Every summer while they were growing up, four friends converged on the island of Valentia to play a game of their own invention, the rules of which are defined only by the bounds of their imaginations. After a single night goes
wrong and separates them, the game goes unplayed for many years until they are brought together again, this time with a gamemaster whose dark intentions and abilities might just blur the lines between reality and the world they created.
I have kind of ridiculously mixed feelings about this book because it’s really brilliant at times, but when it fails, it fails hard. The first section jumping between summers and establishing the relationships between these characters was by far my favorite. There are some really beautiful descriptions, you really get the feeling of those intense childhood relationships, and the game itself is so enchanting. Weirdly, that first section was also really frustrating to read for me because it’s all clearly lead up and it goes on for so long. You’re almost halfway through the book by the time you get to the actual events described in the premise. If that first section had been a whole book of its own I probably would have loved it, but as it is it really drags because the whole time you’re waiting for the plot you were promised.
After that first section, the whole thing really goes downhill for me. One of my pet peeves in books is when the POV character spend a lot of time drunk/high/hungover and genuinely probably 70% of the time Daphne is one of those three. The plot of the RPG that Arturo sets up really doesn’t go anywhere, it’s just a bunch of setup to pad out the time until his big reveal. It’s also really hard to tell when something is happening in reality and when it’s happening in the game because there often aren’t even paragraph breaks to separate them. I assume this was an intentional choice to blur the lines between reality and the game, but in practice it just made me not care about anything that was happening because in the moment I didn’t know if what was happening was consequential. The climax is super underwhelming, happens in about two paragraphs, and I don’t really understand it (more on that below in the spoiler section). It just becomes kind of nonsensical and fever-dreamy in a way that I never enjoy and I was left with so many questions and so many dropped story threads. Leonie’s actions never really make sense, Finn’s personality completely changes for no clear reason, and Arturo’s feelings just don’t justify the extremity of his actions.
Major spoiler warning for this section!
Here are some of my specific issues: If the Revelator feeds on shame and ended up being willing to feed off of Arturo, why didn’t it do that from the beginning? Why would Daphne be ashamed about speaking out against her brother in court when they literally exclusively hate each other? What was the whole deal with the crows in the bedroom? Why was Daphne seeing opals? How is feeling mildly envious (even though he already has friends) enough motivation for Arturo to make a deal with a demon (or whatever it is) and spend his whole life trying to ruin the lives of these other people? Why is Finn killing dogs on camera and selling the videos treated as equally as big a secret as Daphne testifying against her brother, Ronan having consensual sex with a married man, and Leonie having an abortion? Why the big fish tank? Did Imogene kill herself? Why is Leonie attracted to Arturo when he’s exclusively a piece of shit and a creep? Why did they free Arturo in the end (when he’s exclusively a piece of shit and a creep)? Why did Finn just stand there as the other three gave him up to the Revelator? Why did Finn send Arturo the video when he was seemingly closer friends with Daphne than with Arturo? What was the point of the whole plot line in Wonder Wonder with the four being the only ones left on the ship when that has zero relation to Arturo’s reveal? What is the Revelator and why does it occupy a statue of the Virgin Mary?
I’m just kind of sad about this book because that first section had so much potential and I couldn’t even enjoy it because I knew that it wasn’t the story being told, and the story that was being told was just a mess. If you like more fever-dreamy stories I think you could give this a shot but I really don’t know what to make of it.
Thank you to Sarah Maria Griffin and Tor Books for this ARC in exchange for my full, honest review.
Happy reading!
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