4 stars

A fun yet emotionally engaging regency romance that actually does evoke flavors of Jane Austen in terms of story telling & witty language. The story follows Georgiana, a young woman trying to make friends in society & getting caught up in a web of social entanglements.

[What I liked:]

•Georgiana is a decent MC: naïve, well meaning, imperfect, & she does get a decent character growth arc.

•The story has quite a few funny moments & lines! The darker subject matter was nicely balanced with comic relief.

•The ending (in terms of Georgiana’s & Frances’ relationship) is realistic I think. I’m glad the writer didn’t try to shoehorn a happily ever after in all aspects of the story, where it wouldn’t have fit.


[What I didn’t like as much:]

•This is more due to genre tropes than actual flaws, but I had to suspend a teensy bit of belief to buy Georgiana’s romance with Thomas. I’m not 100% sure why he was attracted to a person he kept encountering drunk/drugged, especially considering his history.

CW: infidelity, sexual assault, substance abuse, accidental death, racism, sexism, classism, domestic violence, homophobia, physical assault/violence

[I received an ARC ebook copy from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review. Thank you for the book!]

Georgiana Ellers has been left with her Aunt and Uncle for the summer as her parents travel. While attending a party, she meets Frances Campbell, a woman of much higher social standing then she. Georgiana latches onto her offer of friendship, and the higher class that will come with it but she wasn't expecting the life of partying and sin she is introduced to.

I listened to this on audio, and I do think the narrator did a great job with the overall vibe of the story... but I'm honestly not sure how I feel about this, hence the three star rating. At times I was really enjoying it, and wanted to keep reading to see what would happen next... but then a few moments later I'd be extremely bored and had to force myself to continue reading. It definitely dives into much deeper topics, such as drug and alcohol abuse, sexual assault and rape, than I originally thought it would. Georgiana was a fun character to get to know. I enjoyed her wit and sarcasm, but hated how easily she was sucked into Frances' mean spirit. It was interesting to see the power dynamics in the friend group though and I definitely think Frances was the most intriguing of the characters. I didn't care much for the romance though, and probably could have done without - but the banter was at least cute.

Overall, it was fun, but nothing entirely memorable in my opinion.

3.5/5 ⭐️s

I was lucky enough to receive an audiobook ARC of this, and I’m glad my first experience of it was via narrator because I just can’t imagine in my head the various British accents and they’re different flavors of judginess that Alex Croucher was aiming for with this book. It was far more fun to sit back and listen!

Georgianna has led a sheltered life, but when she goes to stay with her aunt and uncle and meets Frances Campbell, she’s pulled into a world of parties, drinking, excitement…and impropriety. Will her reputation survive this whirlwind friendship?

What I Loved:
- Thomas Hawksley. There’s a lot of wild and crazy in the world Georgianna’s pulled into, and it often felt like being thrown around in a hurricane. But then Thomas would come onto the page, and he grounded the story AND Georgianna. I loved that so much. He was the calm to their storm.

- Betty Walters. Gotta love an underdog, and the way she has nothing but goodness in her was such a breath of fresh air after all the underhanded and malicious fun Georgianna experienced with Frances and her friends.

- The fall from grace. When Georgianna inevitably realized how little glamor and joy this new world really held, I absolutely adored how her true friends and loved ones rallied around her (looking at you, Mr. and Mrs. Bertram). I wish there’d been more consequence for the people who used Georgianna, but I can’t find fault in it because it was realistic to the times. Nobody’s going to act on a man of such fortune on the words of a girl with no wealth to her name.

What I Didn’t Love:
- This book could’ve been shorter. The plot got a little redundant towards the middle of the story.

Overall, I really loved this story and will definitely be looking for more Lex Croucher reads in the future!

CW: Sexual violence, racism, substance abuse

This book was a miss for me--a satire that seemed to want to criticize historical romance without really having a direction, this book contained far too much sexual violence for my tastes (there is rape off-page, as well as attempted rape on-page, and physical violence from the rapist late in the novel) and though this novel is pitched as a "feminist" spin on romance (and this book gave me the vibes not of a satirist who actually likes romance, but who sort of disdains it), there's the distinct sense that being one of the "improper" women of society is the thing that opens the door to this sexual violence?? ("Good girl" Betty never deals with any of this, and Georgiana's character resolution is to stop going to more improper parties.)

The novel is also really lackluster in how it talks about racism (It Girl Frances is mixed race, but aside from overheard conflict between her parents and a weird scene in which it's implied that enslaved poet Phyllis Wheatley was actually the racist one after all?, this is dropped), substance abuse (it doesn't seem clear how much the novel treats drinking to excess and drug use as an actual problem).

Romance fans would be better served elsewhere, in my opinion.

Reputation is a historical fiction about a young girl, Georgiana, who is sent by her uninvolved parents to live with her Aunt and Uncle and her attempts to form friendships and have a social life. Reputation is categorized as a romance by the publishers, but really the bigger stories here are Georgiana's relationships with her new peers, her own self-discovery, and her realization of where her limitations lie. The audio narration was really good and was a bit more of the "old-school" narration in which it's more of a read through vs. full character voices for each individual in the story.

Georgiana is so desperate to have a circle of friends that she goes along with whatever shenanigans her new clique, led by Francis, get into. These new friends are wealthy and unsupervised, and Georgiana finds herself repeatedly in circumstances that facilitate debauchery and bad decision-making. Eventually, she has to make a choice between doing the right thing and risking friendships and reputations. I have seen this frequently compared to Mean Girls, but I got more of a Heathers vibe (could be the Gen X in me). It wasn't terribly historically accurate, but sometimes these Regency-era stories can get bogged down following all of the rules of the era, so I actually found it refreshing to do away with many of the societal requirements of the day and take some liberties with character activities.

I really enjoyed this story and would definitely read more by this author.

The idea of Mean Girls meets Regency romance sounds so fun, but this was just a bit too much. It was a little over the top for me and my reading preferences these days. The narrator was great and did an excellent job.
The story just wasn't for me. Thanks for letting me give it a shot!

Truly have no words for how much I loved this book. It combines so many things that should work but Croucher makes them all blend together perfectly. Reputation is a mix of Jane Austen, Mean Girls, Bridgerton, and a little bit of Fleabag. A trigger warning for sexual assault.

The story follows Georgianna who comes from a middle class family and moves in with her aunt and uncle for the summer. At a party Georgianna first meets Frances who will change her summer and introduce her to a world she didn't know existed. She meets Frances's friends Jane and Cecily and their male acquaintances well as Thomas who she feels an immediate connection to.

I loved Georgianna so much as a main character. She is not perfect but what I love is how she owns up to her mistakes and is honestly just figuring herself out. Frances is one of the most fascinating characters I have read in a book. She is the Regina in this group of friends but like Regina, there is more to her beyond the surface. All the other characters also all feel so real.

I loved how this book felt both modern and like it could have been from Jane Austen times. Croucher adds a lot of elements that are more prevalent today like the Me Too movement, more open sexuality, and women standing up for themselves. All of these issues felt completely in place in this story and added to what made this such an engaging and unique book.This book is also very very funny and clearly relishes in its nods to Jane Austen and breaking what would have been traditional.

I was lucky enough to receive the audiobook for this book and I want to say how amazing Bessie Carter is. Her narration and voice work added to a story I already loved and if you truly want to feel immersed in the story I recommend the audiobook. Carter happens to be on Bridgerton and that just adds to her amazing performance. Each character has their own unique tone and personality and Carter is a knockout.

Overall I could not recommend more.
*I received an early copy from NetGalley for my honest review.

4 Maybe 4 and ½ Stars!
This was such a fun read.

A huge thank you to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for my gifted audiobook.

Reputation doesn't come out in the US until April of 2022 and I already want more from this author. I am very grateful to have been granted an advanced copy.

What I Loved-

*The Narration- Reputation is narrated by Bessie Carter. She is amazing! Upon researching I only see one other audiobook under her name. I hope that changes soon. She was delightful.

*The Humor- This book really made me laugh. I've been reading thrillers lately and this was exactly what I needed to lighten the mood.

*The Characters- I really loved these characters. I would definitely not mind this turning into a series or even a duology. GIVE ME MORE (please).

*The Drama- The friendships, the entanglements, the jealousy and cattiness. I was here for all of it! So entertaining.

*The Romance- The romance between Georgiana and Thomas. Perfect. They were a couple I could root for.

Why This Wasn't a 5 Star Read-

It took me a while to get into. If you are having the same issue please stick with it.

Overall- Highly Recommend. I will be reading more by this author.

well, this was extremely average.

This is a quintessential 3-star read for me: it wasn't egregiously bad, but it didn't really impress me in any way either. Reputation is being touted as a mashup of Mean Girls and Bridgerton, and I think this is one of those rare instances where the comparisons are actually accurate. This book is basically Mean Girls, but in the Regency era: there's the group of popular rich kids, the cattiness, the drama, the parties, and the normie main character stuck trying to navigate it all.

Does this mashup work? I don't know. Yes and no. Though it was certainly fun to watch the characters getting up to all sorts of highly illicit (by the standards of the Regency era) antics, at a certain point it just felt like more of the same. Like oh what a surprise ! another scene where the characters are being shitty to each other while also getting drunk and doing drugs ! we definitely haven't seen one of those scenes before ! :) Lex Croucher attempts to infuse humour throughout their protagonist's narration to lighten things up, and it's not that that humour didn't work at all, but it just ended up feeling like Croucher was trying too hard. Like I could recognize that a sentence or situation was supposed to be funny, and I could recognize that the author was in fact actively trying to make it funny, but it was just never actually funny to me. (Then again humour is very subjective so take this with a grain of salt I guess.)

I did enjoy some of the exchanges in this novel, especially between the main character and her love interest, but overall I felt like it was a bit paint-by-numbers. Not necessarily in the sense that its plot was super predictable (though it is mostly predictable), but in the sense that nothing in Reputation really surprised me in any way. (The audiobook, narrated by Bessie Carter, is great though! She does all the voices so well and acts the hell out of some of the more dramatic scenes in the book.)

Thanks so much to Macmillan Audio for providing me with an audiobook ARC of this via Netgalley!

It would be very, very hard not to compare this to Netflix's Bridgerton: we have several main characters of color moving in British Regency society with no issues, as with Bridgerton. But honestly, this read much more as a CW channel teen melodrama tv series akin to Gossip Girl, Mean Girls, Dawson's Creek or 90210. We have alcohol, illicit sex, and drugs (missing only the rock and roll, though the love interest plays a mean piano, of course, like a rock star). So if you want a tawdry and salacious tale of rich teens out of control, this is your story. Definitely don't expect any kind of historical accuracy at all.

Story: Georgiana lives a boring provincial life until the outrageous Frances finds her and draws her into her inner circle of wealthy dilettantes. Suddenly, life is exciting - drugs, alcohol, all night partying, and an entrée into high society. The only problem is that Georgiana finds herself attracted to the very reserved Thomas Hawksley - a young man who abhors the wild life she is living. Georgiana will soon find there is a price to pay for the rich life.

To be honest, we have seen this story before, just not in a Regency setting. Bored rich kids whose parents don't love them so they turn to alcohol, parties, and drugs to mask the pain. Add in the top clique (read: the high school cheerleaders and jocks) of 1) mean queen bee, 2) bubble headed blonde, 3) mean sidekick, and men grappling with toxic masculinity and you get the idea. Of course, our young heroine is young and fresh and gets indoctrinated into this group but will eventually realize it is not all it is cut out to be.

This will probably be a hard read for older audiences, watching the heroine be incredibly careless, mean, and selfish for most of the book. There is some reckoning at the end but it would have been nicer to have seen some moral questioning from Georgiana far earlier than at the end. She was pretty unlikable for most of the book. She's quite happy to get drunk most of the book (or take hard drugs) and it was hard to see why the love interest would be even remotely interested in her.

I listened to the audio version and the narrator did an excellent job. I can recommend the audio version. Reviewed from an advance reader copy provided by the publisher.

Oh this was fun! Mean girls of the regency era.

There were even call outs to the movie ‘get in we’re going shopping’ and ‘the limit does not exist’. Love it.

Georgiana is bored and feeling abandoned by her parents at her aunt and uncle’s home in the countryside until she makes the acquaintance of Frances.

Frances and her friends are wild, wealthy and exciting for Georgiana who is delighted to become a part of their circle.

However this group has an ugly side that Georgiana soon meets and must decide if she wants to be that nasty too.

The narrator did a great job with character voices. I particularly liked how she voiced Betty.

Reputation was an interesting mix of Bridgerton meets Mean Girls. Which is exactly what the book tells you it is. And it really, truly is.
It was a fun story following Georgiana and her lust for fun and friendship in a regency era.

Thank you to NetGalley, St Martins, and Macmillan Audio for the advance copy of this book. I listened to the audiobook. The narrator was good and easy to listen to.
I really just immediately assumed that I was going to love this book. After finishing it, I’m just kinda neutral. I haven’t read a ton of regency books so I’m not very well versed in the genre. Despite all the drama that goes down in this, I was still just kinda bored. The description that I’ve seen of this is Mean Girls meets Bridgerton and that’s a far comparison.
The release date is 4/5/22. It wasn’t for me but I think that people who are bigger fans of regency than I am. If you do decide to read it, look up tw there are a handful of sensitive topics that might upset some