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A review by kdrhoton
The God Game by Danny Tobey
2.0
I was really enjoying this book for the first half. Despite it being about teens (I rarely read books with teenage protagonists anymore), I was interested in the characters and their struggles. The writing was fast-paced, yet enjoyable, and I was very intrigued by the mystery of the God Game. I wanted to know what the heck was going on.
Then things slowly started going downhill. The story just got more and more dark, more and more depressing. It seemed like the only thing keeping the story progressing was the author trying to find more terrible things for people to do to one another. I stopped caring about the characters, not because of the transformations they were going through, but because there were so many awful things being done to them and by them, that I just started to feel a sense of numbness and disconnect towards them and their perils.
There’s a lot of social and moral commentary in here, with plenty of references to our current political and social environment, which I can appreciate. There are observations made in the book that I completely agree with. However, the book ends on such a depressing note, it makes you feel a sense of hopelessness about the future. Like no matter how hard you try to be good, or how hard you try to right your wrongs, it will never be enough and life will just continue to tear you apart. Maybe this makes me sound naive, but that’s not a mindset I’m looking acquire.
The sci-fi aspects of the book were fun and I loved the coding references. I also really liked the tie-ins to philosophy. If you’re interested in philosophy, this could be a really great read for you. However, if you’re looking for a story to lift your spirits a bit, or a nice fun-time romp, I would probably suggest not picking this one up.
Thanks to Netgalley and St. Martin’s Press for the review copy.
Then things slowly started going downhill. The story just got more and more dark, more and more depressing. It seemed like the only thing keeping the story progressing was the author trying to find more terrible things for people to do to one another. I stopped caring about the characters, not because of the transformations they were going through, but because there were so many awful things being done to them and by them, that I just started to feel a sense of numbness and disconnect towards them and their perils.
There’s a lot of social and moral commentary in here, with plenty of references to our current political and social environment, which I can appreciate. There are observations made in the book that I completely agree with. However, the book ends on such a depressing note, it makes you feel a sense of hopelessness about the future. Like no matter how hard you try to be good, or how hard you try to right your wrongs, it will never be enough and life will just continue to tear you apart. Maybe this makes me sound naive, but that’s not a mindset I’m looking acquire.
The sci-fi aspects of the book were fun and I loved the coding references. I also really liked the tie-ins to philosophy. If you’re interested in philosophy, this could be a really great read for you. However, if you’re looking for a story to lift your spirits a bit, or a nice fun-time romp, I would probably suggest not picking this one up.
Thanks to Netgalley and St. Martin’s Press for the review copy.