Overall the book is good, but not great. There were times where I felt that there is no depth. The story is ok, but there is nothing revolutionary about it. Basically a kid playing a game. As the narrator goes I heard many performances that were way better. At first I even thought about quitting way before the end just because I was not a fan of the narrator.
Overall this is 3.5/5. It’s ok, but there is no dept here, at least not in this part.
SPOILERS BELOW:
The author tries to create some mystery about the AI, but in reality I don’t feel any depth in it.
The adults in the story feel very unrealistic. When reading the story it felt as if I was reading a story written by 15 year old boy, who has written how he imagines the world works, but have never actually seen it. As result the professionals act as an unexperienced user person, and for someone who has some knowledge the way that company operates is very unrealistic.
The main character is ok – he is a teenager, and can make stupid choices. It’s ok. Overall, the main and secondary characters have some depth to them, and some character, but honestly it still feels a bit shallow. His parents are a complete mystery for me as far as character building goes. Again this feels as “parents seen by a teenager” type of character creation. The same goes for the aunt. A teenager spends whole day in VR and the aunt goes like – wow, that is great, let’s play some console games! The characters are basically treated as an object that is only there for the benefit of the main character.