sigh. i really really really was looking forward to this. alas, this was a tad disappointing.

i mean this in the least mean way possible but usually i don’t have many expectations for YA. i kinda just go with it and don’t think too much deeper. but at times there felt like there were points i couldn’t overlook.

i will say i did enjoy some parts of this story. for one, the slow reveal of what happened to riley was nice, especially since i thought it was going to go in a different direction. i wasn’t unsatisfied — i thought it was written well. i also enjoy how vivian was kinda unlikeable? somehow i have a feeling she was written to be sympathetic, but honestly i didn’t like her and i was fine with that. i simultaneously was rooting for her to beat the “demon” but also hoping she gets her shit rocked for all the stupid, callous and selfish things she’s done. i love with every situation she’s both in the wrong and in the right. idk i found that very realistic for a teen MC but also entertaining. 

the side characters were a bit meh. i mean everyone other than ash barely had more than one personality trait, and ash at most had two. i found them quite uninteresting and flat, but i did enjoy the direction all the characters went in.

i have mixed feelings on the plot. on one hand i think it is a unique twist on the “demon” trope, making it more modern and adding a new layer to its horror. there was tension, which i always need, but idk i felt like i could almost predict what was going to happen? and everyone’s reactions? and honestly as the story starting climbing in tension, i kept caring less and less about victoria. maybe i kind of wanted her to lose? maybe because i thought she made exclusively stupid decisions she should lose? idk, but at some point i stopped caring because i almost could predict where this was going.

the dialogue was a bit cringe at times, especially when certain games were name dropped. it felt like when u watch a movie and u can clearly tell there’s a sponsorship because the coke label on the can is always facing the screen, or they include a shot of the apple logo on a laptop. that really kept throwing me out of the story and breaking my immersion. plus as i mentioned earlier, everything victoria said or did lowkey made me dislike her, and her inner dialogue did not help that 💀💀. sometimes what she said almost felt cartoonishly dumb and/or rotted. i do like that over the text she learns to be a better person, but i think because she sucked for 80% of the book, i didn’t care about the 20% where she was a sane person.

i’ll be honest tho and say as much as i just dunked on the book, i had fun! i am always a gaming girlie at heart, and i did enjoy the moments where vivian was almost cosplaying as a twitch streamer with her speech 💀💀 i found that very funny because it was so goofy. i did enjoy the themes of grief and guilt, im always a sucker for someone working through losing someone they care about, and i also like the resolution. i did enjoy the ending as well, it felt deserved and the ending nicely allows room for a sequel or something similar with a different MC. the actions of the “demon” also felt significant, i liked that they couldn’t just be washed away and fixed, instead the consequences lingered. the last thing the “demon” does did feel a bit cartoonish, random and silly, but everything else was great so im not too hung up on that. 

i did wish this book wasn’t as clichéd as it ended up being. a lot of the story was predictable, and before a character realised something, i’d had realised that 50 pages ago, so i was stuck just reading this like “oh my god YALL ARE FUCKING DUMB!!!!!” but you know what? sometimes people are dumb. especially teenagers. and that’s ok. 

in other news i am now going to pretend i am a twitch streamer like vivian does at times and narrate me eating shit in cookie run ovenbreak. godspeed.