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A review by somewheregirl7
Heir Apparent by Vivian Vande Velde
3.0
I'll be honest, I mostly picked up this audiobook because it was narrated by Carine Montreband and I was so in love with the Uglies books by Westerfeld that she narrated that I wanted to hear her voice again. The unconscious mental comparison between Westerfeld's book and this one may be skewing my opinion of it.
Summary: Fourteen-year-old Giannine becomes trapped in the virtual reality game Heir Apparent when an activist group attacks the gaming center where she's playing. Suddenly the safety measures that are supposed to protect her aren't there and every time Giannine dies in the game she edges closer toward a fatal brain overload.
Overall, the story stretched out too long for me and seemed rather thin. It was frustrating how many times Giannine had to start over and the same events repeated. While Giannine faced some tough decisions and lots of machinations, the pacing was just off. There needed to be more action and more happening. Too often it felt like Giannine was just floating along in the game, buffeted by various forces. The fact that none of the characters she was interacting with were real, and the reader knew that, also made it hard to form any sort of attachment to them. The characters were just a program with no personal consciousness and thus no real stake in the outcome of the story.
The dialogue and description are well done throughout and this is a well-written story. It's missing a spark however to take it from so-so to a really good book.
Summary: Fourteen-year-old Giannine becomes trapped in the virtual reality game Heir Apparent when an activist group attacks the gaming center where she's playing. Suddenly the safety measures that are supposed to protect her aren't there and every time Giannine dies in the game she edges closer toward a fatal brain overload.
Overall, the story stretched out too long for me and seemed rather thin. It was frustrating how many times Giannine had to start over and the same events repeated. While Giannine faced some tough decisions and lots of machinations, the pacing was just off. There needed to be more action and more happening. Too often it felt like Giannine was just floating along in the game, buffeted by various forces. The fact that none of the characters she was interacting with were real, and the reader knew that, also made it hard to form any sort of attachment to them. The characters were just a program with no personal consciousness and thus no real stake in the outcome of the story.
The dialogue and description are well done throughout and this is a well-written story. It's missing a spark however to take it from so-so to a really good book.