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Thank you NetGalley and Feiwel & Friends for providing an e-Arc in exchange for an honest review.

Synopsis: Trust no one. Every camera is an eye. Every microphone is an ear. Find me and we can stop him together.

The Game: Get ready for Zero Hour as 200 geniuses from around the world go head to head in a competition hand-devised by India’s youngest CEO and visionary.

The Players: 

Rex– One of the best programmers/hackers in the world, this 16-year-old Mexican-American is determined to find his missing brother.

Tunde– This 14-year-old self-taught engineering genius has drawn the attention of a ruthless military warlord by single-handedly bringing electricity and Internet to his small Nigerian village.

Painted Wolf– One of China’s most respected activist bloggers, this mysterious 16-year-old is being pulled into the spotlight by her father’s new deal with a corrupt Chinese official.

The Stakes: Are higher then you can imagine. Like life and death. Welcome to the revolution. And get ready to run.

Genius starts with an interesting premise but in the end it didn’t quite live up to my expectations. The three main characters from whose POV the story is told, are interesting as far as their diverse backgrounds are concerned, but I was never able to become emotionally invested in them.  The concept behind the Game is quite different and unique, and once the competitors began playing I did enjoy some of the puzzles, but it was pretty obvious what the outcome was going to be, which took away some of the excitement. There’s also a lot of foreshadowing which made the story less suspenseful than I was hoping for. There’s a twist near the cliffhanger ending that didn’t really make sense to me and while I don’t have a problem with cliffhangers as long as most of the story is wrapped up, in this instance there are so many unresolved conflicts that when I got to the last page I was extremely frustrated. In my humble opinion Genius isn’t a bad book, but it’s not great either. I can see it appealing to tweens and teens that are into coding and gaming. Other readers may find themselves wishing for more plot and character development though.