Title: Reputation
Author: Lex Croucher
Publisher: St. Martin’s Griffin
Publication date: April 5th, 2022
336 pages
4/5 stars
Goodreads Synopsis
The hilarious debut novel from Lex Croucher. A classic romcom with a Regency-era twist, for fans of Mean Girls and/or Jane Austen.
Abandoned by her parents, middle-class Georgiana Ellers has moved to a new town to live with her dreary aunt and uncle. At a particularly dull party, she meets the enigmatic Frances Campbell, a wealthy member of the in-crowd who lives a life Georgiana couldn’t have imagined in her wildest dreams.
Lonely and vulnerable, Georgiana falls in with Frances and her unfathomably rich, deeply improper friends. Georgiana is introduced to a new world: drunken debauchery, mysterious young men with strangely arresting hands, and the upper echelons of Regency society.
But the price of entry to high society might just be higher than Georgiana is willing to pay …
Review
Fans of Mean Girls and regency/historicals – rejoice. Because Reputation is the perfect crossover of those two ideas. Georgiana is abandoned by her parents and forced to live with an aunt and uncle. They are not particularly wealthy or high up in society and are frankly, boring. Georgiana needs to make friends, so when Lady Frances Campbell takes an interest in her – Georgiana will do anything to keep Frances’ attention and regard. Even immoral, illegal, and possibly ruinous things that could take her down a very dark road. Add in a mysterious youn man and it’s about to get interesting…
I want to start off this review with a trigger warning for SA and attempted SA. I didn’t realize going in and got kind of slapped in the face by it so I wanted to make sure it is well known for anyone else picking up this book based on my review. Now, I found this book to be wildly entertaining – it is very much like Mean Girls if you picture Frances and Regina George and Georgiana as Cady. Add in some forbidden LGBTQ romance and drugs/alcohol/reckless behavior and you have Reputation.
I loved the romance portion of this book as Georgiana meets her man. She is clearly caught between him and Frances’ group and wants to have both. She makes some really bad decisions but by the end is a great character. The ending and epilogue are very satisfying as well – but again, make sure to pay attention to triggers because it isn’t something that I saw coming.
Thank you to St. Martin’s Press and Netgalley for an early copy in exchange for an honest review.
Happy reading, folks!
Baltimore Bibliophile 