Rumors have power. Their power can give someone the world, or rip their lives apart, and a fancy high school in DC is about to get a lesson no one should have to learn.

The Rumor mill starts off with Bryn. She used to be the biggest power player in the school, until the car not-so-accident took away her popularity and life as she envisioned it. But she will do anything to get that life back.

Her best friend Cora is not only the cheer captain, her longtime boyfriend almost died in that car crash. Plus, with a super genius twin sister, life is not as easy as it should be. She doesn’t know what she wants but she knows what she doesn’t want, if only she could admit it.

Georgie is the formerly fat next door neighbor to Bryn. She is Punjabi, an immigrant, and newly noticeable on the hotness scale after losing 40 pounds at fat camp.

In this book the reader watches rumors change people, events, and the school. What is real, and in a world of social media, does it really matter what is real? All that matters is how things appear. If it appears that Georgie kissed Bryn’s ex-boyfriend, then she did. If it appears that Georgie had sexy fun time with Cora’s boyfriend, then she did. But rumors are like a game of telephone. They start off one way and take on a life of their own until they cause the fall of everyone.

This was an interesting read. The audiobook is very well done, in each of the three main girls are voiced by different narrators. The rumor list gets very repetitive when listening in audiobook form, but at the same time, that list is everything. This book is definitely social thriller, but as an adult looking back on the rumors from my time in high school, I could also classify this as horror. The things that happen, that no one tries to stop are the stuff that horror stories are made of. There may not be blood and gore, but the emotional horror can be forever lasting.

Overall I really liked this book but I didn’t love it. It was very real. It feels very much like over privileged teen agers let loose in a society where they see themselves as self-sufficient adults, but are really scared little kids looking for help and acceptance. As a bigger person, the constant harping on Georgie’s weight gets annoying, as does the constant praise of her weight loss. However, many of her emotions towards this are very real and very understandable. Cora is so unsure of herself. And while in a character this annoys me, it is very true to teen age life. Heck is Cora was surer of herself, maybe this would be a different book. And Bryn, well the less said the better. I think teens will see themselves, kids they know, and the school they go to, in these pages. ( )

“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!
*I received an arc from the publisher through NetGalley for an honest review ( )

Disclaimer: I received this book for free from Netgalley and Disney Hyperion in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

The Rumor Game tells the story of a elite private high school in Washington DC, in the links that some people will go to protect themselves and hurt others. It’s a dark, dramatic contemporary story that unfortunately has too many ties to potential real life situations. I’ll be honest from the forefront and say that I didn’t enjoy The Rumor Game, but I do believe it is an incredibly well written book and will be real received by the correct audience.

My complaints about this book have nothing to do with its actual quality and everything to do with the types of media I prefer to ingest. The Rumor Game is a book filled with unlikable people, putting each other in the worst situations, and behaving as badly as they possibly can. It is stressful and uncomfortable to read, at least as far as I’m concerned. That said, if you’re the type of person who enjoys reality TV or police procedural‘s, this book will probably be just fine for you. This story follows the children of politicians and the elite of the capitol of the United States, and the characters are written in such a way that their every instinct is to protect themselves and sabotage others. If there was a single nice person in The Rumor Game, it would’ve been Georgie, but rumors and lies take a toll even on the nicest people.

The plot twists and turns, and although some of it is predictable, you get so focused on a single aspect of the story that you don’t expect it to explode quite the way it does. The authors certainly keep you reading, but it’s a bit like a car accident where you can’t look away but you don’t really want to see what’s going on. The Rumor Game is a hard book to read, emotionally, and I’m sure it was an extremely difficult book to write. It also makes an excellent point. This novel isn’t afraid to go into the corruption of selfish hearts, the pains of having emotionally abusive and emotionally absent parents, and the way malicious lies can follow us everywhere we go because of the infusion of social media and our daily lives.

I always find it challenging to recommend books that don’t leave me with that feel good feeling, but I will go as far as to say that The Rumor Game is well written, well thought out, and cover several important topics. There are many, many circumstances of trauma inducing events in this book, so please make sure to look into the trigger warnings (I have them on my blog, and you can also see them on the StoryGraph) before reading this book. Otherwise, if you think it sounds interesting, I recommend you pick it up and support the authors. It’s really well done, and while I didn’t like it, that has nothing to do with the quality of the book and everything to do with the way it left me feeling when I finished it. You’ll have to judge for yourself. ( )