A review by silvernfire
Deadly Pink by Vivian Vande Velde

3.0

I liked the first part of the book much better than the last. Emily chose an interesting way to kill herself, and Grace's growing frustration at trying to get Emily to even talk to her, much less exit the game worked well. But once Grace did pin Emily down, the story went flat. Okay, a lot of this comes from being an adult reading a middle-school level book, but while I was willing to believe all sorts of things in the context of the game, what eventually happened to the characters in the real world wasn't believable.

Spoiler

I just wasn't buying that a "good girl" like Emily would've hacked her friend's SAT scores, nor was it easy to believe that a 17-year-old who probably wasn't practicing breaking into secured systems would manage it so easily. At least the ending mentions in passing that Emily probably did severely limit her future options, and I suppose it isn't something her 14-year-old sister would fully grasp. But no mention is made that the computer intelligence in the Land of Golden Butterflies game understood that it was killing Emily, and was willing to do so. Seems like something Grace or Emily would mention to Rasmussem, to prevent the game from deciding to kill a child at some point in the future.