Scan barcode
A review by booksnbookends
Endgame Sampler by James Frey, Nils Johnson-Shelton
3.0
I was invited to read this free sampler by HarperCollins via NetGalley.
This book seemed very similar to another dystopian book which I've recently read - The Hunger Games. It had an intriguing concept with some good characters but the sampler didn't immediately make me want to go and buy the book and read it. The writing was good and it flowed well, the meteors crashing before each player's selection added risk, danger and tension to the story. Going through each character was a little monotonous, each character's location, site of meteor crash etc. was detailed before the book really started going.
Though there's meant to be some kind of code to work out through the book, the intermittent numbers and random letters at times made it a bit annoying and challenging to read. Thankfully the author cleverly put the code at the end of each chapter so after a while I knew when I could avoid the code - mainly as I was pretty sure I couldn't work it out from just a sample of the book!
The final part of the sampler finally became a bit more interesting, with an explosion on a train which two players are faced with. I'm not going to spoil anything, so that's all you're getting. It was gripping and it made the read worthwhile, an interesting concept but lies very close to bordering another version of many dystopian novels I've previously read.
This book seemed very similar to another dystopian book which I've recently read - The Hunger Games. It had an intriguing concept with some good characters but the sampler didn't immediately make me want to go and buy the book and read it. The writing was good and it flowed well, the meteors crashing before each player's selection added risk, danger and tension to the story. Going through each character was a little monotonous, each character's location, site of meteor crash etc. was detailed before the book really started going.
Though there's meant to be some kind of code to work out through the book, the intermittent numbers and random letters at times made it a bit annoying and challenging to read. Thankfully the author cleverly put the code at the end of each chapter so after a while I knew when I could avoid the code - mainly as I was pretty sure I couldn't work it out from just a sample of the book!
The final part of the sampler finally became a bit more interesting, with an explosion on a train which two players are faced with. I'm not going to spoil anything, so that's all you're getting. It was gripping and it made the read worthwhile, an interesting concept but lies very close to bordering another version of many dystopian novels I've previously read.