These Deadly Games, By Diana Urban ~ 4.0 Stars

Tags

Gaming, Mystery, Thriller, YA Fiction

Thanks to NetGalley and Wednesday Books for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Release Date: February 1st, 2022

416 Pages

Synopsis: Let’s play a game.

You have 24 hours to win. If you break my rules, she dies. If you call the police, she dies. If you tell your parents or anyone else, she dies.

Are you ready?

When Crystal Donavan gets a message on a mysterious app with a video of her little sister gagged and bound, she agrees to play the kidnapper’s game. At first, they make her complete bizarre tasks: steal a test and stuff it in a locker, bake brownies, make a prank call.

But then Crystal realizes each task is meant to hurt—and kill—her friends, one by one. But if she refuses to play, the kidnapper will kill her sister. Is someone trying to take her team out of the running for a gaming tournament? Or have they uncovered a secret from their past, and wants them to pay for what they did…

As Crystal makes the impossible choices between her friends and her sister, she must uncover the truth and find a way to outplay the kidnapper… before it’s too late.

Author of All Your Twisted Secrets, Diana Urban’s explosive sophomore novel, These Deadly Games, will keep you riveted until the final twist is revealed. (Goodreads)

These Deadly Games is another buzzy upcoming book making the rounds, and while I had a couple of issues with it I sped through it in three hours.

Let me get the negatives out of the way. I had a difficult time connecting to most of the characters, especially Crystal. Most of them were a bit obnoxious in one way or another, although I did warm up to a couple the further I got into the story and learned more about them. Crystal was especially difficult because adding to that was some poor decision making on her part. However, given that she’s sixteen, and put into an impossible situation I tried not to be too judgemental. And, as is usually the case with unsympathetic characters, they can make great suspects, which is what happens here. Up until the halfway point of the story I had pegged the role of the villain on everyone, including Crystal. Although I did deduce who it was well before the big reveal, it was still interesting because of all the unknown particulars. What makes me give this 4 stars though is the unique action-packed storyline and all the twists. All too often I’ve gone into a book that’s billed as a thriller only to find that it barely fits into the suspense genre. This story is a thriller in every sense, and I was absolutely glued to the pages as Crystal careened from one tormenting game to another, while at the same time desperately trying to unmask her tormentor. The ending when it came, unveiled a few last surprises that left me quite happy with the few hours I spent reading.

Overall, despite the mainly unlikable cast, I really enjoyed These Deadly Games. In her acknowledgments, Diana Urban mentions that her film agent is championing this in Hollywood, which isn’t surprising to me because I couldn’t help thinking what a fantastic movie or series this would make. If you love thrilling cat-and-mouse tales, I highly recommend this!

Slay, by Brittney Morris ~ 4.5 Stars

Tags

Coming-of age, Diversity, Gaming, Racism, Suspense, YA Fiction

Thanks to NetGalley and Simon Pulse for providing an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Release Date: September 24th, 2019

336 Pages

Synopsis: By day, seventeen-year-old Kiera Johnson is an honors student, math tutor, and one of the only Black kids at Jefferson Academy. But at home, she joins hundreds of thousands of Black gamers who duel worldwide as Nubian personas in the secret multiplayer online role-playing card game, SLAY. No one knows Kiera is the game developer, not her friends, her family, not even her boyfriend, Malcolm, who believes video games are partially responsible for the “downfall of the Black man.”

But when a teen is murdered in Kansas City is murdered over a dispute in The SLAY world, news of the game reaches the mainstream media, and Slay is labeled a racist, exclusionist, violent hub for thugs and criminals. Even worse, an anonymous troll infiltrates the game, threatening to sue Kiera for “anti-white discrimination.”

Driven to save the only world in which she can be herself, Kiera must preserve her secret identity and harness what it means to be unapologetically Black in a world intimidated by Blackness. But can she protect her game without losing herself in the process? 

As a 54-year-old white woman, I’m obviously not the target audience for a book like Slay, but even so, I really enjoyed this and think it entirely lives up to the hype surrounding it. I absolutely adored Kiera and I think many teens will relate to her. She’s someone who knows who she is, yet is still caught between two worlds, and isn’t comfortable with being forced by others into representing the wider black culture. This is behind her creation of the massive online game Slay where she and other players can feel comfortable being themselves. 

The world of Slay is gorgeously written and the fight scenes are particularly phenomenal. Morris does an exceptional job at balancing this virtual world, with the real world issues that Kiera is encountering. I think it’s brilliantly done and the only reason I’m not giving this 5 stars is because I think some of the other characters, particularly Kiera’s parents and boyfriend could have been developed a little more. 

The story itself is timely yet utterly unique, which is another reason why in my opinion, Slayer is going to be one of the most talked about books of the Fall. Inspired by the movie Black Panther, Brittney Morris wrote this in eleven days. I know, right?! Morris was the first female African-American graduate of her high school, and the only African-American woman at the previous place where she worked. She says her background and interactions with the world are reflected in her fiction. 

“I got used to feeling out of place in a room full of people who don’t look like me, and shrinking myself down to something that’s ‘acceptable’ by everyone. I wrote Slay for black teens who live between worlds as I did, who feel pressure to be one version of themselves at work or school, and only get to be themselves among people who share their experiences.”

Slay is a fantastic book that I guarantee will hold wide appeal to its target audience and beyond. I’m already choosing my dream cast for the future film I’m sure will be coming. I highly recommend it to fans of Black Panther and Ready Player One.