I had never heard of this author before until her name started popping up all over my Good Reads page. I enjoyed her wit and her rants and pretty much everything she ever posted so I thought I'd give her writing a try! This isn't my usual genre but I found myself quickly involved in the story and read in over the course of a couple hours in one day. When it was over, I wanted more of these characters. I also thought the whole idea of being in video games for entertainment purposes was rather intriguing. Can't wait to read more!! ( )

Maybe more like 3.25 Stars

Endgame was a crafty novel - we can literally see the author's mind turning, creating this hauntingly new futuristic world. The plot, at first, sounds like some sci-fi/dystopian novel we might have read before, maybe a movie we had watched? We have a heroine, her past shrouded in mystery, with a bloodthirsty edge to her battles in the virtual yet realistic games. A hero who seems to hold the key to said heroine's past but his own is an enigma. The bickering relationship with a hint of deja vu on the heroine's part (as we are inside her head mostly). Throw in a conspiracy making the games more dangerous than before and the only person she can go for answers is the aforementioned hero. Sounds cliche, right?

Nope.

If there is one thing Endgame is not, that is cliche. Refreshingly original with a gripping plot Endgame is a book that will keep you guessing. And you will probably be wrong as I was but in a completely good way.

Despite the cleverly disguised info-dump in the first few chapters I was confused for the majority of book about the world and the way it was supposed to work. I think it took me solid 40 pages to get 'into' the story - which given the length is almost a third of it but once I did - I. WAS. BLOWN. AWAY. Literally.

The premise - Holy SHIT - was so interesting I didn't even blink until I got to the end. The plot - alternating between real world and the VR games - was AhMaZiNg. I was still thrown off from time to time and my mental timeline for everything was kinda screwed up (*winks*) but I was totally sucked in. And the characters - Volera and Catan were definitely interesting and mysterious and the third person narration helped build this sort of separation of the reader from the person and trying to figure them out as we read the book. Needless to say - that really worked for me.

I did feel a few of the secondary characters were not that well defined and insta-friendship, though less painful than insta-luurrve, still grated on my nerves. Sometimes it felt the plot was moving too fast, sometimes too slow. I did enjoy the buildup of tension between Volera and Catan. The brownie points, though, go to the game scenes. The action scenes - Campbell definitely knew what she was doing. Apart from few wayward typos here and there I didn't have much problem with the overall writing in the book.

The ENDING though - That Was BEYOND WORDS. Just imagine me, sitting up on my bed, Kindle in hand, 3 AM in the morning (night?) chanting a slew of expletives that could still not explain the outbursts of emotions in me. Yeah, it was - THAT GOOD.

I am definitely keeping my eyes, ears, brain, Kindle, heart everything open for the sequel. I can't wait to see where this goes next. ( )

I came to an interesting realisation before, during, and after reading this novel. Outside of a few Philip K. Dick-esque and Terry Pratchett novels; a couple of short story collections here and there, I don't, in fact, read as nearly as much of the sc-fi and fantasy genre as I thought I did.

Not that it matters in this instance as I found the world that Campbell created to be very accessible and it didn't fall into the wrong side of techno-babble at any point during the story, which was a major plus point in my book.

The main characters were well-rounded and interesting enough to keep me guessing throughout. Although I did feel that a couple of the secondary characters were a bit less defined, but that didn't matter that much as the characters of Volera and Catan were intriguing enough without the extra padding as it were.

The fight scenes were excellent, and the story was compelling.

Overall, a nice start to a series and I probably will be checking out the sequel. ( )

I came to an interesting realisation before, during, and after reading this novel. Outside of a few Philip K. Dick-esque and Terry Pratchett novels; a couple of short story collections here and there, I don't, in fact, read as nearly as much of the sc-fi and fantasy genre as I thought I did.

Not that it matters in this instance as I found the world that Campbell created to be very accessible and it didn't fall into the wrong side of techno-babble at any point during the story, which was a major plus point in my book.

The main characters were well-rounded and interesting enough to keep me guessing throughout. Although I did feel that a couple of the secondary characters were a bit less defined, but that didn't matter that much as the characters of Volera and Catan were intriguing enough without the extra padding as it were.

The fight scenes were excellent, and the story was compelling.

Overall, a nice start to a series and I probably will be checking out the sequel. ( )

I came to an interesting realisation before, during, and after reading this novel. Outside of a few Philip K. Dick-esque and Terry Pratchett novels; a couple of short story collections here and there, I don't, in fact, read as nearly as much of the sc-fi and fantasy genre as I thought I did.

Not that it matters in this instance as I found the world that Campbell created to be very accessible and it didn't fall into the wrong side of techno-babble at any point during the story, which was a major plus point in my book.

The main characters were well-rounded and interesting enough to keep me guessing throughout. Although I did feel that a couple of the secondary characters were a bit less defined, but that didn't matter that much as the characters of Volera and Catan were intriguing enough without the extra padding as it were.

The fight scenes were excellent, and the story was compelling.

Overall, a nice start to a series and I probably will be checking out the sequel. ( )