While there's an addictive quality to this story, the characters are riddled with cliches. The Asian character is under pressure to do well in school, the Christian has never been kissed, and the girl in the computer club is a semi-punk lesbian who pretty much only hangs around with boys, and all the other girls in the book are girlfriends.

There’s a lot more than just a story going on here. Similar to The Golden Compass in that if you look beyond the main storyline of a video game supposedly controlled by God, the reader is ask to question their beliefs and think about how the internet culture is so invasive in our lives. Good character development, but the ethical, moral, philosophical beliefs of the four friends involved may make this rough going for all but a few teen readers.

Anyone in a reading slump should pick up a copy of "The God Game." This book is a fast-paced, thrilling ride from beginning to end. It kind of defies genres - a mix of sci-fi, fantasy, YA, social commentary, etc. The story centers around a group of tech-savvy high school kids who get invited to play a virtual game (designed by "God") with some very real-life consequences. Initially, the game provides them with huge rewards (a way to win the girl, a perfect entrance essay to Harvard) but then the stakes get increasingly higher and the kids are forced to abandon their principles just to survive. Although some of the programming and computer lingo went over my head, it was so easy to get truly invested in these characters (something you need for a somewhat unrealistic plot). I also loved how this book made me think about how technology can be utilized for good or evil and how well the setting of a high school fit for the story. This time in a person's life can be terrifying and confusing in normal circumstances, so to have this heightened reality of life or death stakes added in was genius. The only thing that detracted from my love for this book was that it tended to go a little cheesy with the romantic elements  - the puppy love connections felt too YA and took me away from the story a bit. Overall, though, I'd recommend this book in a heartbeat!

Published by St. Martin's Press on January 7, 2020

A group of nerdish high school students found each other in the school’s tech lab and formed a group that pulls pranks. They call themselves the Vindicators. Charlie, Peter, Kenny, Alex, and Vanhi are now in their senior year. Vanhi is Charlie’s best female friend but she’s a lesbian so he has no chance with her. Charlie has long had the hots for a different girl, but she’s dating an entitled son of a banker who captains the football team.

Peter introduces Charlie to a website that calls itself G.0.D. and is either an Artificial Intelligence, a real god, or some sort of demon, depending on the perspective of the person interacting with it. G.0.D. issues challenges to Charlie and eventually to the rest of the Vindicators. It also seems to be watching them, as evidenced by texts that refer to things the Vindicators have recently done.

After playing an initiation prank, the Vindicators are invited to play the God Game. Winners have all their real-life dreams come true. The catch is, players who die in the game also die in real life, and death is the only way to leave the game. This is a jealous G.O.D. who expects to be worshipped. The Vindicators don’t really believe that they will be murdered for losing a game, although Peter reminds them that it’s not really murder if God does it.

The struggle to come up with a sensible explanation for G.O.D.’s apparent omniscience — something the Vindicators can’t do for most of the novel — is a hook that keeps the reader involved. The novel’s best moments come when the game forces its players to make moral choices with real world consequences. Should Vanhi sabotage Charlie to improve her chances of admission to Harvard?

The novel’s comparison of the game to a religion is also intriguing. A popular view of religion suggests that God is always testing people; testing their faith or their virtue or their ability to withstand suffering. The game takes testing to a new level.

On the downside, the story is built on clichéd characters. The bully who is keeping his sexual identity locked in a closet. The pretty girl who likes a nerd but only dates the popular boys. The kid from a religious family who questions religion. And, of course, the computer nerds who are ubiquitous in fiction. Even the nerds have clichéd problems: parents who demand perfection, parents who are cheating on each other, parents who are failures, friends who betray their friendship. I appreciate the effort to build characters, but all the clichés swell the novel to twice the word count that the story merits. A shorter and tighter story would have more appealing.

Still, I liked The God Game, albeit more for its concept than its execution. The novel repeatedly makes the point that credulous cretins who lurk on the web will believe just about anything (the continued belief in the QAnon conspiracy is sufficient proof that weak minds are easily manipulated). I particularly like this passage: “The optimists said the Web would give every human a voice. Holy shit! Have you met humans? We created God to protect us from ourselves.”

The notion that a computer program might begin to think of itself as a deity has been done before, but the concept (and maybe this is a spoiler, so fair warning) of a game that crowdsources morality, inviting players to judge the actions of others, is a new twist. The redefinition of what it means to be “saved,” morphed from a religious perspective to the context of data (a rewriting of old files with new ones, perhaps symbolic of a new life), is clever.

The story requires an even larger suspension of disbelief than is common in modern thrillers. G.0.D. sees all and controls everything that has a processor, an unrealistic proposition for even the most powerful app. Players seem willing to do just about anything the games requires of them, including the infliction of mayhem (creating the improbable scenario of gamers abandoning their screens and doing something physically active). But novel’s improbability is overshadowed by the interesting moral choices that G.O.D. forces the players to make.

The God Game will probably be more appealing to young adults than mature readers. All the teen angst the characters experience is wearying. The novel seems to end on a surprising note that is uncharacteristic of YA fiction, but ultimately cops out by reversing the apparent surprise. Notwithstanding its faults, the book has sufficient merit to make it worthwhile even for a jaded adult.

RECOMMENDED

What could be better? You are a group of five nerds in high school. You are consistently bullied by the popular kids. Until one day you are invited to play The God Game. On the dark web, the teenage friends decide to 
“Come inside and play with G.O.D. Ding! Bring your friends! It’s fun! But remember the rules. 
Win and ALL YOUR DREAMS COME TRUE. Lose, you die! :) It’s ur choice. Free will!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” 
I mean what could go wrong? It’s just a game, right?

I loved The God Game. It seemed like I was also in the game with the teens. The story was an engrossing page-turner that kept me up nights compulsively reading it. I also couldn’t imagine how it would end but the book’s conclusion was perfect. If you’re a gamer, this is the thriller for you. 4.5 stars rounded up to 5 stars!

Thanks to St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley for a copy in exchange for my honest review.

The God Game is a sci-fi thriller that is more timely than I'd like it to be.  I'm not a big sci-fi fan, but I love a good thriller so I decided to give this book a change, and I'm so glad I did.  

The star of the book is Charlie, a broody high school senior whose mother died recently and turned his life upside down.  Charlie is the heart of a small group of friends who call themselves The Vindicators.  They're all very tech savvy and insular.  One day they get an intriguing opportunity to play an AI game with G.O.D.  Win and all your wishes come true; lose and you die.  Who could resist?!  Everything starts out great.  The game challenges them to pretty harmless pranks and then rewards them with points that allow them to purchase high-tech gear, vanquish enemies, get free cash, etc.  But of course, that's just the lure that hooks them, and once hooked, things turn very, very dark and soon morals and ethics are out the window.  Ultimately Charlie realizes that he needs to get himself and his friends out of the G.O.D. game, but others have tried and no one has ever succeeded.

I was fascinated for the first 80% of the book even though it was a bit longer than it needed to be.  But the final 20%, which focuses on the teens trying to get out of the game, got so complex that I found myself lost in the tech of it all.  The author, Danny Tobey, did a great job of developing the characters and bringing them to live.  Charlie, Kenny, and Vanhi were my favorites.  The storyline is solid, and the writing and dialogue were excellent.  I'm glad I read it even though it was a bit outside my comfort zone. 3.5 stars rounded up to 4.

Thanks to St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for providing me with a digital ARC.

Charlie and his friends are not the popular kids in school. Smart in a nerdy way, they formed a computer coding club so they could have something together, something they could share, something that bonded them. Vanhi, who loves both coding and playing her bass; Kenny, who has worked so hard at school and playing the cello so his parents wouldn’t be disappointed in him the way they are with his brother, who left medical school to be a writer; Alex, whose parents hold him to the highest academic standards, going to extremes to encourage him to keep his grade up; Peter, whose mother died when he was young and now his father travels so much he is pretty much raising himself; and Charlie, whose mother died a little over a year ago and who has given up on just about everything—these are the club, the Vindicators. And everyone in the school knows it. 

The problem? Very few people in the school care. Despite their intelligence, they rarely date. Despite their hard work, their parents still put more pressure on them to do more, do better. Despite their friendship, they still struggle. And then they find the game. Or rather, the game found them. 

Offering them a chance to win the ultimate prize—all their dreams coming true, the G.O.D. game draws them in, giving them a chance to escape their daily miseries as well as a way to get rid of them altogether. They do what the game wants, they get Goldz, which they can use to get anything they want. But if they don’t do what the game wants, they get Blaxx. 

At first the game is fun and seems harmless, but as they level up, the tasks are more challenging. They are faced with ethical, moral, and philosophical questions about their choices that they didn’t want to consider. Their choices in the game seem to have genuine consequences to those not in the game, and they start to wonder who is running the game. Is it some AI that thinks it’s God, or is it something more? Something malevolent? And if that’s the case, can they leave the game if it gets too intense? Do they have any control of their lives anymore at all? 

Danny Tobey’s novel The God Game is a masterwork of popular culture, teenage angst, and the fear of what the collective unconscious of the internet could become. It is a force of words, of feelings, of imagination as readers are taken on a journey of religion and high school, of psychology and anxiety, of possibility and personal choice. This is the most intense book I’ve read in ages. I loved it, and I think everyone should read it. But be prepared. This story will take you on an emotional journey like no other! 

Galleys for The God Game were provided by St. Martin’s Press through NetGalley, with many thanks

I didn't love this one. The writing was great, and the premise was very Ready Player One with a little bit of something else thrown in. I'm really not into gaming, so this book was probably just not for me. It was a little hard for me to follow.

Thank you #NetGalley for an early copy of #TheGodGame to review.

I really liked the premise of this book and got sucked in fast!

There's a new augmented reality (AR) game that's going around and the stakes are high. The game is called the G.O.D. Game and is being controlled by an artificial intelligence (AI) that the players aren't sure about. Is it really God, or something more nefarious? A particular group of friends begin playing the game and as their reality begins to blur with the virtual world, so do the consequences of their actions within the game. 

Actions are rewarded with either gold or blaxx and the players quickly figure out that "good" actions earn the gold and "bad" actions earn the blaxx, but just what exactly are blaxx? And by whose definition are we judging things as "good" and "bad"?

Soon the players are manipulated into actions that have sometimes wanted and unwanted consequences. When they experience unwanted consequences they are left to figure out how to reverse or lessen the negative consequences. Things become violent rather quickly and the stakes get higher and higher as they progress through the game. 

I had a hard time deciding if there really were some supernatural elements going on, or if they were just getting caught up in the AR with the AI. With so many random players being "controlled/manipulated" by the AI, it's hard to imagine that there was anything supernatural really happening, but there were some things that there didn't seem to be any other real explanation for. 

This book seemed very scary in the sense that some of the players were manipulated into what could be considered by some as some rather triggering things. TWs behind the spoiler: <spoiler> One player was nearly beaten to death. Another was knifed and on the brink of death. At once point other players had to decide whether to have one player beaten (possibly to death) in order to save the other player who had been knifed. One teen was suicidal. There was an attempt to blow up the school. </spoiler>

I've been watching the new TV show, Evil, and there are some similar aspects between that show and this book... anyway, it's definitely worth a read if you are into this type of storyline!

I received a copy from NetGalley and St. Martin's Press in exchange for my honest opinion.

Unexpected twists and turns pepper this novel of friendship, family and love. The premise is unique and interesting. The characters are well thought out and relatable. The plot is a bit convoluted but driven. This is a novel that stirs emotions and the feelings of loneliness and belonging that everyone has.

An exciting fast paced book that is perfect for fans of Mr. Robot!  There are lots of surprises in this book about video gamers that mixed family conflict, High School life and philosophy in a believable story.

The God Game is a timely and plausible thriller is a solid purchase for all general fiction collections. It also has crossover appeal for high school collections.

I’m going to start by saying this book had an intriguing premise. Not totally new, but if we’ll executed, could be great. And while I think DT executes certain parts well, others not so much. This book was 500 pages. Longest game ever. Also, there were so many characters and all had their own storylines. By the end I truly didn’t care about any of them. I think if this was 100 pages less, i would feel differently. But to me this needed some more editing.
•
I feel many people will enjoy this book just fine. It just was a bit much for me.

A group of high schoolers, designated outsiders, are best friends, a group self-titled The Vindicators. When they are invited to play an online game called The God Game, seemingly run by an AI who believes itself to be God, it's a challenge they can't resist.

At first, everything seems fun and exciting, a virtual world imposed on their difficult real lives. But the stakes keep getting raised, the tasks keep getting harder, and soon their worlds seem to be colliding and falling apart.

Die in the Game, die in real life.

This book started out really interesting. The concept intrigued me right away, and the main characters seemed like people it was easy to relate to-trying to find themselves, to find meaning, to find their tribe. I was also drawn in right away by the idea of a twisted and surprising game working its way into real life in unexpected ways.

This book got so dark, so very very dark. I read a lot of books with storylines that can get intense and dark, but this book was on a whole other level that was just too much for me. I kept reading only because I was more than halfway through by the time it got so heavy, so I figured I should finish.

This book was definitely not for me. That doesn't mean other people won't really like it, but I couldn't handle the darkness and so couldn't enjoy the read.

I did not expect to be sucked into this book as much as I was! What a ride. The G.O.D. game if you play you are promised all your dreams come true but if you lose, you die. The catch is that this is a virtual reality game that merges the real lives of a group of techie high school kids with a game they have been drawn into as a group. The teens discover an internet game that is based on the input from all the religious texts out there as well as the philosophies of the World. This is then the AI version of GOD and answers as GOD would be expected to answer given these bases of knowledge. They decide to play as a group but the stakes are high. It becomes very reminiscent of "Ready Player One" or "Black Mirror" in the back and forth between the real and virtual worlds. The story highlights the highs and lows of each of the main characters lives and how these facts influence their decision making within the game.
An interesting aside is the occasional introspection of a character to reflect on subjects such as morality or what it really means to "be saved". I found these sections to be a nice addition to the rest of the story, adding depth to the group's story.
I was never bored. The story is compelling and weaves many different tales into a whole thread that leaves you truly invested.
Really well done and highly recommended.
#TheGodGame #Netgalley ##DannyTobey #StMartinsPress

This book was pretty good - I 'm not into video games or virtual reality type things - I think I would have enjoyed it more.  Probably the target audience for this book is someone a bit younger than me.  I do appreciate the opportunity to read and review this book.

When Charlie, a high school student, and his friends decide to accept  an invitation only opportunity to play the God Game their lives change in ways no one foresaw.  The rules of the game are simple, but the consequences are anything but.  Even though this is a dark and often frightening narrative, it is totally engrossing.  Fast paced and thought provoking, this is one memorable story.  Highly recommended.

I received a complimentary copy of this book.  The opinions expressed in this review are my own.

This book reminded me of Ready Player One. It’s a game, but it’s a game of life - the only way out is by dying. Everything happens in the cyberspace, and reality mixes with the game. The Vindicators is a group of teenagers that do things together - like coding or going to school. So when a new God game comes up they knew they had to play together.

I liked this but didn't love it. G.O.D. is a game and it has picked several teenagers to manipulate. It is run by underground hackers through their phones and high tech glasses. Things they can't see in the real world but they can see them through their phone screen or glasses. If they win they are rewarded if they lose then die.Charlie and his friends try to find a way out but they have been stuck into a web that you can't get out of.
Then some of them question what is real and what isn't and who is really their friends.
I received this from NetGalley for review.

This book was creepy and very atmospheric. However, I am not really a fan of the book. It was so unbelievable that I could not imagine most of it which pulled me out of the story constantly. I get that there is a sort of magical realism and science fiction within the book but the idea of parents was thrown out the window. 

One of there reviewer had it right they said that the characters in this book are bad caricatures of all 1980's teen movies. 

I would have DNF'd this if it wasn't an arc from netgalley. 

I would give this a pass but clearly other like it some maybe you would like to give it a try. Reason some reviews as the synopsis is misleading to what you actually get.