To Best the Boys

by Mary Weber

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I had such a hard time rating this one! I loved the story itself, but I can't get over how oddly proportioned it was! It reminded me of Catching Fire. All the first half was just preparation. The actual 'games' lasted less than half the book. I feel like this book made all its points, but the way the story was told just didn't click for me.

THE FIRST ACT LASTED TOO LONG
I wanted to talk first about what irked me about the book and just… get it out of the way. It was impossible for me to ignore the fact that the first part of the book seemed to last forever. It was overall, a quick read, but I got worried because it didn’t feel like it was properly distributed.

Things got weird when I checked the book’s progress and it says ‘41%’. I was nearly to half the book and nothing of what I perceived to have been promised had been delivered. The main character had just barely decided she was going to enter the maze competition for the scholarship. I wasn’t that hard to figure out how the actual competition would last less than it should have.

It was just all quite off pacing wise.



THE FRIENDSHIPS GAVE ME LIFE
With that said, I was so happy to meet all the characters in this story. I couldn’t find it in me to hate any of the characters and their relationships. Sure, there were ones that made me see red, but I have no complaints about how they added to the story.

Rhen’s friends made me smile. It’s always so great when side characters are a real part of the story and not just there to make the main character look good.


THE POINTS ABOUT FEMINISM
This story is unapologetically about empowerement, female empowerement. There’s no subtleties. Rhen knows she’s as capable, as smart, as resourceful as any of the boys going for the scholarship, and perhaps even more than some.



It took a while to get there, but the story said what it needed to say.