EducatingParents.org rating: Under Review

Backlist and Chill podcast -
Content Warning: Profanity, alcohol consumption, sexually explicit and generally extremely filthy language, discussion of suicide, incest, sexual assault, child molestation, violence, mental illness, depression, and death.

The Forbidden Game by LJ Smith is my favourite series of books by this author.

I was heartbroken when I ran out of LJ Smith books to read - LJ Smith has been one of my favourite YA novelists in my lifetime, and it's always hard to put her novels down. I'm addicting to her style of writing (even as an adult).

This book was definitely your typical YA series all wrapped up in one - teenage characters with teenage problems, but are the special people that have to deal with this specific problem, "The Game". The final book in this series does tie up most of the questions with in this book, but I still wanted more! While the characters might not grow much within this series, there was definitely room for more antics and character development for this intriguing cast. Especially our villain, who was the character I liked the most (even though he was a baddy...).

Overall, this series is an engaging YA read that holds up over time (I believe it was released in the 90s and it still hits it out of the park for me!!!).

Five out of five stars. ( )

I read this trilogy for the first time when I was younger and loved it and wanted to read it again.

Reading it again for research this time plus I still love it and tried it on audio this time. ( )

DNF

I'm a little torn between giving this a 3 or 4. On one hand, the concept is interesting and well-executed, the female lead is a strong character who undergoes a lot of growth through the book, and the story was simply compelling. On the other hand, aside from Jenny and Julian, all the characters were boring stereotypes who only had the most shallow development at the end, and they were supposedly so important to Jenny but it was difficult to see why. The story is fast-paced and there are things happening in every chapter which kept my attention, but at the same time, it left little room for the author to delve deeper into her characters and flesh them out. Particularly in the first book, "The Hunter", I felt that the characters get over their nightmares too quickly and easily. Although L.J. Smith is great at creating a sense of horror, I didn't really feel the characters' pain, struggles and triumphs. I thought the ending was predictable, it being the only logical way that I could see to resolve the love triangle, but it was still satisfying to read. ( )