Didn't See That Coming by Jesse Q Sutanto

 Pages: 320 

Publisher: Electric Monkey 

Released:  7th of December 2023 

Seventeen-year-old Kiki Siregar is a fabulous gamer girl with confidence to boot. She can’t help but be totally herself… except when she’s online.

Her secret? She plays anonymously as a guy to avoid harassment from other male players. Even her online best friend―a cinnamon roll of a teen boy who plays under the username Sourdawg―doesn’t know her true identity. Which is fine, because Kiki doesn’t know his real name either, and it’s not like they’re ever going to cross paths IRL.

Until she transfers to an elite private school for her senior year and discovers that Sourdawg goes there, too.

But who is he? How will he react when he finds out Kiki’s secret? And what happens when Kiki realizes she’s falling for her online BFF?

What I Have to Say 

Okay first off I want to say I think this is a really great book. It had great characters, a strong plot and a good message of feminism and standing up to bullies. The only reason I'm rating it so low is because it hit really really close to home with me and I found that I didn't enjoy it as much as I wanted to. 

The main bulk of this book is about school trauma and misogyny. It showed a very real situation in a school that had a really toxic environment. It really sheds light on the situation that exists in many Asian schools, where standing out or making waves is punished harshly. I really respect the author for taking a stance on this. 

The friendships in this book were my favourite part. Not only the main friendship between Kiki and Sourdawg, but the female friendships she has before the novel. It really shows a feeling of girls banding together and sticking up for one another. 

I'm really sad that I couldn't enjoy this book because of my own trauma, but I want to emphasise that this is a really good book that everyone should read. 

3.5 stars 

My thanks goes to Electric Monkey and Netgalley for providing me with this gifted copy for review. 

Let's Play Murder by Kesia Lupo

Pages: 400 

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. 

OtherEarth by Jason Segel and Kirsten Miller

Synopsis (from Goodreads) 

Pages: 320 

Publisher: Rock The Boat 

Released: 30th of October 2018 

Simon saved his best friend, Kat, from the clutches of the Company and their high-tech VR gaming experience, Otherworld. But it was at a steep price. Now he, Kat, and their friend Busara are on the run. They know too much. About the Company's dark secrets. About the real-life consequences of playing Otherworld. And about Kat's stepfather's involvement in everything. The group is headed to New Mexico to find Simon's old roommate, who is a tech genius and possibly the only person who can help them reveal the truth about the Company before it's too late and the line between what's real and what's fantasy is erased . . . forever.

Imagine a future in which you can leave reality behind and give in to your greatest desires. That future is now. And the future is terrifying. 

What I Have to Say 

This series is getting so interesting. Even though they were out in the real world for most of this book, Otherworld was very much there and starting to spill into the real world.... I liked the way that Simon was starting to show a slipping grip on reality, not knowing what's real and what's not. Though I have to say, it was hard to believe he didn't know what colour would be weird for a scorpion to be. 

I do feel like Kat and Busara are kind of shoved to the back a bit as characters though. It sort of feels like Kat is only really around to be Simon's girlfriend. It may be a bit harsh a reading, but I'd like to see more of the girls personalities coming through, especially now Elvis is around. Busara was a bit better, with looking for her father being a prominent part of the plot, but again it's Simon doing everything and Kat and Busara just hanging around in the background. 

Despite that, I am still really enjoying the series. It seems to be gearing up towards a really exciting finale in the next book and I'm looking forward to seeing what comes next. 

My thanks go to Netgalley and Rock the Boat for providing me with this copy for review.