Plot Summary – Two friends–often in love, but never lovers–come together as creative partners in the world of video game design, where success brings them fame, joy, tragedy, duplicity, and, ultimately, a kind of immortality.

I was absolutely enamored by this book from beginning to end. The only criticisms I see of this book online are that the characters were too flawed and that the writing was too unconventional for some people to fully appreciate. I see neither of these as flaws. I thought that the flawed nature of the characters gave the book a unique quality where it makes you constantly reflect on the actions of the characters and whether you agree with them or not. I feel like sometimes we are too quick to criticize things that question or challenge us on a deeper moral scale, but this book achieves that brilliantly. The characters are so vivid and fleshed out. There are so many intricacies and nuances to the way they behave that every action feels like it has a cause that was pre-established in the book. More intelligent people than me can probably even do a psychological analysis of these characters and understand why they do the things they do. I also really was blown away by the portrayal of relationships in this book. Romantic, platonic, familial, professional – every type of relationship is portrayed and some in a very real way. It shows the good and the bad and never romanticizes or glorifies any of them. Everything is at face value. I haven’t even gotten to my favorite thing about the book – its use of video games as its central narrative holding structure and how elegantly the author intersplices discussions about art, commercialism, cultural appropriation, and diversity into the book while maintaining its plausibility as a story and its coherence as a work of literary fiction. That’s what made this book so incredible to me. I had a really really good time reading this book and its one that I’ll be thinking about for a long time. I highly recommend this one!