You need to sign in or sign up before continuing.
Take a photo of a barcode or cover
4.01 AVERAGE
4.01 AVERAGE
adventurous
dark
mysterious
tense
Nick Dunmore starts noticing his friends are acting strangely. They're skipping school, acting super tired and generally suspicious. What's causing the change is an underground video game called "Erebos." There are basically two rules to playing "Erebos" - You MUST play alone and you cannot talk about the game to anyone at all. Lastly, you only get one chance to play the game so you better make it count (no unlimited lives here).
When Nick receives a copy of the game DVD, he quickly succumbs to it. As the game slowly begins crossing lines between what is play and what is reality, Nick is thrust straight into an almost "secret society" of players. To excel in the game, he is forced to lie and perform seemingly odd tasks in the outside world. What he's not aware of is that he is part of a tangled web of deceit that comes to a tipping point at the book's climax.
The first half of the book moved extremely slowly for me. There are drawn out descriptions of game play that are really boring and end up being not at all important to the end. As a person who plays "World of Warcraft" religiously, I had a really, really hard time believing just how addicted people got to this game and what they were willing to do in the outside world to succeed within it. It was pretty ridiculous that a game can have so much control over your life. It was also really difficult for me to believe that people obeyed the two rules mentioned above so strictly. I mean, it's a game - played by teenagers.
Along the same line of disbelief, the actual level of sophistication that this game had was also completely ridiculous. Maybe I would have been more keen on believing it if the book was set in the future - but definitely not present day! The things that the game is capable of knowing are just mind-boggling and that, to me, makes it too unbelievable to be effective. The level of artificial intelligence displayed in the game is a long, long time away.
The second half of the book picked up a lot more, but when the final reveal came I was rather...disappointed. I'm not sure what I was expecting out of the end but it was something way more epic than what actually happened. It would have been nice to have everything tied together with a greater dose of realism.
Overall, the book's concept was a great one but the execution was not to my liking.
When Nick receives a copy of the game DVD, he quickly succumbs to it. As the game slowly begins crossing lines between what is play and what is reality, Nick is thrust straight into an almost "secret society" of players. To excel in the game, he is forced to lie and perform seemingly odd tasks in the outside world. What he's not aware of is that he is part of a tangled web of deceit that comes to a tipping point at the book's climax.
The first half of the book moved extremely slowly for me. There are drawn out descriptions of game play that are really boring and end up being not at all important to the end. As a person who plays "World of Warcraft" religiously, I had a really, really hard time believing just how addicted people got to this game and what they were willing to do in the outside world to succeed within it. It was pretty ridiculous that a game can have so much control over your life. It was also really difficult for me to believe that people obeyed the two rules mentioned above so strictly. I mean, it's a game - played by teenagers.
Along the same line of disbelief, the actual level of sophistication that this game had was also completely ridiculous. Maybe I would have been more keen on believing it if the book was set in the future - but definitely not present day! The things that the game is capable of knowing are just mind-boggling and that, to me, makes it too unbelievable to be effective. The level of artificial intelligence displayed in the game is a long, long time away.
The second half of the book picked up a lot more, but when the final reveal came I was rather...disappointed. I'm not sure what I was expecting out of the end but it was something way more epic than what actually happened. It would have been nice to have everything tied together with a greater dose of realism.
Overall, the book's concept was a great one but the execution was not to my liking.
La primera parte se hace demasiado tediosa (de hecho, es un libro que he empezado y dejado varias veces antes de terminarlo en esta ocasión) incluso para alguien interesado en los videojuegos. De hecho, tal y como describen las primeras horas en Erebos ni siquiera entiendo cómo Nick sigue queriendo jugar al cabo de diez minutos...
Pero me ha ido conquistando según se desarrollaba la historia más allá de la pantalla. Hay que tener paciencia para terminar este libro, pero diría que no ha sido tiempo perdido.
Pero me ha ido conquistando según se desarrollaba la historia más allá de la pantalla. Hay que tener paciencia para terminar este libro, pero diría que no ha sido tiempo perdido.
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
adventurous
lighthearted
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
N/A
Loveable characters:
N/A
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
that was a fun read! and I imagine that if this book had existed when I was a teenager i would've been absolutely obsessed. It took me a little bit to get into the whole "young adult" style at the beginning, because it is after all quite juvenile (you know, high school crushes and cliques and all that). But that didn't make it less enjoyable. I truly understand the desperation of wanting to play a game so badly that you literally stop living (like when the sims 3 came out and I RAN home to be able to play for a few minutes) there were points where I also was holding my breath because the stakes were literally that high (no spoilers, but something about tea). Really enjoyed it.
adventurous
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Content Warnings
Graphic: Addiction, Body shaming, Bullying, Gun violence, Violence, Blood, Car accident
Moderate: Death, Sexual assault, Suicide, Medical content, Grief, Stalking, Death of parent
Minor: Ableism, Chronic illness, Emotional abuse, Sexism, Alcohol
I thought the general idea was appealing, but got lost in the details of each of the individual characters, their roles, descriptions, armor, levels, etc. I found the minor role of Nick's real life to be more interesting then trying to read a story about a boy's experience within a virtual reality game that has a creepy real-life crossover. Nick's tasks from the game and how well he carries them out determine what rewards and improvements he receives in the game. It started out okay, but I lost interest by page 125. A No vote for me.