Book review ~ The Sugar Game, Ashley Brown

The Sugar Game
Author : Ashley Brown
Genre : Contemporary
Release date : 15th January 2021
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Sugar Daddy websites, promising young women money, fun and independence are among the fastest growing sites on the internet. But what really goes on? Is there a dangerous reality below the surface?

The Sugar Game is a novel that takes readers behind the curtain and into the lives of two young women who rush headlong into the world of the ‘Sugar Baby’.

But once they are in, can they get out again?

Jessica and Holly don’t want love, they want independence. They don’t want predictable, they want adventure. They don’t want a relationship, they want to play.

Jessica and Holly’s friendship was as inevitable as sunrise, and hungry for life beyond sleep, eat and repeat, they land in the bright lights of London.

When Holly stumbles across a sugar-baby dating website, a glamorous world of entertaining wealthy men lures them in. They make their own rules, choose an alias and the Sugar Game begins. Jessica’s pursuit of independence is rocked when Jerod, a workaholic scientist opens the door of her latest date. Jessica’s mask slips as he loosens the grip on her stubborn heart. But when he pulls back, her insecurities flare, what is he hiding?

A shadowy figure from his mysterious past may have the answer. What he reveals locks Jessica into a dangerous conflict, putting her security on the line. Determined to find the truth, she battles between her heart and head.

Whatever choice she makes, this is not going to be easy. As rules get broken, will the girls ever win the sweet futures they signed up for?

I requested this book on Netgalley because THE COVER !! It’s the first thing that catches your eye, and it’s absolutely stunning. It’s sweet, colourful, and is bound to attract readers. The theme, sugar daddies and this whole industry, is also interesting and uncommon enough to make me curious about the book.

However, unfortunately, these are about the only things I liked about The Sugar Game.

The first thing that struck me is the lack of construction in the narrative. I felt like the author was trying to say too many things at once, and kept switching between subjets, without real transitions or reasons for that. This is what disturbed me the most, especially at the beginning.

After that, we also are introduced to several abreviations : SD for sugar daddy, FM for First Meeting, etc. I understand it’s so that the author doesn’t have to write it fully constantly. However, as a reader who kept putting the book down and up again, I kept forgetting the meanings of them and always had to go back in the book to have the full words. It’s a little thing, but that can be a little annoying.

Still, I kind of got used to the points above, and then BAM, the whole thing turns into some kind of spy-ish book. It wasn’t brought well, and it felt like a kid’s vision of what espionage is. This is what made me kind of give up on the book. All of a sudden, some random dude comes to meet the MC to tell her he needs her for an undercover mission and proceeds to give her EVERY LITTLE INFO on the man she needs to research, without her having agreed to it…

Lastly, the characters were straight out of the 90’s/early 2000’s. The girls especially are walking clichés, which made me want to hit them throughout the whole book. Maybe I shouldn’t have pushed to finish it. The MC and her best friend are just some kind of Bridget Joneses but, you know, not quite there yet. There’s a whole vibe about them that screams “I’m superficial” but of course they think they’re smart etc. when they’re really not. Here’s a litteral quote from the book that made me realize that The Sugar Game was definitely not for me :

“What was I going to do ? Rewatch “Sex and the City” and eat ice cream ?”

Yeah, so that was it for me. To be honest, it might make a cool series or movie. But the narrative construction makes it kind of hard to read as a book. I mean, it’s a peculiar style that wasn’t for me, but who knows, maybe you’ll enjoy it.