Miss Shayne returns with a review of the first book of the Endgame trilogy. Stay tuned for her reviews of the rest of the trilogy later this summer!
This is the first book in the Endgame trilogy. Years ago aliens enslaved humanity and left them
with a message: one day, they will return, and the world will end, and only one of
the original 12 bloodlines will survive. In the present day, twelve people from
the ages of 13-20 compete in a worldwide scavenger hunt by solving
riddles in order to find three keys. The winner of the scavenger hunt will save their
bloodline, and everyone else on the planet will die.
Because the premise of this book sounds ridiculously close
to The Hunger Games, people have
refused to read it. This book has taken a lot of heat from people who haven’t
even read it, which makes me sad. Though there are minor similarities, this
book is completely different from The
Hunger Games. It is different from most of the other books that I’ve read
because it follows the individual journeys of all of the players involved. We
don’t have a clear protagonist or antagonist because there seem to be several
of each. We get to see how the relationships between the characters shift, how
alliances form and crumble, and what everyone’s true intentions are compared to
what they’re telling everyone else. This wasn’t a part of The Hunger Games.
The only negative thing about this book is how confusing it
can be sometimes. The characters have to solve puzzles and crack codes in order
to find the keys that are essential to win the game. The puzzles are given to
us, but they seem impossible to me. (I’m glad I’m not a player in this game . .
.) There also seem to be a lot of unexplained events that I’m hoping will be
explained in the second book. So I’ll try to be patient.
I finished this book sooner than expected. I don’t know if
it was because the pages are sometimes set up with only fragments, or because I
spent hours on my couch reading. Regardless, this book could have had a couple
hundred more pages, and I wouldn’t have complained. Upon completing it I
thought, “that’s it?!” The authors left us with such a cliffhanger! It almost
seemed to cut off in the middle of the climax.
Overall, I love this book. I cannot wait to read the second
book. I heard it’s better than the first. I can’t wait to read the conclusion,
either. So, if you are into sci-fi scavenger hunts, I highly recommend this
book to you!
--Reviewed by Miss Shayne
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