The Gossip Games by Allie Sarah was the first e-arc I read on Netgalley and it has since become a book that means so much to me as a reader and one I have turned to for comfort many times since reading it. I also read The Friendship Fight which was book 2 in the Trinity High series about a year ago now as soon as I was approved for the e-arc and also completely fell in love with it and spending more time with the characters I really love. So as soon as I saw The Theater Threat available to request on Netgalley I was right at it,and while I didn’t read it straight away this time for a few reasons I did still absolutely love it once I got to it.
The Trinity High series follows a group of cousins who all go to boarding school together and just the things that they get up to and their individual stories surrounding love and friendship. The Theater Threat specifically follows Theo who was recently outed as gay to the entire school and is trying to deal with the effects of that but also due to failing his music class he is being forced to join the school play where specific characters clearly don’t want him. We also meet Asher for the first time in this book who tries to try and finish his senior year well, he is determined to run a successful production of Romeo and Juliet while not everyone is trying to help him succeed.
Something I really love about this series is how much of the rest of the cousins and friendship group we get to see without it overshadowing the characters who the book follows. I love Gracie, Dean, Raina, and Jesse so much and to see more of them and how their relationships have developed since their book finished. While I would have loved to spend another book with my absolute favourite characters from this series, this was also a great way to see more of them and from other people’s perspectives too.
We also meet more characters who both Zara and Nicole already know as they are Asher’s friends in this book which I really liked as each book the cast of characters we have gotten to know has grown without us losing touch of who is who which I have really enjoyed. It was great to meet more characters and get to know how they view Trinity along with the dynamics that a few had with Zara who I have been desperate to learn more about across the past two books and finally did. In fact, while I would have loved for her to get her own book I would say had her own full subplot in this book giving me what I have needed since the start. Zara’s subplot was so so nice to see and my only complaint about it was that I would have liked to see more of it but as it is interlinked with Theo’s story and happening at around the same time I can understand why we focused on Theo more.
Asher was a character who we slowly learn more about as the book goes on and I really liked learning more about him, who he was as a person and while there are little bits of his plot I wish went slightly differently for a few reasons I did really love him. He was the perfect fit for Theo and what he needed from someone who he wasn’t related to, which I really liked to see for Theo because he truly deserved it after everything. Parts of Asher’s identity I found really comforting to read and see and while there were bits I didn’t connect to myself I can see just how important it would be for someone else to see in ways particular books have meant to much to me.
I loved getting to know Theo too as the book goes on because we’ve seen him so much in The Gossip Games and The Friendship Fight that it was nice to truly get to know him in ways that we haven’t already. He is a fantastic character and I wish that I had paid more attention to him in the first two books because of how much I loved him here.
As in the previous book so many important topics were tackled in this and while there are some that I wish were done slightly more in depth the reasons why they were not tackled in the way I would have liked to see makes complete sense for the author and the characters. The homophobia that these characters face is something that frustrates you to read because you know that they do not deserve and you just want the characters who are treating the ones you really really like poorly to get their copunce but you also know that sadly that isn’t how life works. The way the characters faced it was just fun to see and how they found the positives in the situation and spinned it to work for them results in a great ending.
Overall I loved this series so much if you couldn’t tell and this was the perfect ending to the series and to say goodbye to these characters who have meant so much to me and been with me through some particularly tough periods of my life and I have loved being able to turn to. I cannot wait to come back and reread this series back to back. Theo and Asher were great characters to follow and I could not rate it anything but 5 stars.
Thank you to Netgalley and Snowridge Press for a free e-arc in exchange for an honest review.
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