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Linda S
Loved the book!
As someone who spent decades in tech, I recognized the characters and the “love language” expressed through coding, game play, and characters. A pleasure to read.
J
Excellent
I enjoyed every page of this very well-written book. The characters are very real. Even tho I know nothing about video games I enjoyed learning about them. But the themes of love and friendship were what spoke the loudest. How much we could spare ourselves if only we talked, really talked to each other. We need to be reminded that no one can read minds.
Tired Bookreader
A book I didn't know I'd enjoy
When a person reads a book on a subject that is totally unknown, it could go in any direction. This book on the creativity, distribution, and enjoyment of video games was a fun surprise. From the very beginning, the reader is hooked. From tragedy comes what? Read and find out!
Roberta_Winchester
Brilliant and Fun Read
If someone had told me that I would fall in love with a book that was about gaming and gamers, I wouldn't have believed them. But this is exactly what happened when I read this book. At the beginning of the book, when Sam sees his friend Sadie and finally gets her attention by yelling "Sadie you died of dysentery" (referring to the old Oregon Trail game), I was hooked. I'm not a gamer, but I did play the Oregon Trail back in the 80s. It was a fabulous game.
The main characters, Sam and Sadie become friends when Sam is in the hospital recovering from a car accident that left his foot mangled and Sadie is at the hospital with her ill sister. Sam and Sadie play games together and discover that they complement each other. Over time they become partners in developing computer games.
The book follows Sam and Sadie as partners and friends. There are huge chunks of time where they don't speak to each other. There are storylines with other characters who are important in their lives and these characters too are fascinating.
I cared deeply for Sam and Sadie and the author does a wonderful job of making them seem like real people, mainly because they are lovable and flawed.
The book blends reality and gaming together and at times the action takes place inside a game.
It's just brilliant and funny too. I loved this book.
Cathryn_Conroy
This Book Is All Plot—Plot, Plot, Plot. It's Like Eating Only Dessert Without Much Substance
This is a good book. But it is not a great book. It's all about plot—plot, plot, plot. While the plot is riveting (it really is hard to stop reading at times), there just isn't the depth of story, character development, and conflict that is needed to make it a truly great novel.
Written by Gabrielle Zevin, it is a love letter to friendship, collaborative work, and (most of all) video games.
Sam and Sadie are 12 and 11 years old respectively when they meet in a Los Angeles hospital playroom on the pediatric ward. Sam was in a horrific car crash that left his mother dead and Sam disabled for the rest of his life. Sadie's sister has leukemia, and Sadie spends her days in the hospital with sister Alice. Sam hasn't spoken a word to anyone in the six weeks since the accident, but he's talking to Sadie as they play video games. This is the beginning of a lifelong friendship—with a few sputtering stops and starts in between, such as the six years when Sam is too angry to speak to Sadie. Eventually they reunite and join creative and technical forces to write a video game while they are both students in Cambridge, Massachusetts. (He's at Harvard. She's at MIT.) The story continues as their video game company expands and becomes a huge overnight success, forcing Sam and Sadie, along with Marx, who is their producer, caretaker, and office manager, to figure out who they are now both personally and professionally.
What I did like about the novel:
• The storyline is (mostly) fun and riveting. I was immediately swept into it.
• There are quite a few erudite and spot-on references to classical literature, which I really enjoyed, including the title, which is from Shakespeare's "Macbeth."
• The vocabulary used in the book is fabulous. I had to look up quite a few words, which doesn't happen often. I loved that!
What I didn't like about the novel:
• Even though this novel is all about plot, the one big plot twist toward the end felt contrived. It came out of nowhere, and it feels like it only happened to wind down the story.
• The characters seemed one-dimensional. They don't change or grow or learn from life's experiences. We meet the two main characters when they are children, and their personalities and the way they react to life's hardballs and to each other do not change very much over the 25 years the book takes place.
• The story sags a bit in the middle and then again toward the end, becoming a bit of a slog at times.
I think the book is overrated. Reading this book is the equivalent to eating only dessert. There isn't much substance and depth, and it's not particularly satisfying when all you have is pretty and overly sweet icing on the cake.
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