This book was a little frustrating for me to read. The subject matter is game design, and also it is a novel about love. Being a fan of both those things I expected to enjoy it more than I did.
The book starts with two young people growing up differently than others their age, and we follow their lives as they get older and more experienced with “life”. I usually like books that span a long time and show development in the characters. Unfortunately, the development here was strictly game-related.
Sometimes I see a movie or read a book where the characters don’t just communicate their feelings to each other. The reasons why might be a lack of self-confidence, or they are scared, or they just forget to do it. This book is filled with these moments where they could decide to do the right thing but don’t. And the author then distills as much drama as possible out of the results of this lack of communication, drawing out the drama whenever possible.
The big moments of this book are telegraphed and predictable, so when they finally come they have little impact. The author also has wedged in plenty of contemporary social issues: gender identity, racial identity, sexual harassment and assault, drugs, homosexuality. These felt like they weren’t organically part of the story to me.
This story reminded me a bit of Utopia Avenue by David Mitchell, and I think Mitchell pulled off a similar story in a much more satisfactory way.
The story does revolve around gaming and developing games – a topic I am always interested in – but when the characters are discussing games and how to make them it felt similar to Ready Player One – just checking off names to give itself credibility.
It is too bad as this was an ambitious project, and the writer’s writing style was fairly easy to read. It sort of felt like a Young Adult book for Adults.
Next I am reading Contact by Carl Sagan.
