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3.12 AVERAGE
3.12 AVERAGE
LOVED this. Am very biased as I am Oxford obsessed! But it was a fun, creepy read!
This book, there are no words that I can describe the feeling I had once I've finished it! The ending is so twisted that I can't imagine being in these characters' shoes! I keep reading and reading to make sense of what the author was trying to input in this plot.
A great read, but not so comforting for everyone tho.
A great read, but not so comforting for everyone tho.
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
I enjoyed the bulk of the book about the game; however, I tho ght the "present day" ending was lackluster and seemed to just fizzle out without the same intensity of other parts of the book
i enjoyed this book and the way it was written a lot. the characters were interesting, funny and smart. the game they played started out as an innocent way to embarrass and push the boundaries of their friends but it ended up getting ~dark~ and personal. it definitely wasnt my favorite book in the world but it was like a less pretentious secret history so theres that!
i loved almost everything about this book. with the combination of the blending of the timeline and the unreliable narrator it was confusing enough that i was hooked and needed to keep reading to find out what would happen, but not so confusing that it was frustrating (which i often find with these sorts of psychological thrillers).
I wanted to like it more but had a hard time staying with it in the last pages. I give it 3 stars but not more.
My opinion on this book is mixed. On the one hand, it was an effective page turner. The plot alternates between an unreliable narrator writing a story in first person in the 'present day' (circa 2005) and a third person narrative describing the events that happened to him as a freshman at Oxford University, where he and a group of friends developed a game of escalating humiliating punishments which ended in tragedy. The present-day narrator was sufficiently shattered by the events of his youth that his memory is unreliable, and he's unable or unwilling to discuss some of the events too directly. It kept me moving forward, wanting to know what happened in the past.
Having said that, upon reaching the end of the book, the bifurcated structure felt a bit gimmicky. Without entering spoiler territory, I found myself having a hard time believing the narrator could have been reduced so completely to the wretched figure he was in the present day. And the denouement felt a little bit too tidy--if the rest of the book felt entirely believable, the ending felt like a string of miraculously luck and preternatural planning. The book also ends with a significant mystery unanswered--by design--which was teased so well that I really wanted more. Alas.
The supporting characters felt a bit flat, but the two main characters were well fleshed out and interesting. In short, I don't know if this is something I would read again, but it's a decent little thriller for the dog days of summer.
Having said that, upon reaching the end of the book, the bifurcated structure felt a bit gimmicky. Without entering spoiler territory, I found myself having a hard time believing the narrator could have been reduced so completely to the wretched figure he was in the present day. And the denouement felt a little bit too tidy--if the rest of the book felt entirely believable, the ending felt like a string of miraculously luck and preternatural planning. The book also ends with a significant mystery unanswered--by design--which was teased so well that I really wanted more. Alas.
The supporting characters felt a bit flat, but the two main characters were well fleshed out and interesting. In short, I don't know if this is something I would read again, but it's a decent little thriller for the dog days of summer.
The book starts with 6 undergrad college students in England who create a game somewhat like Truth or Dare but with increasingly severe consequences for losing. Who knows better than your friends what sort of dare would get under your skin and make you back out? The game is complicated and the stakes get higher when three mysterious members of Game Society (Game Soc) offer a big money pot for the winner. Fourteen years later, each of the six has been radically transformed by the two semesters they played the Game.
I won't give more plot description than that because it's too easy to give spoilers. The book was fun and suspenseful, and the author has some great insights about friendship, betrayal, and human nature. The few flaws for me were that I did see a few plot points coming, this didn't have quite as twisty of a plot as I'd been lead to believe by other reviews, and there are a few threads that don't get tied up neatly at the end. Overall, though, it was fast-paced and very enjoyable. Recommended.
I won't give more plot description than that because it's too easy to give spoilers. The book was fun and suspenseful, and the author has some great insights about friendship, betrayal, and human nature. The few flaws for me were that I did see a few plot points coming, this didn't have quite as twisty of a plot as I'd been lead to believe by other reviews, and there are a few threads that don't get tied up neatly at the end. Overall, though, it was fast-paced and very enjoyable. Recommended.
Much better than its lame tagline.
A dark and harrowing story of people destroying the lives of other people. The Game is purposefully left slightly vague, because this is not a book about the Game but the players. The ending twist felt contrived, hence only four stars instead of five.
A dark and harrowing story of people destroying the lives of other people. The Game is purposefully left slightly vague, because this is not a book about the Game but the players. The ending twist felt contrived, hence only four stars instead of five.
There were things I liked about this book, but as a whole the plot line was choppy and it was hard for me to believe the risk. It felt like a far fetch for someone to ruin their whole life for a stupid game and none of the characters were very empathetic.