ARC Tour & Review: The Julian Game by Adele Griffin

All new girl Raye Archer wants is a way into the in crowd, so when ice-queen Ella Parker picks her to get back at her ex, the gorgeous Julian Kilgarry, Raye is more than game. Even if it means creating a fake Facebook identity so she can learn enough about Julian to sabotage him. It's a fun and dangerous thrill at first, but Raye hadn't counted on falling for Julian herself and igniting Ella's rage. 


As Raye works to reconcile the temptress Elizabeth with her real-life self, Ella serves up her own revenge, creating an online smear campaign of nasty rumors and trashy photographs. Suddenly notorious, Raye has to find a way out of the web of deceit that she's helped to build, and back to the relationships that matter. Adele Griffin's riveting novel explores the issues of generation Facebook: the desire to be someone else, real versus online friends, and the pitfalls and fallouts of posting your personal life online for all the world to judge.


I first need to give it up to the marketing genius' behind this book.  The cover was engaging and drew me in right away and when I read the summary write up on the back of the book I was hooked; I just had to read it so I begged to be on this tour.  With the actual book itself, I admit that I was just a little disappointed.  It wasn't exactly what I was expecting or hoping that it would be.  While I still think the premise and overall idea seem quirky and fun, I don't really think the book lived up to all the hype for me.

There were some traditional characters in this book that all readers will recognize right off the bat.  We've got the popular girls who are catty and mean (yet everyone wants to be them), the super cute high school boy all the girls drool over, gossip about and pine for, the straight A student who wants more of a social life, and we can't forget her one true and loyal friend who is happy with who she is and where she ranks on the social hierarchy.

Rae makes the mistake of telling uber-popular Ella about her little scheme on facebook and from there the drama takes off and turns into a wicked tail spin of events.  I felt kind of bad for Julian (the object of said scheme) at times and sometimes I thought he was a jerk who deserved what he was getting.  But overall I thought the scheme would have been bigger, a little juicier, but it just wasn't in my opinion.

I didn't find myself relating to these characters and for that reason maybe I just didn't give the book enough of a chance?  I'm unsure why, but this one just wasn't for me.

I gave The Julian Game 2 shamrocks!!