DNFed at 13%

I was not connecting to this story at all and found myself dragging through the few chapters I did read. This sadly is just not for me.

Goodman's latest novel has been one that I've been looking forward to reading for a while. Although they aren't literary masterpieces, her books are typically fun and engaging, with just enough mystery to keep me interested. I appreciated that this one seemed to follow a similar pattern.

Conceptually, this story was fairly promising. Isolated, I enjoyed the major plot points. However, the narrative seemed to drag and stretch out, overtaxed by a cast of completely unrelatable and unlikeable narrators. While I appreciate the realism in these characters' personalities, this ultimately worked to the detriment of the story.

There is very little left to say about it. A potentially fun and engaging read that, for some readers, might fall flat. I didn't hate this one. Unfortunately, I didn't particularly love it either. .

Thank you, NetGalley for this advanced reader copy!
If you love “Gossip Girl” you will be enamored "The Legacies". Senior year has begun and a few will be selected for the Legacy Club. We get the perspective of besties Isobel and Bernie and outsider Tori. Your jaw will drop at the secrets they keep and the many ways they're connected.

Jessica Goodman's books have been on my radar for awhile, but this was the first I've actually read, and it was a great pick!

The premise of this young adult novel is fierce, and the back-and-forth timeline kept me turning pages (well, swiping pages 😊). This would be a fantastic plane book or beach read!

Jessica Goodman delivers with another great one. This one had so many twists and turns. I thought I had figured everything out but I kept being surprised over and over.

I was given an Advanced Reader Copy by NetGalley for an honest review.

Thank you to NetGalley for an e-ARC of this book!

The Legacies is Jessica Goodman's latest YA thriller and while it is not my favorite of her books, I enjoyed the story! If you enjoy books set in elite circles and/or lies, gossip, and backstabbing, this might be one you'll enjoy.

Several prep school students are being inducted into The Legacy Club, which will essentially set them up for life with connections, etc. But, one student chosen to join the club isn't the "typical" type--she is a scholarship kid. This, plus the fact that someone dies at the Legacy Ball, propels the mystery and the book. The story is told via multiple POVs, which I thought was mostly effective. I also liked that it was not known until the very end who died.

This was a fact read and one that I will be adding to my classroom library!

Solid murdery Gossip Girl YA thriller from Jessica Goodman. I always enjoy her books, although none of them are ever groundbreaking for me. They’re kind of a pleasure read where you’re pretty sure you know what is going to happen, but are sometimes caught off guard by a solid twist. This one definitely had a twist and I’m happy to say that I did not see the ending coming.

Even though I’ve tried one of Jessica Goodman’s books in the past and didn’t like it, I have a weakness for dark academia/boarding school murder mysteries so I decided to give her another try, even though this was less dark academia boarding school and more so gossip girl. Whatever, teen murder mystery dramas are fun, so I decided to give this a try. There’s a part of me that loves reading about the messiness of the elites upper class.

This ended up being an okay book. Not really a stand out read. It falls into a category where I’m not sure what kind of target audience it is for. There wasn’t enough upper class drama to appeal to fans of Gossip Girl (I’d recommend Magnolia Parks if that’s what you’re looking for) and regular thriller readers wouldn’t find this interesting enough. I just wasn’t super invested in this story or the characters.

This was a super fast read though, and I whipped through it in a couple hours. This is great if you need a super easy read, something light and not too serious. I like that they didn’t reveal who was killed until the end, because that is what kept me motivated to read until the end. It was a decent read, pretty predictable, not anything groundbreaking or original. I wouldn’t call it a waste of time either though, because I thought this was a nice palette cleanser in between books.

Thank you to Netgalley and Razorbill for sending me an advanced copy in return for my honest review.

The whole concept of this novel is so brilliant as well as unique. It had ideas that i haven’t seen in many other novels and if the idea was written out well this novel had the potential to be really good. I loved her other novel “They wish they were us” and unfortunately was really dissatisfied with this book. It was incredibly slow and honestly felt like it was going nowhere. The constant POV switching is supposed to be interesting and give more depth into the characters but it just felt frustrating and superficial. I was waiting for the climax and something interesting to happen but it felt like i was just waiting forever. i disliked all the characters and thought they were incredibly shallow, and honestly kind of boring. i wish i enjoyed this novel but unfortunately i did not, although the plot is very interesting i feel as though it could have been carried out in a much better way.

🫧Thank you to Penguin Random House for providing me a review copy of this novel through Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

📖 ARC REVIEW 📖

Thank you @penguinteen for an early copy of The Legacies by @jessicagoodman. I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily. 🤍

The Legacies centers on three girls, Bernie, Isobel, and Tori, Excelsior Prep seniors who are nominated as Legacies to the most exclusive club in New York City, the Legacy Club. The club gives a lifetime of access to power and wealth beyond any prep school doors and guarantees safety and security as members look out for their own, that is after making it through a rigorous week of events and extravagant gala, the Legacy Ball. Bernie and Isobel are not surprisingly nominated as they came from prestigious and well-known families, but Tori is a surprise nominee who never fit into their world.

The Legacy Ball is supposed to be the best night of the seniors’ lives, but no one expected their secrets to come out, or for someone to die trying to keep the, hidden.

🛑Read on with caution; review may contain spoilers🛑

This is my first Jessica Goodman novel, and I am just blown away by this novel. It’s intriguing right from the very first chapter. The story just weaves through the entire week leading up to the ball, with snippets of what happened during and after the said ball, leaving mystery after mystery, and clues that seem to make you think you’ve figured out who did what, only to be proven wrong later on into the story. It’s just not what you think it is. I think around 5% in this story is predictable and I love my mind being blown away! 🤯

This is definitely one of my best reads so far this year. Rating The Legacies ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐/5. Releases July 25th, 2023.

If you are looking for a Gossip Girl-Pretty Liars-esque YA thriller, this is the one for you!

I have really enjoyed all of Goodman’s books, and this one didn’t disappoint. There were constant twists and turns, and I loved the upscale NYC backdrop.

Thanks to Netgalley, the publisher, and Jessica Goodman for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

what an absolute delight of a novel. as a millennial who grew up in the Gossip Girl/Pretty Little Liars era of TV, this exactly spoke to the type of story I love. while I was able to see where the story was going, I still found it satisfying. the rich kids behaving badly/outsider makes it in story isn't new, but it was done in a way that was refreshing.I think what kept it from being a five star read were just little things that could've made it a more layered story. the timeline felt off, the way the dual times were done felt uneven, and I think it could've benefited from more perspectives/a different timeline (the perspectives of the adults, flashbacks or flash forwards with the parents). I think the storyline with the parents and what was going on was honestly more interesting but felt underdone. Ultimately, this is definitely a YA mystery I'll be recommending.

⭐️: 3.5/5

Membership in the Legacy Club is more than an honor, it opens all the doors to a lifetime of power, access, and wealth in New York. The nomination of rising high school seniors Bernie, Skylar, and Isobel comes as no surprise, but scholarship kid from Queens Tori Tasso? Nobody saw her nomination coming. As the night of the Legacy Ball approaches and secrets begin to be revealed, not all of the nominees will make it out alive.

I was really excited to get a chance to read The Legacies, since They Wish They Were Us was such a fun read that I really enjoyed, and I was hoping for something with just as much intrigue and twisty plot lines. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that The Legacies didn’t deliver that, but it definitely didn’t do it as well. The whole idea of high school kids being picked for membership in an exclusive club felt so similar to that of They Wish They Were Us that it was kind of hard not to see this as a bit of a spinoff idea, one that makes it clear Goodman wrote the better idea first. I did enjoy the multiple POV narrative, as well as the quick jumps forward into the present interspersed throughout, and it was definitely a gossipy read, in the vein of Gossip Girl. I also thought it was really clever how we don’t know who died until the very end of the book, which definitely helped keep my interest in the plot line. If you love books about the lifestyles of Upper East Side one-percenters, then this will definitely be up your alley.

Thank you to @netgalley and @penguinteen for this eARC in exchange for my honest review!

This stunning book by @jessicagoodman beautifully navigates the multi-pov stories of these three girls, and their haunting pasts overshadowing their supposedly promising futures. I can promise you won't see this ending!! I definitely give this book 5 stars! A HUGE thank you to @netgalley @razorbillbooks and @penguinteen for hooking me up with an ARC of this wonderful book!

I'm a sucker for a multi-POV YA mystery, and The Legacies had me binge reading from the moment I started it. New York socialites, a prestigious club, families that are intertwined more than you could ever imagine - this book has it all. I gave it 4 stars because I was able to predict most of the twists, but it was still a fantastic read nonetheless. Fans of Karen M. McManus, this is perfect for you!

The main characters in this book are Tori, Bernie and Isobel. They are all students of Excelsior Prep who have been tapped to join the prestigious private Legacy Club. Being a member of the legacy club will open up all the doors, and basically set them up for life. Tori is the outsider, as she is a scholarship kid who isn’t a member of the elite. There are alternating timeframes of before and after the Legacy Ball. We know there will be a murder at the ball, but don’t know who will be murdered or why.

This was a decent YA book, kind of like gossip girl with a murder thrown in. I liked some characters more than others. I do think that the pacing was a bit slow, and there wasn’t enough building up of tension. For that reason, this was a 3 star read for me.

Thank you to Netgalley and Penguin Group for providing me with an ARC of this book to read and review.

Jessica Goodman is one of the only young adult thriller writer that I will read from. This one was set in a school setting with rich people in a secret society which is a ton of my buzz words. The secrets? Crazy. The drama? Out of this world. The characters? Awful human beings. BUT the spice, the drama, the secrets, the money. FANTASTIC. I would recommend this book if you like the same buzz words that I do.

** Thank you to NetGalley for an advanced reader copy. All opinions are my own. **

Firstly I’d like to thank netgalley for this amazing eARC

So basically the legacies is a thriller about this elite club ‘legacies’ which is almost impossible to get in if you dont have filthy rich parents. When during the ball there’s a dead body and police all around, the connections and the politics all are revealed.
All the main characters are snobby nepotism kids except one, Tori, who is a scholarship kid who just lost her mom, and apparently has no connection to anyone in the club.

This book, which is told with shifting timelines (before and after the ball), was thrilling and gripping from the start, no awkward moments where you have no idea what you’re reading. I started this off thinking it would be more of a murder mystery but it lies more on the drama thriller kind and not much about the murder itself.

I rate this book 5 stars and its one of the best books ive read this year

Thank you to NetGalley for early access to this story.

At first I was intrigued- with the opening sentence. Though this slowly changed, as I found myself a little bored of the teen drama vibe
Though this is a personal preference as a mature age reader. I did not love the multiple perspectives. I did enjoy the chapters being sequenced in a timeline of a very specific event and the chapter titles were a nice touch too.

The Legacies is compulsively readable and twistier than a roller coaster. Goodman delivers the suspense again, this time within New York City's elite social scene. Readers are given the perfect amount of information throughout to build suspense and keep them hooked. The reveals and twists literally had my jaw on the floor.