Sarah's Library

13/7 - I have no idea why I picked this one up at the library booksale. It's got the tackiest 80s-style cover imaginable and the story wouldn't normally appeal to me, I would have thought. Except I did buy it, maybe 10 years ago. It started out as a reasonably normal YA, sort of sci-fi/techno thriller, but then towards the end all kinds of YA messages started creeping in and it started sounding a bit preachy. It became quite clear that it's a YA of the 80s, which were written quite differently from the YA books of the current time - no romance and no true supernaturalness. I didn't really feel like the ending was particularly satisfactory for the reader in regards to Andrew and Mario's final feelings towards the game. Elaine and Ben quite clearly learned a lesson about not giving in to hate and what the game did to them, how it poisoned and amplified their feelings, but I didn't feel the same thing occurred to the other boys. They were excited, discussing the ordering of the next game in the series, no longer considering the danger they were in while playing this game. As soon as they were out they were making excuses and saying it was all part of the game, that no one was ever in danger. If I was Elaine or Ben I would be worried about what was going to happen when the next game arrives (something which immediately becomes a problem, as there are two more books in the series, and reading the reviews tells me they seem to follow the same general plot line - play game, get sucked into game, serious danger of never getting out etc. etc. -  with the same main characters, who never seem to learn their lesson).