Erebos - Book Review

Erebos
by Ursula Poznanski

What is it about:
An intelligent computer game with a disturbing agenda.

When 16-year-old Nick receives a package containing the mysterious computer game Erebos, he wonders if it will explain the behavior of his classmates, who have been secretive lately. Players of the game must obey strict rules: always play alone, never talk about the game, and never tell anyone your nickname.

Curious, Nick joins the game and quickly becomes addicted. But Erebos knows a lot about the players and begins to manipulate their lives. When it sends Nick on a deadly assignment, he refuses and is banished from the game.

Now unable to play, Nick turns to a friend for help in finding out who controls the game. The two set off on a dangerous mission in which the border between reality and the virtual world begins to blur.

What did I think of it:
This is a really cool and suspenseful read.

I love the set up of this story. Being an avid gamer myself I could really understand how Nick and his friends were totally engrossed in playing Erebos, which sounded like a cool Fantasy game. When at first the game asks Nick to do some small errants outside of the game I could easily understand why Nick didn't refuse.

But slowly the game asks more and more of Nick and its motives get more dubious. As the game progresses and it's clear others are willing to go further in following orders than Nick, the story gets quite grim.

The story switches from Nick to his character in the game called Sarius. I will confess I was invested in both this game character and in Nick. At times I was just as disappointed as Nick when he had to stop playing. The switches between the two were well done, it kept the story very suspenseful.

This story made me think about what I would do if I was in Nick's position as well. Would I run errants for a game I really enjoy playing? Would I question its motives?

All in all this is a very suspenseful and action packed read that was hard to put down. I can advice this book to any gamer and I hope more of Poznanski's books get translated to English.

Why should you read it:
It's a suspenseful YA thriller