Looks like a lot of people have mixed feelings about this book. I picked it up because I’d really loved Soon I Will Be Invincible but this book was a mess. Neat enough premise... takes place in the same suburban Boston area I grew up in, about when I grew up, characters are nerds and they start a gaming company. However, there is way too much “And then the wizard casts a spell and then you find a magic amulet in the knot in the tree and ...” sort of exposition about the games themselves and neither the games nor the characters are interesting enough and the story doesn’t cohere.

There are a lot of weird perspective shifts and some of the characters in the game sort of come to life (maybe? I never was quite sure I knew what was going on with them) and so there are maybe four levels of reality: current day, the past, inside the game and then whatever the reality is where the characters from the game come to life. Oh and there are dreams. All in all too confusing to dig through and didn’t really wrap up in a way that I found enjoyable or interesting. Not my thing.