Denise

It wasn't the first time in history that nerd was meeting nerd, but it was the first time for us, our cohort-the first nerds of the modern age, floppy-disk drives, game consoles, Apple IIs, and C64s-and we were different.

This was one of the most frustrating books that I have ever read. I clearly was not the target reader for this book. Quite frankly I think you would have to be a super-fan of video games or really into video game design in order to actually like this book. I don't want to be rude but I am just really glad that I have finally finished this book.

This book takes place in the late 1990's and follows Russell as he finds a job with a video game company headed by a few of his old high school friends. I say friends lightly because it seems as though Russell didn't consider them friends really. When things start to go wrong with the company's games Russell must try and find the solution before it is too late to save the company.

I found it really hard to connect with Russell or any of the other characters in this book. Russell first came off as really pathetic and then he was just consumed with the games. I liked that you got to see what happened during their high school years that lead them to be where they are now. The high school years and the time where they all went to the computer summer camp were the parts that I actually liked.

This book seemed to jump around a lot (at least when Russell wasn't playing games) and that tended to be confusing to me. It is hard to follow along when you're jumping around. I also really didn't like that when Russell is playing the games it reads as though "You" the reader are playing the games. I understand why that was done that way but it kind of just read like one of those Choose Your Own Adventure books without the freedom to actually choose your own adventure. It became just too repetitive reading: "You walked down the hall. Then you looked at the..." Actually playing a video game and reading about playing a video game are vastly different things and this book showed that.

I would not discourage anybody who loves video games from reading this but if you don't love video games this might not be the book for you.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the galley.