Thursday, November 9, 2017

Otherworld by Segel and Miller - OPTIONAL

Segel, Jason and Kirsten Miller Otherworld, 355 pages.  Delacorte (Random), 2017.  $19.  Language: R (100+  swears, 2 ‘f’); Mature Content: PG-13, Violence: PG-13

When Simon returns from a forced stint in boarding school, his best friend, Kat, has frozen him out of her life.  In a desperate move to talk to her, he uses his parent’s credit card to buy the newest generation of VR gaming equipment.  Instead, Simon gets in more trouble than he’s ever been and Kat has an accident that lands her in a coma.  Something is seriously wrong – not just with Kat’s life, but with Otherworld – the virtual reality realm.  Simon will have to find a new way in – a more dangerous way – in order to save not only his friend, but himself and gaming world.

While this reads Matrix in ways big and small, and will also be compared to Marie Lu’s Warcross, I am so irked with Segel and Miller’s choices.  Its like they said “we’re writing a book for older teens, so we’d better swear a lot and add lots of mature content”.  “Eyeroll” Too bad they couldn’t read Warcross first to see that you can write a book that teenagers and more will love without adding gratuitous content.  This will also compare to Dashner’s Eye of Minds series, but it is not as accessible as all these others.

HS – OPTIONAL.  Cindy, Library Teacher

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