Reputation

SYNOPSIS

Abandoned by her parents in favour of a sea view, middle class Georgiana Ellers has moved to a new town to live with her dreary aunt and uncle. At a particularly dull dinner party, she meets the enigmatic Frances Campbell, a wealthy socialite and enchanting member of the in-crowd.

REVIEW

(2 STARS)

TW: rape, sexual harassment, bullying.

I feel sad I didn't enjoy this book as much as I thought I would. While reading it, I felt extremely uncomfortable - not because it's historical fiction (a genre I LOVE but that many find unlikeable), but because of how wrong the premise, the characters and the scenes felt.

Let me explain: I knew this was supposed to be an atypical story, but I hoped it would be more interesting than continuous parties and egomaniacal characters. Throughout the entirety of the book, we're always living the same scene over and over again: parties brimming with drugs, alcohol and our group at the centre of it all, wreaking havoc. I don't want to read a book where people keep acting the same, no matter what gets thrown at them. I want to see some evolution, an overcoming of issues, people learning something from their mistakes. On "Reputation", that only happens at the very end, and it feels meagre.

The second problem I had with this book was how forced everything felt. The toxic friendships, the heavy partying, the snarky remarks, the love interests. It felt like the author's only goal was to write something "out of the box". However, all she managed to do was to conjure this ball of triggering pointless toxicity. I could see she wanted to shock the reader, but I didn't like how she did it.

It was a very uncomfortable book to read, especially because it felt like Croucher's solution to highlight a very disturbing social issue (rape) was to make it happen again but to a white character. I wanted to see Frances at the centre of that narrative, not Georgiana. And this was something that kept happening — things that should've been at the centre of the story were easily brushed off to the side, and it shocked me how the author ignored thousands of moments that could've been educational. A book isn't automatically inclusive once you add POC and/or LGBTQIA+ characters. You have to give them a voice and tell their stories. I wanted to know more about Frances' family, about Jane's sexuality or Jonathan's struggles to be accepted. In the end, it felt like they weren't people, only Georgiana's group of friends with quirky little pasts.

Lastly, I would've liked to see some consequences to our characters' actions. I wanted Frances' friends to confront her about her attitudes, or Christopher to suffer some kind of punishment for his predatorial behaviour. Since none of that happened, it felt like this book had no purpose but to shock and "entertain". Nothing can be taken from this experience. Toxic friendships were kept unchecked, alcohol kept flowing and my interest kept diminishing. I can't recommend this book. And I find it weird how people keep comparing it to Austen – the only similarities are the period in which it happens and the writing style. The resemblance ends there.

The only reason why I'm giving it 2 stars is that Croucher's writing wasn't bad. Everything else is a big no for me.