Scan barcode
imsam's review
2.0
Weird short story about a depressed woman who writes a blog about Resident Evil 4 to keep her mind off of life. Author confuses characters from the game and tries to make the gameplay heavy mercenary mode sound like some story heavy thing. Then the second half has a weird tribute to Silent Hill 2 that feels hastily thrown in and preachy. Ultimately not very good or interesting.
markwillnevercry's review
2.25
I was kinda dissapointed. I was let here by promise of a monstrous woman and Emily Carroll and I got none of that, it was just kinda okay story about a lady trying to get a job through sex and believing that everything will work out the way she wants it to. I do not think I will be continuing with Leigh Alexander.
thekarpuk's review
4.0
I write a lot of reviews on Goodreads. I'm kind of compulsive about it. I just want to get my thoughts down, since I don't know many people I can talk to about books.
I also play a lot of video games, and when Steam added the ability to write reviews, I thought this might be a fun opportunity to get the same outlet for my thoughts on games.
Not really. Steam very quickly showed me that gamers are not like Goodreads reviewers. Even the lowliest, obscure indie game had hundreds of angry, nitpicky, highly aggressive reviews. They all had that generic gamer tone popularized by angry internet personalities whose titles all start with "angry", "irritated", "sarcastic", or some other misanthropic adjective.
Leigh Alexander's work is refreshing to me because it has a perspective on gaming that doesn't amount to either treating it like a Consumer Reports product review or an angry rant about its failings. It's something more personal, more a reflection of what games made her think and feel. Books and movies regularly get this kind of appreciation, but in gaming it feels like it often gets drowned out by entitled complaining.
I found Mona compelling because it seemed to draw an interesting comparison between a young woman with dysfunctional relationships and her passion for Silent Hill 2, a game that deals a lot with dysfunctional relationships. Alexander's writing style is readable and direct, and kept me engaged throughout.
I bought this book along with Clipping Through on a really good sale, and it's nice to get content of this quality with DRM or any other restrictive nonsense, and to get special features on top of that. Having read this, I'm definitely ready to read some of her other works.
I also play a lot of video games, and when Steam added the ability to write reviews, I thought this might be a fun opportunity to get the same outlet for my thoughts on games.
Not really. Steam very quickly showed me that gamers are not like Goodreads reviewers. Even the lowliest, obscure indie game had hundreds of angry, nitpicky, highly aggressive reviews. They all had that generic gamer tone popularized by angry internet personalities whose titles all start with "angry", "irritated", "sarcastic", or some other misanthropic adjective.
Leigh Alexander's work is refreshing to me because it has a perspective on gaming that doesn't amount to either treating it like a Consumer Reports product review or an angry rant about its failings. It's something more personal, more a reflection of what games made her think and feel. Books and movies regularly get this kind of appreciation, but in gaming it feels like it often gets drowned out by entitled complaining.
I found Mona compelling because it seemed to draw an interesting comparison between a young woman with dysfunctional relationships and her passion for Silent Hill 2, a game that deals a lot with dysfunctional relationships. Alexander's writing style is readable and direct, and kept me engaged throughout.
I bought this book along with Clipping Through on a really good sale, and it's nice to get content of this quality with DRM or any other restrictive nonsense, and to get special features on top of that. Having read this, I'm definitely ready to read some of her other works.
kelseyr713's review
2.0
I found this somewhat disappointing. I was under the impression that it was going to be a horror story and it definitely wasn't. The plot wasn't particularly engaging either. The illustrations were excellent, but seemed to be tonally off from the story.
More...