Gossip girl vibes with murder? yes please. This is a YA murder mystery filled with drama. Set in New York City with a group of high-schoolers in the process of joining the exclusive Legacy club when on the night of the annual ball someone turns up dead. With a duel timeline and multiple povs, this was a bit slow moving. A decent read, but nothing too memorable.

If you want a quick and entertaining read, this is for you. Downside, there is a lot more telling than showing, which keeps the world and characters kinda flat. It starts a bit slow then picks up about halfway through. The plot twist was plot twisting though.

Moral of the story: With friends like these, who needs enemies? Everybody showed out and the parents were worse!

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 Legacies" started with a bang. Jessica Goodman definitely knows how to set a scene, and the initial intrigue surrounding the elite legacy students and their secrets was genuinely captivating. I was hooked, ready to dive deep into their world of privilege and hidden agendas.
However, somewhere around the halfway mark, the story just… deflated. The initial spark fizzled out, and the plot began to meander. The characters, who initially seemed complex and interesting, started to feel one-dimensional, their motivations becoming increasingly unclear.
Honestly, I began to ask myself, "Why do I even care?" The stakes felt low, the drama felt manufactured, and the twists and turns, which should have been shocking, just felt tedious. The initial promise of a gripping thriller dissolved into a muddled mess of half-baked plotlines and underdeveloped characters.
It's a real shame, because the beginning held so much potential. The writing itself wasn't terrible, but the lack of substance and the increasingly frustrating plot made it a slog to finish. I rounded up to two stars because the very beginning did hold my interest, but ultimately, "The Legacies" failed to deliver on its initial promise.

The Legacies details the aftermath and the lead-up to a murder in the prestigious Legacy Club. It's written a little differently than Goodman's previous novels; it embraces a multi-POV narrative style and a non-linear timeline. It follows Bernie, Isobel, and Tori, who are all rising seniors at the same prep school and nominees for entry into the Legacy Club, but their personal and home lives couldn't be more different.
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I think that the alternating first-person POV chapters worked really well here; it allows us to get into each girl's head and see what she is dealing with. We follow Bernie as she grapples with how her mom basically fell off the face of the earth, Isobel as she struggles with harboring a reputation-ruining secret and substance abuse, and Tori as she realizes just how ruthless she is capable of being. This is interspersed with short anecdotes about the investigation of the murder, and we know that these girls are involved somehow, but not who was murdered or why. I thought that this was a unique stylistic choice that definitely kept me engaged as the story unfolded.
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I really like how here, Goodman has our main characters realize that their parents are not who they thought they were, and that their parents' actions in the past impact them today. It's a good exploration of generational trauma in the context of wealth and prestige (because those things don't automatically equal a healthy home life).
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I found this one to be an engaging, expertly-plotted thriller.

Gossip girl meets pretty little liars? 2 of my favorite shows. So YES!!! I enjoyed this one. Didn’t love it but for a YA novel-I did enjoy it. The dual timeline & multiple POVs had me staying on course so I didn’t miss a beat (or a ball for that matter). I really liked the characters & the twists & secrets. It all came together well.

Fun fast read. Finished in a couple of sittings. Characters are as you would expect, but it didn't take away from the overall story. Looking forward to more stories by this author.

#thelegacies
#netgalley
#jessicagoodman

2.5 stars

I was so excited for The Legacies, because a thriller with secret societies and lots of secrets always calls to me! The story started out pretty strong for me. I was interested to see who ended up dead and the after the ball parts of the story really kept you wondering who didn't make it. We definitely got lots of drama and secrets, but I do feel like the drama took over the wanting to find out what went on with the murder. Also, while I love multiple POVs, I still often felt we really didn't get to know the characters if that makes sense. The Legacies kept my interest enough to finish, but unfortunately wasn't my favorite.

I like that this book was pretty fast paced and I didn't feel like it dragged at all. I think this was written well, but I just didn't find myself connecting to any of the characters at anytime.

The beginning of the book is full of unlikable people and little to no redeeming qualities. The last thir, however, is unputdownable.

If you’ve ever read a Jessica Goodman book before this is pretty on par with the rest of her books.
I will say that if you’re looking for some crazy reveal at the end you’re looking in the wrong place. I think her books are solid 4 star reads and are always entertaining which is why I keep reading them!
I had an idea of where the story was going from the beginning but I was hooked into the story pretty quickly. The characters are just wild and it’s a pretty telling story of entitlement in high society New York. You can’t always get what you and what you think you deserve isn’t always what you get …
Definitely recommend this one, like her others!

2 ⭐️

I really liked the layout of this. The pieces in 3rd person from the aftermath of the ball and then the first person flashbacks from the girls' POVs. It keeps you guessing, and with each piece that is revealed in regards to what happened in the ball, you either feel relief or worry.

I think the author captured what a club like this might be like well. Everyone is "friends," but you can't tell they're mostly bonded by secrets. They're also mostly very unlikable, and while that shows the author did a good job writing them, it can make it hard to read.

My issue with this is that it's very formulaic. The rich kids with secrets, the outsider who is reeled into the world and wants to change it. They're friends, and then they fight over the secrets just before the big death happens. All of this made the ending predictable once you figured out who the body was.

I'm also sadly not a fan of books where you don't know who the deceased is. I like to try and solve the crime, and with books like this, you spend more time trying to figure out who died, and then they tell you what happened straight after.

I received an advance review copy of this book, and this review represents my honest opinion. Thank you to netgalley, the author, and the publisher for the opportunity to read this book.

I enjoyed the premise of this one but did not feel a true connection to any of these characters. They were behaving incredibly nonsensically more to push the plot forward than to feel plausible. Also I hated the way everything came together in the end. It felt incredibly rushed.

Jessica Goodman has done it again. I was so interested in this book from the very beginning and not one time could I have predicted the ending. The way it all tied everything together was flawless. She is quickly becoming an auto buy author and this book did not disappoint at all!

I’m such a sucker for secret societies, and Goodman does a fantastic job of delivering a propulsive, fast paced thriller that kept me hooked from start to finish.

Jessica Goodman, my YA thriller queen. Best release since They Wish They Were Us (in my opinion)!

The story is so fast-paced that you don't get time to connect to the characters yet feel an utter determination to discover the mystery behind the smokescreens. 9/10 read for me, I couldn't put it done!

The Legacies tries to position itself as a murder-mystery set in a Gossip Girl-esque world. Goodman creates some interesting characters, but the core mystery falls flat. I cannot help but imagine what Goodman could have done if this was an adult novel. After reading so many YA murder mysteries, I do not think that this sub-genre works in YA.

I just couldn't get hooked into this one. It was similar to a lot of other books in the genre I've read recently and it just didn't stand out among them.

I love a good dark academia book! This was a thrilling exploration into the cutthroat world of elite prep schools. The author combined lots of mystery and drama, uncovering dark secrets and rivalries. This book is such a page-turner and kept me engaged until the very end.

If you love rich kid drama, murder mysteries, and twists, then you will love The Legacies. The writing was little choppy as well and kept throwing me out of the story. The book is told from multiple perspectives, which adds depth but can be a bit confusing with so many characters