The Hawthorne Legacy may not have been great, but it was definitely better than The Inheritance Games.

All of the puzzles and riddles were still pretty juvenile (or at least not worthy of the hype around these brilliant Hawthornes and the games they play), but at least the stakes were higher this time around. And the mystery was at least a little bit harder to figure out this time around.

I’m still not buying any of the romance aspects. Avery keeps talking about all of this chemistry with Jameson and Grayson, but I have yet to see it. Not to mention, she talks about love and romance like she’s a jaded forty-year-old woman going through her third divorce. Avery hasn’t even graduated from high school yet, and yes, she has had a rough few years since her mother died, but none of it was really relationship-related, so I’m not sure where she’s getting all of this baggage from. Libby has a better claim to being guarded and hesitant, and she walks around with much less skepticism than Avery.

I’d like to say that the side characters are boring and one-dimensional, but they’re not much different from the main characters. Everyone is still pretty dull, and it’s often difficult to differentiate if you’re not paying close attention. It’s a bad sign if not only the brothers are interchangeable, but the staff, friends, and other family members don’t make a lasting impression.

I’m not sold on this series yet, but it does seem to be improving. I rated The Inheritance Games 2 stars and The Hawthorne Legacy 3.5 – how good would it be if The Final Gambit was a perfect 5 stars? Now that would be a series arc I could get behind…