The Scammer by Tiffany D. Jackson

I did really enjoy this latest by Jackson, but I have to wonder at what was she trying to convey here with the race flip that she did. There were some things I definitely got, but others….I don’t know. I think that some of the narrative choices she chose reminds me a bit too much of One of Our Kind and not in a good way. I know that Jackson was inspired by the Sarah Lawrence sex cult, but I think that having this book take place in modern times with the rise of TikTok, social media, etc. it just didn’t hit the landing for me since I don’t think that it would have worked.

The other reason why I gave this 4 stars (and honestly it’s a 3.5 star read) was that the reveal was really good, but it didn’t make any sense to me since we had it that the main character, Jordyn, was shocked by what she was told and put two and two together. She would have known ahead of time about the [redacted] in my opinion. Other than that though, I thought it was good. I will add that I think the relationship that got shoehorned in could have been left out. It just kept messing up the overall flow of the book/mystery.

The Scammer follows Jordyn to Frazier University, a HBCU located in Washington, D.C. Jordyn’s family does not support her going to Frazier and it seems as if growing up in Connecticut, she was not ever able to be herself. All we know is she is missing someone named Kevin when she meets her new roommate. Jordyn quickly finds herself liking all of her roommates: Loren, Vanessa and Kammy. Then, Vanessa’s brother, Devonte, comes to visit after he’s released from prison. When Vanessa asks can he stay longer than the initial two weeks (which seriously) he was going to stay since he needs help getting back on his feet, things begin to unravel.  Jordyn and her roommates find themselves falling under Devonte’s spell about what it means to be Black Queens and how even going to college is allowing themselves to fall into traps. When Devonte starts to pull even more people at the school under his spell, Jordyn wonders if she should tell someone what Devonte is up to or just stay quiet since for the first time in her life she feels like she belongs.

I do think that Jordyn was annoying at times (okay a lot of times) it takes until the middle of the book honestly for me to actually feel engaged with her. She felt like hollow throughout this story, and when you get to the end, you are going to realize why. That though feels like a cheat to me when reading a book like this. It just felt like too many characters got handwaved away. I do think the roommates personality’s came shining through clearly. And I wish we had stayed with them more in the story. When Jordyn keeps running into the character of Nick and finding herself liking him I started rolling my eyes. It just didn’t ring true with the rest of the story at all and with the high stakes of what was going on, it wrecked the flow of the book.

The setting of Frazier I assume was going for a fictional Howard University.

I saw a reader say the ending reminded her of Freida McFadden and honestly yes. It is a typical ending that she writes. Things are crammed in, reveals we didn’t know about are revealed and we don’t get everything tied up in the end.