Don't Read the Comments
Eric Smith
On Sale Date: January 28, 2020
9781335016027, 1335016023
Hardcover
$18.99 USD, $23.99 CAD
Ages 13 And Up
368 pages
Summary:
Slay meets Eliza and Her Monsters in Eric Smith’s Don't Read the Comments, an #ownvoices story in which two teen gamers find their virtual worlds—and blossoming romance—invaded by the real-world issues of trolling and doxing in the gaming community.
Divya Sharma is a queen. Or she is when she’s playing Reclaim the Sun, the year’s hottest online game. Divya—better known as popular streaming gamer D1V—regularly leads her #AngstArmada on quests through the game’s vast and gorgeous virtual universe. But for Divya, this is more than just a game. Out in the real world, she’s trading her rising-star status for sponsorships to help her struggling single mom pay the rent.
Gaming is basically Aaron Jericho’s entire life. Much to his mother’s frustration, Aaron has zero interest in becoming a doctor like her, and spends his free time writing games for a local developer. At least he can escape into Reclaim the Sun—and with a trillion worlds to explore, disappearing should be easy. But to his surprise, he somehow ends up on the same remote planet as celebrity gamer D1V.
At home, Divya and Aaron grapple with their problems alone, but in the game, they have each other to face infinite new worlds…and the growing legion of trolls populating them. Soon the virtual harassment seeps into reality when a group called the Vox Populi begin launching real-world doxxing campaigns, threatening Aaron’s dreams and Divya’s actual life. The online trolls think they can drive her out of the game, but everything and everyone Divya cares about is on the line…
And she isn’t going down without a fight.
Buy Links:
Books-A-Million: https://www.booksamillion.com/p/Dont-Read-Comments/Eric-Smith/9781335016027?id=7715580291810
Indie Bound: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781335016027
Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/books/details/Eric_Smith_Don_t_Read_the_Comments?id=Go6PDwAAQBAJ
Our Review:
Divya has the motto of not reading the comments for the lives she does for a new game. While her popularity grows, so do the haters, but she needs to keep going to help her mother with the house. That's when she meets Aaron, who just plays the game for fun but want to be a game developer one day even though his parents oppose it. Divya prefers to keep the internet world separate from her real life, especially now she's under the attack of cyberbullies, but it's Aaron, her internet friend, who'll prove to be one of her biggest allies.
This is one of those books I didn't notice it was written by a guy, save for very few moments. His portrayal of Divya was very good. And I think the whole gaming + streaming world also sounded verisimilar. At the same time, it should be relatable enough to those who aren't into streamers, at least it was for me. Because Divya is into keeping her privacy, she's not some famous internet celebrity and she gets to lead a normal life—as normal as her parents' divorce allows it. At the same time, there may have been some intense describing of the world of the fictional game they play that felt way too long and not that necessary; that I don't dig much but it's not bad and I'm sure lots of readers do.
Be aware, romance isn't the main thing here. We have some and the interactions between the two main characters are cute but they also take time to happen.
I'd say there were many great things about this book. First was diversity without the author putting it there, they're just diverse and that's how it is. Also, as I said the two are really cute together and also very different, round characters. The side characters were also well built to a point I was searching to find out if Aaron's friend's story came from a previous book so much it seemed like he had a whole other life we didn't know of (in a good way and not in a plot hole way). Last, the cyberbullying on Divya was super scary. I wasn't comfortable with their reason to do it, it sounded too much for too little, but aside from that, the writer knew how to build it all up to a point I confess I had a nightmare with it. It's not very easy for a book to get to me and this did.
This is a book for those who like romance but don't want it as the priority of the story.
Rating: 4 out of 5.
Honest review based on an ARC provided by the publisher via Netgalley. Many thanks to the publisher for this opportunity.
Author Bio:
Eric Smith is an author, prolific book blogger, and literary agent from New Jersey, currently living in Philadelphia. Smith cohosts Book Riot’s newest podcast, HEY YA, with non-fiction YA author Kelly Jensen. He can regularly be found writing for Book Riot’s blog, as well as Barnes & Noble’s Teen Reads blog, Paste Magazine, and Publishing Crawl. Smith also has a growing Twitter platform of over 40,000 followers (@ericsmithrocks).
Social Links:
Author website: https://www.ericsmithrocks.com/
Twitter: @ericsmithrocks
Instagram: @ericsmithrocks
Facebook: @ericsmithwrites
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