Review: Player's Game

Player's Game by Desirae Clark
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Two and a half stars.

Wow, I'm a real Debbie downer so far this year - bad reviews left, right and centre.

Samantha Valentine, her mother and twin sisters moved from their home in Scottsdale to Manhattan six years ago. Although she was devastated when they left, Samantha has built a new life in Manhattan she has friends, a cute boyfriend and enjoys the city. So when her mom gets a promotion back to Scottsdale she is not happy, especially because it would mean returning to face her ex-BFF Parker Brady, she never got to say goodbye and he never responded to her calls, texts and emails.

Despite her fears, Samantha makes a group of new friends in Scottsdale, including, surprisingly, Parker. Apparently Parker has turned into a player while she has been gone: he smokes, he sleeps with random girls and gets into trouble. Although Samantha thinks he is playing her, she accepts his lifts to school and hangs around with him.

This is kind of a book about absolutely nothing. Samantha's ex turns out to be a douche, but there's no reason given, a girl at school is mean to Samantha, and nothing happens, there's a school exchange visit, and nothing happens. In fact, the biggest thing that happens in this book from my POV is that Samantha's mother should be reported to child services. Samantha apparently takes responsibility for feeding her twin sisters and helping them with their homework while the mother seemingly does nothing, in fact Samantha is happy that her mother can take the time to write a shopping list for Samantha! Then, partway through this short novel, Samantha's mother has to go to Europe on business. It might be for a couple of days or three months!! But it's okay because she met a couple recently who are happy to look after the twins. WTF?

Samantha was a stroppy, unpleasant girl, she occasionally made a big gesture to stand up against bullying while acting like a bully most of the time herself. She was aggressive and her idea of 'pranks' were way worse than silly pranks. But then she got angry because someone told the school about the large number of detentions and pranks she had pulled at her last school? I have no idea why Parker liked her. I had the feeling that maybe Samantha's immaturity and the unbelievable behaviour of her mother might mean that Desirae Clark was a young author and (I checked) I was right, I think it shows in the writing, although maybe a younger reader would find it more enjoyable.

It seemed as though ideas and people were brought into the novel and then discarded without resolving any plot - in the epilogue Samantha talks about her friends and I honestly couldn't tell you who was who, apart from Veronica who seemed to have an even worse issue with unnecessary violence. Overall, it was a book where there was a lot of telling and not a lot of showing.

Disappointing.

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in return for an honest review.

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