The Leveller by Julia Durango

Posted 4 June, 2015 by Danny in Blog, Danny, Danny's Book Review / 1 Comment

The Leveller by Julia DurangoThe Leveller by Julia Durango
Series: The Leveller #1
Published by Harper Collins, Harper Teen, HarperCollins on 2015-06-23
Genres: Action & Adventure, Love & Romance, Science Fiction, Survival Stories, Young Adult
Pages: 256
Source: Publisher
Goodreads
3.5 Stars

Nixy Bauer is a self-made Leveller. Her job? Dragging kids out of virtual reality and back to their parents in the real world. It’s normally easy cash, but Nixy’s latest mission is fraught with real danger, intrigue, and romance.

Nixy Bauer is used to her classmates being very, very unhappy to see her. After all, she’s a bounty hunter in a virtual reality gaming world. Kids in the MEEP, as they call it, play entirely with their minds, while their bodies languish in a sleeplike state on the couch. Irritated parents, looking to wrench their kids back to reality, hire Nixy to jump into the game and retrieve them.

But when the game’s billionaire developer loses track of his own son in the MEEP, Nixy is in for the biggest challenge of her bounty-hunting career. Wyn Salvador isn’t some lazy kid looking to escape his homework: Wyn does not want to be found. And he’s left behind a suicide note. Nixy takes the job but quickly discovers that Wyn’s not hiding—he’s being held inside the game against his will. But who is holding him captive, and why?

Nixy and Wyn attempt to fight their way out of a mind game unlike any they’ve encountered, and the battle brings them closer than either could have imagined. But when the whole world is virtual, how can Nixy possibly know if her feelings are real?

Gamers and action fans of all types will dive straight into the MEEP, thanks to Julia Durango’s cinematic storytelling. A touch of romance adds some heart to Nixy’s vivid, multidimensional journey through Wyn’s tricked-out virtual city, and constant twists keep readers flying through to the breathtaking end.

So here is the ting, I do love Video Games.. I used to play WoW (no, not Waiting on Wednesday, but World of Warcraft) for quite a while, so the idea of Leveller was right up my alley!

Imagine you could really be in a Video Game! How cool would that be? … and how scary…

In the near (or not so near) future a company developed a that you could get implanted and that would give you the possibility to fall into a sleep-like state and enter a video game with endless possibilities of worlds to explore!

That sounds as cool as it sounds a little scary.. (I mean honestly, a chip in my brain?) And Nix is a girl who is really good at these games, with her parents both being involved in developing the worlds – she is getting paid, to get kids back “home” if they spend too much time virtually, or when (like in the case of Wyn) someone appears to be lost in the virtual world….

The setting and the plot idea is really cool, and I thoroughly enjoyed the setting and world building here!

Nix, our gaming hero, is set on a quest to rescue the cute kid of the Gaming-Company Owner!

So far so good and the plot sounds awesome enough! During her rescue mission, Nix encounters lots of difficulties she has to face and master before she can meet up with Wyn and try to escape together.

Now here comes my problem with the book (and its my personal taste I’m talking about here), the “world” Wyn was trapped it was horribly boring. There are endless possibilities, yet Wyn created the old town where his grandma grew up. I can’t remember what it was but somewhere in south american. And sadly enough this setting bored me so much, that I lost a little bit the excitement about the story. Wyn were both Okish characters that didn’t win me over completely and their chemistry was non-existent (at least for me).

Truly, the idea, the story and the general plot was great, but the details just didn’t win me over. I hope that we will explore different world – exciting worlds in future stories! So, I add a half star for the potential of awesome:)

Bewitched Rating

Rating 3.5

Bottom Line

The Leveller by Julia Durango comes with such a great promise of awesome worlds to explore and with endless possibilities to make this story epic and awesome. It lacked a little bit of imagination and the characters lack of chemistry made this only an Ok read for me.

 

contemporaryDystopianmysterySciFi

Do you love video games? Would you let someone implant a chip in your brain so that you could explore virtual worlds? 
Danny_Signature_muchloveI
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Obsessive Reader by Night - Scientist at Day! You can also find me on goodreads. I'd love to get to know you so, don't be shy and say Hello!

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