedly not in that crowd. I hated how Georgiana treated Betty for most of the book.

One of the main characters is a young woman of mixed heritage - her father is an English lord and her mother a Black woman from the West Indies. (There seems to be something rather amiss in that marriage but we never get details, which was frustrating.) Another main character is also of mixed heritage - English father and Indian (real India) mother. There is also one admittedly queer main character and a hint that a couple of others may also be.

This felt like a book aimed at the Young Adult market, albeit a rather dark story. There are several content warnings: alcohol abuse, drugs, rape (off-page), sexual assault (on-page).

I bounced between the audiobook and the ebook for this title, which was very convenient. The audiobook was wonderfully narrated by Bessie Carter.

Thank you to Macmillan Audio and NetGalley for the opportunity to listen to an advance copy of this audiobook and to St. Martin’s Griffin and NetGalley for the opportunity to read an advance reader copy of this book. All opinions are my own.

Wow! Scandalous and mean girl story! Loved every direction this storyline explored. Yes, even the down and dirty. Well done with great characters.
Thank you NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review this book

I really wanted to enjoy this book. I was excited about the setting and the plot. Unfortunately, I got 32% into this story and realized the character were not at all interesting and I didn't care a thing about them. There was no notable character development and nothing had happened. It felt like a YA novel. I love reading YA stories, but I don't think this book is supposed to be YA and even if it was, it still didn't hit well for me. Sadly, I have no interest reading any further into this novel.

I really wanted to love this one but it just wasn't for me. I had a lot of trouble getting into it and had to force myself to keep picking it up. For some reason I was expecting something fun and lighthearted and this wasn't that. There were some interesting relationships explored here, but I didn't find myself caring much about the characters. The writing style just overall wasn't for me, but I don't typically read regency romance; someone who does may have a much better experience with this.

Overall, not a fan, but I can understand why some people love this book.

Mean girls is right! This book certainly has a mean streak. I loved all the melodrama. Especially the fact that not everyone in regency England was white, straight, a saint, and downright dull. Won't be everyone's cup of tea, but I enjoyed it.

Reputation was an amazing read! I loved seeing POC characters be front and center in this regency romance. It was a book I genuinely wished was longer so I could spend more time in this world!

I will give the trigger warning that there was the aftermath of no consensual sex and attempted rape in this book. I wasn’t expecting it and it was a pivotal part of the story however, if that’s not something you can read I’d skip this book.

This started our fun and then got so very deep and heavy with hard topics to talk about. I loved the mean girls vibe and how George evolved as a character from start to finish. I love that she thought she needed one thing to be a good friend then truly learned who she was and what she wanted out of life. I enjoyed the ending and the redemption we got for each friendship. And Thomas…swoon!