57 pages 1 hour read

Jennifer Lynn Barnes

Games Untold

Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2024

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Themes

Complexity of Family Dynamics

The novellas and stories collected in Games Untold feature intimate scenes between the Hawthornes and their loved ones that, together, illustrate how the characters move beyond conventional definitions of family to shape their own complex, atypical family structures. The four Hawthorne boys—Jameson, Nash, Grayson, and Xander—were raised by their billionaire grandfather Tobias. Although he gave the boys a decadent, privileged life, his real legacy isn’t his fortune, but “the marks he’[s] left on each of his grandsons. Invisible. Enduring” (16). Throughout the collection, the Hawthorne grandsons endeavor to move beyond their fraught upbringing with Tobias and to create a new family dynamic. 

Over the course of the collection, the Hawthornes reshape their relationship and family dynamic through shared experiences. Several of the collection’s stories feature scenes of the boys engaging in playful puzzles, games, and scavenger hunts, illustrating their enduring bond. With these activities, Jameson, Nash, Grayson, and Xander reinvent their grandfather’s love for puzzles, turning it into a connective bonding activity. Jennifer Lynn Barnes uses the boys’ games and antics to show how even the most complex family dynamics have positive outcomes—in the context of the Hawthorne family, this redemptive result is the Hawthorne brothers’ loving relationship.