There is so much going on with this book it feels overwhelming. It feels like the plot is barely contained within the pages and its gonna burst out of the book at any given moment and eat my face. Where do I even begin? Video games? Sure, let’s go with that first.
This book is ostensibly about the video games. Its about video games the same way the TV show Ted Lasso is about sports. Video games are important to the characters but it often feels like the set dressing for a soap opera. The making of the video games in this book feel like the roads each character is on and the intersections of those roads are where things get interesting.
I like the characters in this book. Most of them. I don’t like Dov, he can fuck off. In a way Dov feels less like a character by himself and perhaps a character flaw of Sadie. So many times in this book I found myself screaming internally about the way the two main characters Sam and Sadie interacted with each other. I wished that Sam would just like get over himself and actually talk to Sadie about his feelings. I wished that Sadie would not continuously think the worst of Sam in any given situation. Ugh.
Its frustrating the same way a good love story can be. I was rooting for both Sam and Sadie. Their traumas and character flaws made things more difficult than they needed to be but that’s just how life is. Life is filled with simple problems solved in frustrating ways.
I love Marx. I can’t believe this book made me love a bourgeois fucker like Marx but here we are. Can we talk about how the author made a character that’s rich as fuck and named them Marx? Very funny, I love it. Marx seems to be the only one who realizes what the fuck is going on at any given time, he’s the glue that holds this plot together, without him I don’t think this book works at all.
Did I like and enjoy this book? For the most part, yes. The only aspect I felt that I felt was awkwardly handled was the whole bit about cultural appropriation. It seemed extraneous and the book didn’t really give the concept any time to breathe. Other than that, yeah this book is good, I recommend it.
P. S – As I was finishing this book the song that was playing was Don’t Break My Heart by Hania Rani. Appropriate I think.