Author: Eve Silver
ISBN: 9780062272805
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Series: The Game #1
Released: June 11, 2013
Duration: 9 hours, 31 minutes
Source: Audiobook from my public library
Summary:
"So what's the game now?
This, or the life I used to know?
Miki Jones's carefully controlled life spirals into chaos after she's run down in the street, left broken and bloody. She wakes up fully healed in a place called the lobby—pulled from her life, pulled through time and space into some kind of game in which she and a team of other teens are sent on missions to eliminate the Drau, terrifying and beautiful alien creatures.
There are no practice runs, no training, and no way out. Every moment of the game is kill or be killed, and Miki has only the questionable guidance of Jackson Tate, the team's alluring and secretive leader. He evades her questions, holds himself aloof from the others, and claims it's every player for himself. But when he puts himself at risk to watch Miki's back, he leaves her both frustrated and fascinated. Jackson says the game isn't really a game, that what Miki and her new teammates do now determines their survival. And the survival of every other person on this planet. She laughs. He doesn't. And then the game takes a deadly and terrifying turn."
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First Lines:
"MIKI
My head jerks up. My attention narrows. I push off the chain-link fence that marks the limit of school property.
Page 1
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Review:
The whole concept of this story was super intriguing to me - that someone would die and be thrown into a game instead of an afterlife. Then once the game is done for the moment, they are put back into their old lives. a very interesting idea.
Miki was just trying to save a little girl from being hit by a truck. She found herself in unknown territory... a game where the ultimate price is your life. She has to learn quickly about games and rules and how to stay alive. But there is so much more at stake than what is presented on the surface. She has to battle aliens to complete each challenge, but the biggest challenge is yet to come.
I opted to listen to this book purely because it was available from my library's collection. I have a hard copy around here somewhere, but there's something more thrilling about listening to an action and adventure story. And I think this book was served well because of that.
So, this world that the group of teens is thrown into is much like any video game. There are health bars, you spend points on extra weapons, you have to kill every enemy before the quest is complete, etc. The one kicker is that if you die in the game, you die for real. I sort of enjoy the journey of figuring out all of these things with Miki. There is a discovery element throughout the story that really carries things along.
I was very surprised at how things sort of turned out in the end - that people weren't exactly who they said they were. And that Miki was someone special. That whole part made this book feel much more sci-fi than I was expecting. But it's interesting and I am left wondering how things will turn out in the next book.
I will say that there was one serious drawback about listening to this book. There was something weird about the way the reader finished sentences... or said some of the phrases. It's hard to describe. But it's almost like she was trying to hard to make things sound more teen. I had to convince myself to continue listening just because I wanted to find out what was going to happen. Otherwise I would have probably let it go. If I decide to read the next story, I will probably opt for a physical copy if it's the same reader for the audio.
While there are aspects of this story that I truly liked, I'm not sure how interested I am in following the story in a second book. I know there is one, so we'll have to see. But all in all, I think teens who love those adventure stories that mix in sci-fi elements will really get into this story. It's super crazy and will throw you for a loop.
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