megmo's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Graphic: Death of parent, Grief, Hate crime, Car accident, Death, Toxic friendship, Injury/Injury detail, Toxic relationship, Mass/school shootings, Medical content, Suicide, Gun violence, and Homophobia
Moderate: Body horror, Confinement, Domestic abuse, Sexual harassment, Stalking, Terminal illness, Transphobia, Abortion, Blood, Vomit, Xenophobia, Emotional abuse, Infidelity, Cancer, Misogyny, Pregnancy, Violence, and Mental illness
Minor: Cultural appropriation, Drug use, Gore, Alcohol, Blood, Sexual content, and Xenophobia
dylanw's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
Graphic: Murder, Violence, Injury/Injury detail, Car accident, Gun violence, and Death of parent
Moderate: Stalking, Drug use, and Grief
Minor: Abortion
regenherz's review against another edition
- 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
Graphic: Toxic friendship and Toxic relationship
Moderate: Sexual assault, Car accident, Stalking, Gun violence, and Mass/school shootings
Minor: Terminal illness
mc_easton's review against another edition
- 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
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.
Graphic: Car accident, Death of parent, Gun violence, Stalking, Toxic friendship, Blood, Suicide, and Hate crime
Moderate: Gaslighting, Emotional abuse, and Grief
Minor: Abortion and Cancer
eli_like_a_lie's review against another edition
- 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
Graphic: Gun violence, Car accident, Death, Medical content, Mass/school shootings, Homophobia, and Grief
Moderate: Cancer, Death of parent, Injury/Injury detail, Stalking, and Antisemitism
charitytinnin's review against another edition
- 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
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.
Spoiler
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.
Graphic: Gun violence, Medical content, Medical trauma, Sexism, Sexual assault, Mental illness, Grief, Mass/school shootings, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Toxic friendship, Toxic relationship, Domestic abuse, Death, Emotional abuse, Homophobia, Injury/Injury detail, Hate crime, and Murder
Moderate: Self harm, Stalking, Suicide attempt, Ableism, Pregnancy, Death of parent, Car accident, and Racism
Minor: Classism, Cultural appropriation, Genocide, Abortion, and Cancer
Abuse of power in a professor/student relationship.shakakan's review against another edition
- 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
Graphic: Murder, Death of parent, Chronic illness, Suicide, Gun violence, Stalking, Grief, Medical content, Medical trauma, and Death
Moderate: Toxic relationship, Sexism, Racism, Pregnancy, Toxic friendship, and Vomit
Minor: Racial slurs