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regenherz's review against another edition
emotional
lighthearted
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Toxic relationship and Toxic friendship
Moderate: Gun violence, Sexual assault, Mass/school shootings, Stalking, and Car accident
Minor: Terminal illness
mc_easton's review against another edition
emotional
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
2.5
Look, I know a lot of people love this book, but it just wasn’t for me. My strikes against it could be exactly what draws someone else to it: 1) A predictable love triangle. 2) A focus on relationships, which are almost always conveyed through scene. In contrast, the creative process is usually presented in summary. It’s supposedly set in the video game industry, but it honestly could’ve been set in any creative field. This is definitely not “All the Light We Cannot See” in terms of detail and research. 3) An inexplicable lack of women characters, which results in the novel failing the Bechdel test—not to mention the use of LGBTQ+ identities as walk-on roles to indicate the straight cis characters’ progressiveness. 4) An equally inexplicable erasure of sexism in the tech/gaming industry. The reality of widespread harassment and discrimination is, in this depiction, replaced with a lot of victim blaming: Sadie is “too sensitive” over who gets credit and “too idealistic” to expect men to not stalk, gaslight, or prey on her from positions of power. 5) A main character who has an incel phase, which includes stalking a grieving woman online and in-person despite her telling him repeatedly to leave her alone. But hey, the novel pretends it’s all okay in the end. 6) The only woman character doesn’t get much of an arc. We’re also meant to see her as strong, yet she remains friends with the men who have mistreated and used her (typical of rape culture, which has a vested interest in normalizing women’s tolerance of abuse from men, the better to accuse women of “overreacting” if they resist or speak out).
Basically, it reads like mainstream YA. So if that’s your jam, you will probably love it. But since this was billed as literary fiction, I expected it to dive into how our video game experiences intersect with our “real lives,” the fluidity of virtual identities, and the role of AI—in populating our alternate lives as well as resurrecting our dead. It doesn’t really concern itself with those questions. I also expected the title—drawn from a line in a speech from Shakespeare’s Macbeth about the inexorable march toward death—to have some bearing on the novel’s themes, structure, and characters. It doesn’t. There’s a misread of the speech as a hopeful message about rebirth (it is not), and an explicit statement that it can be about getting another life in games (it cannot), and that’s it. There’s little subtext, less symbolism, and no lyricism. Every point is stated explicitly, which is a hallmark of YA that doesn’t trust young readers to read between the lines. If I’d known it was going to be a light popcorn read with some regressive gender politics, I might’ve enjoyed it more. Hopefully, this can help someone else pick it up with more reasonable expectations.
Basically, it reads like mainstream YA. So if that’s your jam, you will probably love it. But since this was billed as literary fiction, I expected it to dive into how our video game experiences intersect with our “real lives,” the fluidity of virtual identities, and the role of AI—in populating our alternate lives as well as resurrecting our dead. It doesn’t really concern itself with those questions. I also expected the title—drawn from a line in a speech from Shakespeare’s Macbeth about the inexorable march toward death—to have some bearing on the novel’s themes, structure, and characters. It doesn’t. There’s a misread of the speech as a hopeful message about rebirth (it is not), and an explicit statement that it can be about getting another life in games (it cannot), and that’s it. There’s little subtext, less symbolism, and no lyricism. Every point is stated explicitly, which is a hallmark of YA that doesn’t trust young readers to read between the lines. If I’d known it was going to be a light popcorn read with some regressive gender politics, I might’ve enjoyed it more. Hopefully, this can help someone else pick it up with more reasonable expectations.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Gun violence, Hate crime, Suicide, Blood, Stalking, Car accident, Death of parent, and Toxic friendship
Moderate: Emotional abuse, Grief, and Gaslighting
Minor: Cancer and Abortion
eli_like_a_lie's review against another edition
emotional
hopeful
lighthearted
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Gun violence, Homophobia, Medical content, Grief, Mass/school shootings, and Car accident
Moderate: Cancer, Antisemitism, Stalking, Death of parent, and Injury/Injury detail
charitytinnin's review against another edition
dark
emotional
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
1.0
TL;DR:
This book has been celebrated as a book about lifelong friendship between a man and a woman. I see very little evidence of actual friendship here — at best, it’s a story of on/off colleagues; at worst, a story about a toxic friendship.
In depth thoughts:
I enjoyed the first part of this book so much. I mean, it had art and creativity, disability representation, a woman out to be the best in a sexist industry. And the marketing told me it was about a platonic friendship over decades! I was hooked.
And then Zevin killed off a lovely, supportive character needlessly. At least it seemed that way to me. It felt emotional manipulative the way that some Hoover, Picoult, and Sparks traumas are.
Unfortunately, by the end I’d fallen out of love. In addition to the death, I didn’t think the disability rep was handled super well. Still, I wanted to love the platonic messy friendship of it all. I wanted to.
But it felt like Zevin tried to cover too many different hard things/traumas (disability, abuse, assault, abuse of power, gun violence, death, depression, abortion, suicide — and these are just a few I remember off the top of my head; the entire CW list is massive) and those got in the way. I’m not saying real people can’t experience all those traumas, because they do. I just think it’s hard for an author to handle them all well.
Most importantly, at the end, I wasn’t sure I *should* want the friendship to last; it felt too dysfunctional, and I wondered if they’d be better off finding other connections. Which made me feel like I wasted emotional energy on something I shouldn’t have.
Maybe the problem with my experience is the marketing. Maybe Zevin didn’t set out to write a book about a platonic friendship that survives and upholds the MCs throughout decades, which is what I feel like was marketed. If, instead, she set out to write a story about two individuals who survive despite the trauma and dysfunctionally around them, that would’ve been more satisfying to me personally. I’d still say her MCs experience too much trauma for that page count, but I wouldn’t have been rooting for their friendship to pull them through …. (In some ways, it did, but I’m not sure it was in a healthy way.)
I know most everyone else loves this book. I wish I could see what others are seeing. Unfortunately, I couldn’t.
This book has been celebrated as a book about lifelong friendship between a man and a woman. I see very little evidence of actual friendship here — at best, it’s a story of on/off colleagues; at worst, a story about a toxic friendship.
In depth thoughts:
I enjoyed the first part of this book so much. I mean, it had art and creativity, disability representation, a woman out to be the best in a sexist industry. And the marketing told me it was about a platonic friendship over decades! I was hooked.
Unfortunately, by the end I’d fallen out of love. In addition to the death, I didn’t think the disability rep was handled super well. Still, I wanted to love the platonic messy friendship of it all. I wanted to.
But it felt like Zevin tried to cover too many different hard things/traumas (disability, abuse, assault, abuse of power, gun violence, death, depression, abortion, suicide — and these are just a few I remember off the top of my head; the entire CW list is massive) and those got in the way. I’m not saying real people can’t experience all those traumas, because they do. I just think it’s hard for an author to handle them all well.
Most importantly, at the end, I wasn’t sure I *should* want the friendship to last; it felt too dysfunctional, and I wondered if they’d be better off finding other connections. Which made me feel like I wasted emotional energy on something I shouldn’t have.
Maybe the problem with my experience is the marketing. Maybe Zevin didn’t set out to write a book about a platonic friendship that survives and upholds the MCs throughout decades, which is what I feel like was marketed. If, instead, she set out to write a story about two individuals who survive despite the trauma and dysfunctionally around them, that would’ve been more satisfying to me personally. I’d still say her MCs experience too much trauma for that page count, but I wouldn’t have been rooting for their friendship to pull them through …. (In some ways, it did, but I’m not sure it was in a healthy way.)
I know most everyone else loves this book. I wish I could see what others are seeing. Unfortunately, I couldn’t.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Gun violence, Hate crime, Homophobia, Mental illness, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Toxic relationship, Medical content, Grief, Mass/school shootings, Medical trauma, Murder, Toxic friendship, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Ableism, Racism, Self harm, Stalking, Car accident, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, and Pregnancy
Minor: Cancer, Genocide, Abortion, Cultural appropriation, and Classism
Abuse of power in a professor/student relationship.shakakan's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
funny
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.75
Content Warnings
Graphic: Chronic illness, Death, Gun violence, Suicide, Medical content, Grief, Medical trauma, Stalking, Death of parent, and Murder
Moderate: Racism, Sexism, Toxic relationship, Vomit, Pregnancy, and Toxic friendship
Minor: Racial slurs