Publisher: Bloomsbury YA
Released: 13th of April 2023
Video games have never been more murderous.
Veronica wakes up trapped with four strangers in a sprawling manor house in a snow storm with a dead body, a mystery right out of an Agatha Christie novel. It feels so real - but it isn't. This is VR and this is THE Game; a rumoured Easter Egg hidden in other VR games that draws you into a competition for a prize beyond your wildest dreams. And there's no escaping the VR world until the Game is won.
But while Veronica and her fellow players are trying to figure out the puzzle, something is not right in the VR world. Blackouts, glitches, NPCs acting strange, and a mysterious figure haunting their footsteps. Then when a player dies, and also dies in real life, all hell breaks loose.
Without warning, the game Veronica thought she was playing gets overshadowed by a much darker, and much more real, mystery: who is killing us?'
It may not be a game Veronica wanted to play, but it's one that she has to win - or die trying.
What I Have to Say
This was such an interesting concept! I loved the blend of genres, how it was a mystery but it was also blended with thriller and sci fi themes with an heavy mix of horror added to the balance. The concept gripped me straight away, but sadly it didn't keep me hooked. The ending completely felt flat to me even though I didn't really see it coming.
I also really hated some of the characters. The worst was Charlie, she just rubbed me the wrong way from the moment she appeared. I don't think we were meant to like her honestly, but she just annoyed me.
I was most put off though by the characters using the word "psycho" and "psychotic". These words have long been misused, especially in the horror genre and it's time we took them out of colloquial vocabulary for good. Psychosis is a very real condition and it doesn't even slightly make someone a serial killer.
3 stars
My thanks go to Netgalley and Bloomsbury for providing me with this copy for review.
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