I was really enjoying this book for the first half. Despite it being about teens (I rarely read books with teenage protagonists anymore), I was interested in the characters and their struggles. The writing was fast-paced, yet enjoyable, and I was very intrigued by the mystery of the God Game. I wanted to know what the heck was going on.

Then things slowly started going downhill. The story just got more and more dark, more and more depressing. It seemed like the only thing keeping the story progressing was the author trying to find more terrible things for people to do to one another. I stopped caring about the characters, not because of the transformations they were going through, but because there were so many awful things being done to them and by them, that I just started to feel a sense of numbness and disconnect towards them and their perils.

There’s a lot of social and moral commentary in here, with plenty of references to our current political and social environment, which I can appreciate. There are observations made in the book that I completely agree with. However, the book ends on such a depressing note, it makes you feel a sense of hopelessness about the future. Like no matter how hard you try to be good, or how hard you try to right your wrongs, it will never be enough and life will just continue to tear you apart. Maybe this makes me sound naive, but that’s not a mindset I’m looking acquire.

The sci-fi aspects of the book were fun and I loved the coding references. I also really liked the tie-ins to philosophy. If you’re interested in philosophy, this could be a really great read for you. However, if you’re looking for a story to lift your spirits a bit, or a nice fun-time romp, I would probably suggest not picking this one up.

Thanks to Netgalley and St. Martin’s press for the review copy.

The GOD Game is unlike any book I have read. In the best possible way.
The story unfolds when Charlie gets an invitation to play an online game with friends.

YOU ARE INVITED!
Come inside and play with G.O.D.
Bring your friends!
It's fun!
But remember the rules. Win and ALL YOUR DREAMS COME TRUE. LOSE, YOU DIE!

There is so much more at play here then you suspect. The "game" knows everything about Charlie and his group of friends.

This book is an expertly pace thriller, which cross genres into YA and Science Fiction.

The characters are well developed , complex, complicated and flawed.

You do not want to miss The God Game!!!! Highly Recommend !

Tje God Game was a technothriller set in a high school in a mid-sized town in Texas in 2016. Other than a few minor details though, it could have been set just about anywhere in the US. It focuses on a small group of "nerdy" teens who have formed a small group and call themselves the Vindicators. They are introduced to a computer game that utilizes augmented reality and promises that it can make your dreams come true. However, there is a dark side to these promises. The teens find out what they are willing to do for their dreams and willing to sacrifice to keep their secrets.
The characters are decent in that they are as defined as teens often are. Each major character has at least a short chapter detailing their lives, their greatest hopes, and their darkest problems. The main character is a kid named Charlie who had just about everything going for him until his mom died. Now, a year or so later, he is beginning to crawl back into himself and the light of light. However, I just couldn't care about them as so much was laid bare. In a way, the facts were there but there was nothing to make me feel much for the characters anyway.
Overall, I would say the book is well paced. I didn't think there was much drag during it, although the omnipresent technology does get almost unbelievable in its abilities. Thre book certainly gets you thinking about how much of our lives snd interactions we have handed over to technology. The biggest problem I had with the book was that, for whatever reason, it never quite grabbed me fully. It seemed to be missing that something that would allow me to slide into the story to feel my heart pound alongside those of the main characters.
I would probably read other books by this author, but this book would not be the one to convince me I had to make sure I had read all his works.
Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for the opportunity to read a pre-release copy of this book.

DNF at 46%. I wanted to like this book and at the start I thought I was going to really enjoy it. I was getting Ready Player One and Warcross vibes and I’m in for that.

A group of high school friends - coders who hang out in the tech room after class together - get invited into the GOD Game. It’s a game that blurs the lines between technology and reality in ways that could be really interesting - watching your every move, making your dreams come true or destroying your life.

The concept was excellent but the execution fell flat for me. I am choosing to stop here as it’s feeling like a chore to continue reading.

Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for the advance reading copy.

Five nerdy teenagers who spend their free time in the school's Tech lab discover a video game, The God Game. They accept its invitation to play. Soon they realize there are consequences, both positive and negative. Each teenager has a dream or wish -- in order to have this come true, each has to do a chore.
The God Game is all-seeing, all-knowing, all-powerful. It raises the question, would you hurt someone or commit illegal acts in order to have your wish come true? What if you don't obey?
At times, I became confused as to which teen was who. There was quite a bit of discussion about codes and computer technology which was a bit over my head. However, I remained absorbed in the book to the very end.
I thank @Netgalley and @StMartinsPress for allowing me to read The God Game.

High school senior, Charlie and his fellow 'Vindicators', Peter, Vahni, Kenny and Alex are invited to play the exclusive and mysterious underground video game G.O.D. Controlled by an AI that believes he is God, the little band of gamers, computer enthusiasts and misfits must carry out tasks and errands in return for coins, favours and prizes.

As the errands demanded by the game become darker and morally ambiguous, the friends start questioning, not only the intentions of the game, but also the limits to which they would be willing to go to in order to achieve their dreams.

Danny Tobey has created a dark and edgy cautionary tale for a world in which lives are so completely governed by technology. An intense, fast paced, sci-fi techie thriller, 'The God Game' is original, imaginative and such a fun to read! The writing is dark and taught, and the characters likeable and totally relatable.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for providing a digital copy in return for an honest, unbiased review.

Not my usual genre but still an engrossing read! Charlie is a high school senior who, along with his friends, gets involved in playing a video game called The G. O. D. Game. Initially, it seems really great, addicting however, but they are winning prizes, cash and other gadgets by playing simple pranks and succeeding with threats of bad things if they fail....eventually they find out what evil is lurking and what happens when they do not succeed. Bad things. This book moves quickly involving many twists and turns along with a healthy dose of fear, which makes it pretty addicting and a fast read! Interesting story!! Thanks so much to NG for the ARC!!!

You are invited!
Come inside and play with G.O.D.
Bring your friends!
It’s fun!
But remember the rules. Win and ALL YOUR DREAMS COME TRUE.™ Lose, you die!

With these words, Charlie and his friends decide to enter the G.O.D. Game, a new video game unlike anything they have experienced before. The game is run by underground hackers and controlled by an AI that believes it’s God. Through their phone screens and VR glasses the teenagers become fully immersed into this new virtual world. Suddenly they are surrounded by creeping vines, torches, runes, glyphs, gods, and mythical creatures. The goal of the game is to complete missions to gain rewards, ranging from expensive tech to revenge on high school bullies.

Threatening messages and mysterious packages start to arrive, leaving Charlie and his friends to consider if this new game might be more dangerous than it first appeared. Leaving the game won’t be as easy as starting it. How far are they willing to go?

THE GOD GAME is a timely science fiction thriller, which offers up a plot that feels eerily plausible. In a world of ever evolving artificial intelligence, what’s to stop someone from creating an AI that could manipulate humans to follow all of their commands? The threat of death or harm to others is an age old mechanism used by humans to control those around them. This threat coupled with the reward of all your dreams coming true is something extremely hard to resist, which is exactly where we find our main character, Charlie, and his group of friends in this book.

I love reading science fiction books that have a premise that is entirely possible. Since this genre isn’t one I typically read in, I find it easier to understand what’s going on in the story if I can visualize what’s occurring clearly. Sure, there are always things that we make up in our minds as we read, but I need the general premise to be something I can grasp. The idea of AI becoming so controlling as with this game is one that we have of course seen before in other books and movies, but Tobey keeps it fresh with the inclusion of mythology and religious ideology being central to some of the game’s missions. It was a really nice touch to blend something very modern and cutting edge with something ancient.

What really sold me on this book was the group of friends, better known as The Vindicators. Charlie is our group leader, as well as the main narrator. He’s in a large part responsible for getting himself and his friends playing this game, so his actions and emotions are key. I found him entirely relatable and likeable. Charlie isn’t free of doing some cringeworthy things in the game, but his motivations are always very realistic. The same can easily be said for his group of friends and because they’re all high school students, the emotions and events of everyday teenage life are easy to relate to and connect with things the reader may have experienced during this time, such as peer pressure, bullying, and parental tensions.

I think THE GOD GAME is a fantastic read which fans of books like READY PLAYER ONE will really enjoy! There are multiple points of view, captivating action scenes, and plenty of tension to keep you turning pages and hanging out with The Vindicators late into the night!

A huge thank you to St. Martin’s Press for my sending me a free copy of this book!

I received a complimentary copy of The God Game by Danny Tobey from St Martin's Press through Netgalley. All opinions expressed in this review are completely my own. The God Game was released on January 7th!
.
Charlie and his friends Peter, Vahni, Kenny, and Alex are social outcasts. They spend most of their time in their high school's computer lab playing video games or putting together the occasional prank. They call themselves the Vindicators. When Peter introduces Charlie to an A.I. that thinks it's God, the A.I. invites them to play a game. They convince the other Vindicators to play too. The game promises all their wildest dreams if they win and death if they lose, but it's just a game, so they don't take that seriously. At first it's fun, mapping out their high school with their phones, completing seemingly harmless quests, and exploring the virtual world. But G.O.D. is always watching, always listening, and always judging. The G.O.D. game slowly escalates from small challenges to actions with much larger ramifications for the Vindicators and those around them. How far is too far? What are the consequences for angering G.O.D.?
.
First, I'd like to warn that although this book is marketed as YA, it has themes of drugs, suicide, abuse, bullying, and violence that may be triggering for some people. I ended up with mixed feelings about this book. I love the premise, but there are a lot of entitled high school boy moments and generally obnoxious high school drama. I know it's YA, but ugh. The idea of the game itself and an A.I. that thinks it's God are fantastic, but I found myself often frustrated with some of the characters. I kept reading to see what the game would do next and how events would escalate. Overall, a fun and engrossing read!

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.

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.