REVIEW: THE FORBIDDEN GAME by L.J.Smith

Title: The Forbidden Game: The Hunter, The Chase and The Kill
Author: L. J. Smith
Series: The Forbidden Game Trilogy
Genres: YA, Fantasy, Romance
Publisher: SIMON & SCHUSTER
Source: Physical copy
Pages: 750

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SYNOPSIS: When Jenny buys a game for her boyfriend, Tom, she finds herself inexplicably drawn to the guy behind the counter. There is something mysteriously alluring about Julian's pale eyes and bleached-blond hair. And when he places the Game into her hands, she knows their connection is something deeper.

But as Jenny and her six friends begin to play the Game at Tom's birthday celebration, a night of friends and fun quickly turns into a night of terror and obsessive love. Because the Game isn't just a game - it's the seven friends' new reality, where Julian reigns as the Prince of the Shadows.

One by one the friends must confront their phobias to win the Game. To lose the Game is to lose their lives. And that is only the beginning...

I have found out about this book from Jen from The Bookavid blog and received my own omnibook copy while I was still in the UK. Therefore, once my bookshelves were up here in Germany it was the first book I picked up to read as it was a Trilogy and I had all three books in my omnibook.

The writing of L.J. Smith is just never disappointing. I did not know up until I started the first page how much I missed it! She is an amazing author!

THE WORLD: This trilogy was published in 1994 if I am not mistaken. Therefore, the technology is a little bit behind but other than that the one world is really like ours. Now the other world, The Shadow World is a completely different story. It is full of Shadow Men, very nasty boogeymen who take people and torture them. However we do not really get to know this world up till book three. In first book the setting is mainly based in the paper house which becomes real and it is just briefly mentioned that it stands in the Shadow World. The second book has a setting or ordinary world more or less and in the third book we finally get introduced into the shadow world. It is nasty magic but it is awesome when you thing about it!

CHARACTERS: The lead character of the trilogy is Jenny, she actually reminded me a lot of Elena. But not the TV Show Elena, the true Elena that was created by L.J. Smith in her The Vampire Diaries books. Jenny is the same pure and and beautiful and just incredibly good. Sometimes actually too good for me but I must admit, I never felt any hate towards her. She was just an incredible friend and I absolutely understand why she did the mistakes she did. I did not love Jenny but I did like her as character a lot. The evil lead character aka Damon look alike is Julian in this book. I have to say he did not appeal to me as very handsome, maybe I'm just out of that type of thing but I enjoyed his character very much as well. Especially in the third book of the trilogy where we got to know him better. He was great. There are also Jenny's sidekick friend: Dee, Audrey, Zack, Michael, Summer and her love forever Tom. I was very jumping between who I liked when it come to the friends and in the end I must admit that none of them seemed very special. Dee I eventually found annoying, Audrey maybe would be my favorite if I must choose and others were just well...they were just there. Tho I do not like Tom, I actually find him super annoying.

LOVE: I would like to say there was a love triangle in the trilogy among Jenny Tom and Julian but I would be not exactly on it. It was just never that strong between Jenny and Julian and just well always clear that Jenny loves her Tom. So if I tell you that I actually liked Jenny and Julian moment much more you most likely understand why the whole romance in the end for me looked blah.

PLUS: This book had a lot of magic and I absolutely love magic. Not the focus pocus type of magic. The nature type of magic. Plus it had runes and the myth of nine worlds. That was just great!

PLUS: It was absolutely spooky. Especially the second book! I was sitting in the huge living room reading the book while my boyfriend watching TV next to me and it all dark inside and I was literally scared! Maybe that is why I loved second book so much, it was just damn scary and made me jump every time our cats would make a noise!

MINUS: The trilogy was really about playing a Game. Julian creates it and Jenny with her friends have to win it in order to gain their freedom and just basically survive. In first book it was cool. In second it was a little bit different so it was also cool. However, in third book it felt really annoying of reading about yet another game. 

OVERALL: It is 2am now and I just finished the last book about half an hour ago but somehow I just do not feel all that emotional. Maybe because the third book felt very repetitive or maybe because I was just not that in love with the characters to root for them but well...I just cannot call it my favorite trilogy. I really loved the next idea to me when I was reading the first book, I absolutely loved the second book just because it was well cool and managed to get me scared (that is very rare) but then came the third book and it ended not so that great. However, if there were more book I would definitely read it. I mean the fact that I marathoned all three books in less than a week with also having a life and going out should really say a lot! So grab your own copy of The Forbidden Game trilogy and boy oh boy, off you go!

What do you guys think about The Forbidden Game Trilogy?