The God Game (ARC review)

Charlie and his group of coder friends don’t know how much their life is about to change when they accept their invitation to the G.O.D. game, run by underground hackers and loaded with every religious text known to humankind. Too soon, their real lives are as interconnected with the game as they appear through their VR glasses, their high school turned into a world of glyphs, gods, and mythical creatures. 

The God Game is a mix between Nerve and Black Mirror, specifically S3 EP3: ‘Shut Up and Dance.’ 

First of all, I thought this book was going to be YA, considering the high school setting and young main characters, but the book gets into some pretty dark territory that even I would say is more catered to adults (Goodreads has listed this under YA but others have only categorized it as ‘coming-of-age).

Dark twists and horrible happenings are in abundance. And, for what it is, it makes sense that the story would sink into this dark place while exploring the topics of humanity that it seems to somewhat want to commentate on. 

Beware: not all of the topics (meaning, basically none of them) in this story are dealt with particularly gracefully, which may irk some readers. Personally, considering the unlikeable characters and pessimistic, dark tone overall, it didn’t feel unexpected or as bothersome to me as it would have in other circumstances. 

What kept me avidly flipping through pages of this book was not the characters (which are mostly meant to be unlikeable anyways), or the game (which is not incredibly original in comparison to other books/movies/shows in the genre), but the fact that in every single one of the over 100 chapters there was a new surprise…and I can’t say I saw any of them coming. This story threw me for a loop…or rather, many loops…like an extreme roller coaster. And, perhaps even more shocking, was that all of them made sense. It can be easy for stories to throw in surprises, but it’s another thing entirely for those twists to follow realistic logic. But there were not many moments during God Game that I thought something was too unbelievable. 

Perhaps the greatest strength of this book is that the entire story is well-executed and planned out. It’s more than clear that Tobey knew what he was doing. The coding, at the heart of the story, is extremely convincing (at least to someone like me who has *ahem* limited experience on the subject) which sets up the story on a strong foundation. 

In fact, the middle of this book was building to something really great, but it was unfortunately bookended by a weaker beginning and end. At first, readers are met with an info-dump of information where we’re told everything we’d ever need to know about every character…and then some. While, towards the end, we’re met with the opposite problem as the book starts feeling rushed and it’s hard to gain a grasp on the complicated issues at hand and fully understand what’s going on. 

Although the overarching themes in this story are more than apparent, I couldn’t help feeling that there were some missed opportunities when it came to commentary. There were so many things I thought the book could have been building towards talking about, but the focus became more about the plot itself than the concepts beneath.  The story also takes place in 2017, right before the election that made Trump president. This is mentioned lightly and could have had a deeper impact on the story, but more or less served only to date it. I understand why so many stories recently are including Trump in their stories, for catharsis or relevancy, but it’s not my favorite tactic. Books that would otherwise have more of a universal tone are placed in a specific time period, which may limit their relevancy, and I fear the same may be said for this one. 

I rated The God Game 3.5 out of 5 stars. Fans of Black Mirror will like this one (especially while biding our time during the long wait for another season) and those with an interest in coding and hacking.

Thank you to Netgalley and St. Martin’s Press for the opportunity to read an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.