Review: Trust Games

Trust Games
Author: Simon Packham

Publication Date:  June 14th 2014      
Publisher: Piccadilly Press
~A copy was provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review~



 

 

 

 

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Just as life seems perfect, a scandal tears it apart.


When kind, charismatic new drama teacher, Mr Moore, arrives at school, Beth’s life starts to look up. She’s cast as the Nurse in Romeo and Juliet, and as she grows close to super-popular
Hannah (Juliet), Beth finally has the female friend she’s been yearning for.

Meanwhile it seems that all the girls – including Beth – are in love with Mr Moore. And when a scandal breaks, Beth must make a decision that can only have dire consequences for everyone involved

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I wish I could say I liked you, Trust Games. What seemed like an interesting read, I wanted to see how the topic was handled, but it wasn't handled well. I think because it wasn't actually about the main player in the game, but more of her view on the sidelines that you didn't get to see the attraction. And that's what made it an uncomfortable read, and it has nothing to do with the subject at hand, but the characters. But I'll get to that in a minute. You can kind of guess what Trust Games is about by the synopsis, it's not a big leap. I haven't read many of a controversial relationship, but I recently read The Things You Kiss Goodbye, and it didn't bother me at all because it was done right.

It was in the view of the main character, and you got to see that relationship evolve, and while at times it was still uncomfortable, but I didn't hate it because It was gradual, the characters had a connection that you could feel. You got to know the characters as themselves, then as safety to one another, a confidant, a trust, a friendship, that just didn't seem ugly or wrong. Trust Games didn't have that.

While a big part of Trust Games is about that, like I said, our main character is on the outside watching and observing, and while it is a clever way of showing the story unfold, it just didn't work for me for two reasons. The first being because of the way the story is shown, you don't get a chance to connect with the main character because it was more to do with two other character or those two other characters because it was being shown from another person. Both ways, it didn't give you a link. The second being the main character herself, Beth, she's...uhm, I'm trying to find a kind way to say this. She's awkward, but not in a quirky way, and she's weird, but again, not in a quirk way. It was kind of like reading from an early stage of a psychopath. It's uncomfortable awkward, and it proceeds over to the reading.

It could have come across that way because she doesn't have an outlet to feel her Mothers loss, her father's travels most of the time and he doesn't like talking about what happened with her Mother, he doesn't like to mention her at all and because of that, Beth doesn't have closure. She has a lot to deal with her own personal life, she only has one friend, who she more or less puts up with because she's known him for most of her life and is the only one who actually likes her. She doesn't have a lot of friends, and to be honest, the way she treats "Grunt" (the childhood friend) I can get why. That I could deal with, but then she starts trying to befriend Hannah, one the popular girls that doesn't act a total bitch to her, which when it comes to Beth, she doesn't see that Hannah A) feels sorry for her and B) has ulterior  motives. The ways Beth attempts to become friends with her were the most painful scenes I've ever read,  I pretty much cringed through them, and considering this books 216 pages, there was a lot of cringing. She's borderline stalking, overly obsessive, goes out of her way to see her like some lovestruck teenager (which actually would've explained a lot- if she was gay), and she done stupid things and kept stupid things to gain her trust and she just generally acted...not normal around her. She was pretty much emotionless until it came to Hannah and how she latched onto her.

She doesn't check all the aspects of a psychopath, but she sure has some of them.

If you couldn't tell by all of that, Trust Games was just an overall uncomfortable read, and not in an out-of-your-comfort-zone-read either. I get what the author was trying to do with the story and how it was set, but it really just got overshadowed by the heading-into-psychopath-land main character.

Rating: 2.5/5