Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the ARC!
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The Book: The Legacies by Jessica Goodman
The rating:
3/5
The book in three phrases:
Parental drama
Nepo baby rich kid club
Rich kids behaving badly
Format read:
Kindle
Genre:
YA mystery (vaguely thriller toward the end)
Content warnings
- Parent death
- Substance abuse
The Synopsis (from memory)
Tori, Isobel, and Bernie go to Excelsior Prep, a fancy rich kid school in New York City, and are all being nominated for the prestigious nepo baby Legacy Club, an exclusive club with only 36 new members each year, all nominated by current members. Secrets come spilling out as the mystery unfolds and relationships are challenged.
The Review (TLDR)
This was fine-good. It wasn’t great, it wasn’t bad, it was mostly fine then good post-75%. The club itself seems really weird and doesn’t entirely make sense to me since it’s just family connections anyway, why even have the club? Tori is really the only likeable character, and she was just fine. It did have my least favorite thriller murder-type ever though.
The story overall doesn’t really feel like anything new but if you like rich kid teen drama mystery stuff, it’s worth a shot. I was a little bored in the first half but it started to pick up and I enjoyed the last 25% more though as the mystery unfolded. I still didn’t love it but I didn’t hate it either. It was just fine.
The Good
The mystery. I enjoyed the mystery and reveals, it wasn’t necessarily shocking (for me) or far fetched which is part of why I liked it. I don’t know if there’s much more to even say about it, but I liked this part of it.
Tori. Tori is just a regular kid at this fancy school on a scholarship so she doesn’t have the annoying rich kid thing going which was nice because it made her the only likeable character.
The Bad
Most of the characters. Like I’ve said, most of the characters are terrible rich kids which makes them very unlikable. And I say this as a Chuck Bass fan (yes, I know hes awful, that’s the point), but I don’t like any of these people. Bernie was OK, and maybe Kendall a little bit but that’s it.
The club. I think my biggest hang-up was just this club in general. Like.. I just don’t get the point of it? I like a weird exclusive club but I don’t understand this one.
Legacy Club members look out for each other. Generations are in this club. You can’t nominate your own family but your friends are in it, too, so they nominate your kids. So this club is basically just a club full of friends and family and they use their connections for each other.
I just don’t get why this is a club when these people would all do this anyway? I think this would be less baffling to me if we got a look at when happens IN the club not the nomination process. I mean, all these people know they’re getting in anyway.
The murder. I won’t spoil it, but the murder is one of my absolute least favorite things in thrillers.
Should you read The Legacies, too?
If you love Gossip Girl (which I do) I’d say it’s worth a shot. If the mechanics of the club don’t bother you, you’ll probably like it more than me.
Have you read The Legacies? What did you think of it? Would you recommend it? I want to hear your thoughts!
