“Play. Win. Survive.
There’s one building on her island that Halley has never the Mercenary House. Perched atop a mountain, surrounded by unnaturally evergreen foliage, the House is rumored to be a breeding ground for criminals. Mercenaries are liars, cheats, spies . . . and maybe, depending on who you ask, killers.
At the Warsafe headquarters in Seattle, Roscoe is beta testing the company’s new video game. It’s her job to track down glitches—but something is different about this one. Lurking behind the lines of malfunctioning code is a secret that threatens to drag her deeper into the game, forcing her to put her life on the line if she ever wants to come home.
Worlds collide as Roscoe teams up with Halley to uncover the island’s secret and expose Warsafe’s designs. But some mysteries are better left unsolved. As traitor after so-called traitor is revealed to be on their side, they begin to Could Warsafe’s mission be critical enough to justify its cruelty?”
Series: No, a stand-alone novel.
Spiritual Content- A couple Scriptures are quoted (which one character says the speaker is perverting their meaning); Some talks about God; 'H's are capital when referring to God; A side character (Cal) wears a cross necklace and talks a bit about his faith to others; A character tells another for “God to help” both of them because they won’t help each other; Halley sees a picture of a cathedral and notices the stained glass windows; Halley thinks that such a cathedral is only in a fictional world or some world that no longer exists where others worship God (adding that God is “some kind of divine entity who was still human enough, or interested enough, or something enough to wonder what His congregation was up to and present Himself at those events. Sometimes. Though people never admitted whether they could see Him or whether His presence was more like air or wind, undeniable but invisible. Because what would God look like if you could see Him? No one could say exactly, except that a God deserving of such a monument must be wonderful indeed.” She also adds that she knew some about religion and says it’s the “belief in something other than the Alliance as the determining factor of our lives” and that if groups tried to worship in her village, it would cause trouble like death or conscription; (*Spoilers* At the end, she visits the cathedral with someone and is taken back by it’s beauty; Cal tells her that religion to him is the “knowledge that something perfect exists. And if God is perfect, then He must have created everything, which means He must have meant for me to be alive.” And that his self-worth comes from that knowledge *End of Spoilers*); When someone dies, a character crosses himself and says “May God forgive him. He certainty needs it.”; Someone tells Cal that she sees a “spark of divine forgiveness” in him and that he is a “human who makes mistakes but looks remarkably like his Maker”; *Spoiler* At the end, one side character says she is now going to church because she was tired of not knowing where to direct her prayers and found out Who to direct them towards *End of Spoiler*; Mentions of God; Mentions of prayers & praying (but most are not clarified towards Whom and is used more as a phrase; Halley recalls hearing the grandmas in the village praying for the Mercs to eat their food and die); Mentions of people being religious; A few mentions of thanking God (one said by someone whose faith we don’t know about & another telling a religious person to thank God for something); A few mentions of miracles; A few mentions of someone thinking another is in angel (in a moment of uncertainty); A mention of the Good Samaritan; A mention of the Rapture; A mention of thinking someone in speaking in togues (phrase used when unable to understand someone);
*Note: Phrases and adjectives like ‘miraculous’, ‘Heaven knows’, ‘for heaven’s sake’, ‘what on God’s green earth’, ‘unholy’ and ‘godforsaken’ are used up to a handful of times with some coming across flippantly or strange (due to the character not having a faith or because of the context the word/phrase it is used in; Such as Halley thinking the doctor’s medicine bordered on the miraculous, a place’s darkness and silence being deemed unholy, something happen at an unholy hour, Roscoe thinking her video game playing skills are “miraculously awful” and someone else’s is “miraculously skilled”, Roscoe thinking that a bad day must be a “godforsaken nightmare”, and Andy calling some expletives “miraculously creative”); Andy thinks that finding an alien via his (illegal) radio would be ideal to hear (to make a break in the science field); Andy thinks that Roscoe must be psychic for being able to keep calm in a questionable situation; Someone tells another that lying isn’t a mortal sin if “it’s well meant”; Mentions of ghosts & them haunting a place (Halley thinks the Merc building on her island is probably haunted with ghosts, but later tells herself that ghosts aren’t real; At one point, Halley thinks her and another character have died and are now ghosts); Mentions of aliens; A few mentions of the afterlife and the “road to eternity” (Halley thinking she’s not ready to go there or will have company to there); A couple mentions of someone “getting” hellfire & another paving the road to hell with good intentions; A couple mentions of the Stone Age; A mention of counting blessings [when committing a crime]; A mention of treating someone devilishly; A mention of a girl being as “beautiful as a Greek goddess”; A mention of fairies.
Negative Content- Minor cussing including: a ‘crickets’, an unfinished ‘for the love of…’, three forms of ‘shut up’, six forms of ‘idiot’, and eleven forms of ‘stupid’; A few mentions of curses (including some that are said to be “miraculously creative”; all are said, but not written); A bit of sarcasm; Some lying (mostly about their conditions, but Andy also lies to get away from a police officer); Eavesdropping; A fire, Being grabbed, Being choked, Being tied-up, Being threatened with harm and death, Being held at gun-point and also threatened with a syringe, Holding someone at knife- and gun-point, Pain, Injuries, Having a concussion, Blood/Bleeding, Passing out, & Throwing up (up to semi-detailed); Drinking alcohol & feeling a hangover start; Seeing deaths/murders (and thinking others died), weapons used and aimed at others, other being hit/slapped, fighting, blood/bleeding, injuries, & pain (up to semi-detailed); Seeing someone have her arm amputated and the blood (which makes the viewer pass out, up to semi-detailed); Seeing someone who either jumped out a window (suicide) or was pushed (but will be okay; Andy is asked if the person had mentioned death or having problems; Andy also thinks he’ll never forget what he saw and wants to believe it was an accident, up to semi-detailed); In Halley’s world, there is a building where young adults fight and kill others (called Mercenaries or Mercs for short; Everyone also has enforcement chips implanted behind their ears; Everyone on the island is supposed to fall asleep exactly at midnight; Halley goes into a fight with a Merc and witnesses the fight and the Merc’s injuries, but never sees the attacker; The Mercs believe they are killing the guards they are fighting against); In Roscoe’s setting, she works for a video game company that has a “permadeath” game (meaning when an avatar is killed in the game, the player has to starts over with a new avatar) that is very realistic with their avatars killing guards and being killed; *Spoilers* About half-way through, Roscoe overhears that it isn’t just a game and the avatars are actually real people who are injured and can die; Roscoe feels major guilt and grief over the fact she has killed people through the game; Halley and a couple others find out that the guards in the games aren’t real and thus the Mercs haven’t actually killed anyone despite thinking so; A bit further in, however, there are some real people used for the guards for them to fight against (and kill) who were death-row criminals and going to die anyway; The motivation for the company producing and controlling all of this is to have it be a war simulator and has the Mercs fighting for other countries on their behalf *End of Spoilers*; Andy threats another main character with stabbing her, switches a car’s license plate to hide from the police, and later plans to steal a boat (but instead, he rents it); Andy’s friend brings alcohol over to his apartment and they drink together (Andy gets tipsy after the first sip, but has three cans of beer); All about & many mentions of deaths, killing, deaths, murderers/murders, fighting, weapons, & a video game with these elements (up to semi-detailed); Many, many mentions of weapons (guns and knives), injuries, bad burns, pain, blood/bleeding, & passing out (up to semi-detailed); Mentions of wars & potential wars and deaths; Mentions of torture & screams; Mentions of grief over deaths of friends; Mentions of gunshots, explosions, fires, & an assumed death; Mentions of possible electrocution; Mentions of thieves, stealing, robberies, & cheaters; Mentions of prisons, jail, & criminals; Mentions of lies, lying, liars, & deception; Mentions of rumors & gossip; Mentions of alcohol, drinking, getting drunk, drunks, & hangovers; Mentions of tattoos (which the Mercs have on their hands); A few mentions of kidnappings; A few mentions of drugs; A few mentions of throwing up; A few mentions of nightmares; A few mentions of hatred; A couple mentions of a person being called a “suicidal maniac” for his plan; A couple mentions of smoking & a nicotine addiction; A couple mentions of jealousy; A mention of axe murderers; A mention of British colonization;
*Note: Halley’s parents say hurtful words to her at a tense moment (which makes her want to cry, but she holds them back and another person stands up for her); Halley thinks that another character is bipolar and should tell him about the easy availability of psychiatric care (but doesn’t tell him because she doesn’t want to be rude); After hearing unbelievable news, a character almost hopes she’s on the way to a psychiatric ward and imagined what she heard (later she thinks again that she should be sent to a mental hospital); Mentions of prejudice from the villagers towards the Mercs (who they believe to be violent, liars, cheaters, thieves, and murderers); Mentions of brand names, games, & stores (Windows, Sega, Call of Duty, America’s Army, Monopoly, & Walmart); A mention of a book (“I, Robot” by Isaac Asimov); A mention of Albert Einstein; A mention of James Bond; A mention of a Noble Prize; A mention of a horror movie (unnamed); A mention of someone acting like a vampire; A mention of someone being treated as if they are a schizophrenic individual if they tried to tell the truth about a company.
Sexual Content- A bit of noticing & blushes (barely-above-not-detailed); Seeing a couple kiss twice (once on the forehead and another on the lips) and thinking they are going to kiss at another time (but do not); Halley comments on a couple’s relationship (saying the guy being bad for a girl because he only ever thinks about her and doesn’t think straight when around the girl; also adding that he seems to think that his worth comes from what the girl thinks of him and Halley asks him what he will live for if it can’t be the girl he likes); A guy teases his girl about sharing a room together (implied with marriage); *Spoilers* A couple wonders if they actually love each other or have been programmed to, but still ends up together at the end because they chose each other *End of Spoilers*; A few mentions of falling in love; A few mentions of crushes; A couple mentions of dates; A couple mentions of jealousy; A mention of flirting; A mention of romance novels;
*Note: At their first meeting, Andy is afraid that Roscoe might “kick him where it hurts”.
-Halley, age 17
-Roscoe
-Andy, age 23
-Kazumi
P.O.V. switches between them (Halley in 1st, the rest in 3rd)
304 pages
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Pre Teens-
New Teens-
Early High School Teens-
Older High School Teens-
My personal Rating-
{ Add up to a full star for Older Teens who are fantasy fans and/or have an interest in video games. }
This was really different than I thought it would be. I wasn’t quite sure what to expect with this book because sci-fi isn’t really my thing and I’m not a video gamer, but I was game (pun intended 😉) to try it.
We follow three main characters and while at first I was a little confused, you can quickly piece together the pieces and see glimpses of what is happening and how these three very different people are connected.
Roscoe is a little crazy.
Andy is…nerdy and strange.
Halley—well, I liked Halley the most. She had her moments of ignorance, but I think that was more due to being trapped in an island and never thinking of going against what she’s been told.
Interestingly enough, we see the most POVs by Halley so I would call her our main character, but as far as the actual events in the plot go, I would consider her a side character or just there to help. She doesn’t do much besides be there with the other characters when events happen. She doesn’t have the skill set for helping figure out what is going on nor to be able to stop it. I felt like this was very different from a normal plotline, but I didn’t hate the difference.
There were some parts or comments that didn’t fully make sense to me (one example being that Halley has no religious background or really any knowledge about religion besides a very general thought, but then later saying that someone must be talking in tongues for all she can understand him), but that could have just been me and not fully understanding what was happening.
As finishing this book, I almost wouldn’t call it sci-fi like I thought it would be. There’s no space travel or aliens (though some mentions of the later in a nerdy-scientific way). It’s more of a futuristic but yet modern setting. Roscoe and Andy live in our normal contemporary setting (down to the mentions of going to Walmart), but then Halley lives on an island with upgraded tech, no way to get off the island, and it being believed about young adults fighting to the death in a certain building. Quite a stark difference in lifestyles and how our main characters view their lives.
I think this book wasn’t my cup of tea, personally. Those that like video games and the concept of a video game-like place probably would! I do have to note that I appreciate that while there’s mentions of violence and deaths, because we don’t have the POV of either character that’s really doing the violence, it’s not detailed. Like I said earlier, Halley is along for the ride and sees some of it based on being around those characters, but is not actually a part of it herself. This made a big different in terms of the details of the violence and didn’t make this book feel heavy like it could have.
See y’all on Friday with a new review!
*BFCG may (Read the review to see) recommend this book by this author. It does not mean I recommend all the books by this author.
*I received this book for free from the Author for this honest review.
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