Content Warning: underage drinking, death, mention of hazing, mention of rape

I never read The Cheerleaders but always wanted to and then I got the arc for The Champions and thought I could jump into the story without reading the first book and I think I caught up with everything pretty good.

Hadley is an outsider at Sunnybrook high school which has a winning and popular football team. She’s new to the town so she wasn’t there when the five cheerleaders died there in the past but of course she’s heard of it. She wants to go into the journalism and belongs to the school newspaper when she gets a chance to interview the football team but gets embroiled in something deeper.

This is a story about a school covering up the bad deeds of some of the popular boys in class and how things get unravelled and Hadley being in the middle of it all even if she is an “outsider”. She’s not best friends with any of the popular kids but they know her and talk to her so she’s not ignored at school.

I liked that the story moved fast and I didn’t get lost even though I didn’t read The Cheerleaders. It is the typical story of a cover-up in the athletics department of a popular school and kids getting hurt or killed because of this secret. I do think at times there were too many names for me to follow and I kept having to remind myself who was who.

My Thoughts:

This is a pretty solid, quick read! I was invested in finding out what the football team was covering up and it’s pretty bad but I’m glad in the end there was some justice.

the epic highs and lows of high school football.....

Oooh I remember really enjoying The Cheerleaders years ago so I was so excited to hear about this! As far as YA mysteries go this was pretty middle of the road. There are immediately a LOT of characters to keep track of, making it a full cast but also rather hard to keep characters straight.

I wish the stakes were a little higher--main character Hadley slowly uncovers the mystery's truth but it feels like it's all through conversations, and the thrilling, detective, risk-taking behavior I like to see in murder mysteries was very much lacking. However I'm always here for righting the wrongs of corrupt football teams!

Kara Thomas is one of my favorite YA mystery authors and The Cheerleaders is one of my favorite books by her so i was very excited to get back into this world and it did not disappoint!

I thought the mystery was laid out great and there were some heavy topics that broke my heart, made me mad, made me disgusted but i loved the way that it was talked about especially in a somewhat realistic manner.

I really loved this book, i finished it so fast and i loved seeing characters from the previous books and where they were.

4.5/5

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for giving me an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

The Champions is a follow-up...sort of....to the book The Cheerleaders. Taking place in the same high school with some of the same characters, this time the focus is on the championship winning football team. When football players start being targeted and one of them is killed, what is going on in this town?

To be fair I read The Cheerleaders when it first came out and honestly remember nothing about it-not that it wasn't memorable, I read to be entertained not to remember. Having said that, you honestly don't need to have read The Cheerleaders to enjoy and understand the events in The Champions. I thought this had solid pacing and really great character development. This is definitely one of Kara Thomas' better books. If you're looking for a solid YA read, then I'd highly recommend it.

If you enjoyed "Cheerleaders," you won't want to miss the sequel, which offers a gripping return to "Sunnybrook" after the tragic deaths of five cheerleaders. This time, with new characters leading the way, the author takes us on another dark journey that delves into the sinister side of college football. The story explores how people cross ethical lines to eliminate obstacles, revealing the immense power within the football community and the shocking consequences of putting that power in the wrong hands.

Eleven years after the cheerleaders' deaths, Hadley moves to Sunnybrook when her mother becomes the superintendent at Sunnybrook College. Trying to escape from her addict husband who was imprisoned for embezzling drugs, Hadley, after long therapy sessions and spending a lot of time in isolation, slowly comes out of her shell with the help of creative writing. Her arch-nemesis, Peter, who took away her scholarship opportunity with a piece about the school's dancers, motivates her to become the editor-in-chief and defeat him.

The Tigers football team, Sunnybrook’s heroes, are worshipped by every student and directed by a family of football players. When Hadley is assigned to write a piece about the team and gets invited to a party by the popular player Logan, she never expects things to spiral out of control, resulting in Logan's coma from alcohol poisoning. This is just one of the attacks against the football players.

An anonymous source begins sending Hadley cryptic messages, guiding her to uncover the dirty secrets of the football team. As she digs deeper, she unexpectedly finds allies in her nemesis Peter and her stepsister Monica (main character from "Cheerleaders" making her cameo). However, she soon realizes the massive football community is determined to keep their secrets buried. With two casualties already, has Hadley put herself on the list of victims by opening Pandora’s box?

Overall, this is a riveting page-turner with a heart-pounding pace that keeps you on the edge of your seat. I enjoyed it as much as the first book and highly recommend adding it to your reading list!

Many thanks to NetGalley and Random House Children’s/Delacorte Press for sharing this unputdownable thriller’s digital review copy with me in exchange for my honest thoughts.

Very grateful as always to NetGalley, Random House Children’s, and Delacorte Press for an ARC of the book. The review below is my own personal opinion.

First and foremost: if you’re a Kara Thomas fan, or loved “The Cheerleaders”, put this book on your TBR!

I have been a Kara Thomas fan since I read “The Cheerleaders”. I spent that next weekend reading all her other YA novels, devouring each one like I couldn’t get enough. She is such an incredible storyteller, and it’s hard to put any of her books down. So of course, when I heard she was returning to Sunnybrook in her latest novel, I was immediately chomping at the bit to read it.

“The Champions” is a spiritual successor to Thomas’ “The Cheerleaders”., and I think it really holds up well against the first book. We are brought back to Sunnybrook years later, to focus on another subsection of the city: the football team. And I think there was no better way to bring the world of Sunnybrook back. With a mixture of old characters, new characters, and some now grown characters, it feels like it is its own story while serving as a nice look into the futures of sone familiar faces from the previous novel.

We meet Hadley, the daughter of the superintendent, who was not around during the events of “The Cheerleaders”, only knowing of it by mentions. She is a journalist to be, working for the school paper. With the task of having to write an article on the two time championship winning football team, Hadley begins to dip into their world. Until she is sent a mysterious email warning her to stay away from the team, and a party she’s invited to that weekend. But when she attends the party, which ends with a football player in a coma, Hadley, along with her friend and fellow journalist Peter Cardino, are pulled deeper into the history of Sunnybrook football. And some secrets just can’t stay buried. Not in a town as infamous as Sunnybrook. Or a team as beloved as the championship winning Tigers.

I think Kara Thomas did such a great job exploring new parts of Sunnybrook while also keeping true to things she laid in place in the first book. She brings in old characters with fresh perspective, showing that they’ve all grown and changed since the events that transpired. And with the depth on these new characters as well, it felt like returning to a familiar place. I think “The Champions” can also serve as a stand alone, but I would suggest reading “The Cheerleaders” first, only because you’ll enjoy the little Easter eggs that Kara Thomas has dropped through the novel.

The Cheerleaders by Kara Thomas was one of the first young adult thrillers I read and loved, so I am so excited that a companion is coming out which will hopefully lead even more readers to The Cheerleaders as well. The Champions is very different than its companion though they both take on super tough topics within their pages. The Champions takes place in the same town as its companion, but it is years later and this time we are seeing the story of the town’s champion football team from the eyes of a student reporter who is extracting information that will change everything.

I am confident that I will read and love every one of Kara Thomas' YA thrillers, The Champions included. This is a follow up to her previous book, The Cheerleaders. The story takes place in the same town of Sunnybrook and shares some common characters but could certainly be read on its own. Hadley is the new girl in town and writes for the high school paper. When tragedies start happening around her, she aims to find out what is happening, why, and at who's hand. This story is fast and very enjoyable (even to this adult reader). I didn't figure out the ending so I enjoyed every minute of the ride to the conclusion. I highly recommend this book to all readers, YA and adult alike. Thanks to Kara Thomas, Random House Children's | Delacorte Press, and NetGalley for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

This book was just "okay" for me. While I appreciate the author's willingness to dive into tough topics like underage drinking, gang rape, nepotism, etc., the book felt too long without much character development. There were too many unnecessary characters. This caused the book to become confusing at times. Unfortunately, I found this book to be unremarkable, but I think many of my students would read it due to its relatability.

As mysteries go, this was a good one. It hit about the same as the companion/prequel, in that it didn’t resort to a romance angle and I appreciate that. However, not my favorite writing style and I did find it hard to sometimes keep track of all of the comings and goings and escapades of the many characters. But I dug the basic story. And I like the vibe between Peter and Hadley and the fact that they are not gorgeous perfection. They are real and flawed and I like that. 💜📚

Oh this was so enjoyable! It has everything I like in young adult literature; cheerleaders, football players, school backdrop, murder, and one determined girl that will put all the pieces together. Hopefully before it's too late.

I loved it!! I was skeptical because of how much I like the Cheerleaders; I was worried it wouldn't be as good. Thankfully it was!

If you liked the cheerleaders you will love the champions. This book takes you back to the same town but with new characters

I have mixed feelings about this book. I would rate it as a great book because I finished the entire book in one sitting (6 hour plane ride). On the other hand, I found myself distracted while I read and not as enraptured as I usually am with Kara Thomas' books. The stakes were never high enough and I felt like I waited for a true climax that never came. I also found it hard to differentiate between the brothers in the book, which made the mystery and narrative difficult to follow.

I really like The Cheerleaders from this author. Thankfully this didn't disappoint! Fun, surprising, great atmosphere. Recommended.

First, thank you NetGalley for an eARC of this novel. I love Kara Thomas and this book did not disappoint! The first book set in this town, The Cheerleaders, was my first Kara Thomas book so I was excited to dive back into the town of Sunnybrook. This book was really interesting because we got to see old characters come back and see what their lives had turned out like. These same characters are part of what helped break the story and solve the case. I think this novel showed a lot of what it's like in schools where sports are the be all end all for students and the communities. They can often have terrible effects and so many things can be hidden and sweeped under the rug. It took me right up until it was happening to piece together the "whodunnit" of this story. I will absolutely recommend this novel.

If you didn’t already consider Kara Thomas a wonderful thriller/mystery writer, well, that’s on you. Each book she writes gets better and better. I had no idea that I needed a “sequel” to The Cheerleaders but I did. Great characters, compelling plot, and lots of twists.

This book is a sequel to the book The Cheerleaders, but deals with the football team this time. The story line takes place 11 years after the murders in The Cheerleaders and we see how the murders/deaths have affected the community and the school. There is no longer a cheerleading squad, but they do have a dance team . When this book begins, the football team is gearing up to win a 3rd straight football championship, which they feel is inevitable. And then terrible things start to happen. One star of the football team is in a coma and another is killed. Our main character is the editor in chief of the school paper and she has some ideas about what is going on.

This was a solid YA thriller but there was nothing special about it to make it stand out for me or to elevate it to a 4 star or 5 star read, although I will give the author credit for her handling of difficult topics, such as nepotism and gang rape. I guess my main complaint is there were SO many nondescript interchangeable characters that I kept getting confused about who was who.

This book was amazing and I devoured this book in just a few sittings! I loved the character development and how the story progressed.