Publisher: Harper Collins
Author: James Frey & Nils Johnson-Shelton
Release date: 7th October 2014
Genre: YA, Science Fiction, Fantasy, Dystopian.
Rating: 6/10
Synopsis from Goodreads:
Twelve thousand years ago, they came. They descended from the sky amid smoke and fire, and created humanity and gave us rules to live by. They needed gold and they built our earliest civilizations to mine it for them. When they had what they needed, they left. But before they left, they told us someday they would come back, and when they did, a game would be played. A game that would determine our future.
This is Endgame.
For ten thousand years the lines have existed in secret. The 12 original lines of humanity. Each had to have a Player prepared at all times. They have trained generation after generation after generation. In weapons, languages, history, tactics, disguise assassination. Together the players are everything: strong, kind, ruthless, loyal, smart, stupid, ugly, lustful, mean, fickle, beautiful, calculating, lazy, exuberant, weak. They are good and evil. Like you. Like all.
This is Endgame.
When the game starts, the players will have to find three keys. The keys are somewhere on earth. The only rule of their Endgame is that there are no rules. Whoever finds the keys first wins the game. Endgame: The Calling is about the hunt for the first key. And just as it tells the story of the hunt for a hidden key, written into the book is a puzzle. It invites readers to play their own Endgame and to try to solve the puzzle. Whoever does will open a case filled with gold. Alongside the puzzle will be a revolutionary mobile game built by Google’s Niantic Labs that will allow you to play a real-world version of Endgame where you can join one of the lines and do battle with people around you.
Will exuberance beat strength? Stupidity top kindness? Laziness thwart beauty? Will the winner be good or evil? There is only one way to find out.
Play.
Survive.
Solve.
People of Earth.
Endgame has begun.
My Opinion: After finishing this book, I’m really conflicted on how I feel about it. I picked it up as part of a three for two offer in a local bookstore, probably attracted by the shiny gold cover (maybe I was a magpie in a previous life). I didn’t have insanely high hopes for it, but I did think it sounded like a pretty typical YA dystopian fiction novel, which in a lot of ways it is.
I have read a lot of reviews which compare it to The Hunger Games. Twelve teenagers, between the ages of thirteen to twenty, fight to the death and just one of them will survive. I think, in theory it does sound like the Hunger Games, but once you start reading it the similarities start to drift apart. First of all, the Hunger Games is a lot better and more ‘realistic’, to a certain extent. More so, the writing in the Hunger Games is much better – I found the short, snappy sentences in The Calling to be a bit frustrating. The chapters were very short, some of them just consisted of one or two pages, so as soon as the focus of the chapter was established it would end and switch to another character’s POV.
Speaking of the characters; I didn’t feel a connection to many of them – and none of them were particularly likeable. I get that they were all raised to be fighters and save the world – but they are just SO unrelatable. The one character who I felt some sort of attachment to ended up annoying me by the end of the book, so yeah. I didn’t particularly care who wins or who dies.
There were a few good points to the book, I mean there were times when I did want a certain character to get what they deserved, or I found myself smiling at surprising alliances, but there was nothing about it that kept me up at night. I wasn’t anxious to find out what happened next – and that’s the kicker for me. If I’m not glued to a book until my eyes hurt I know I’m not enjoying it.
The whole premise of the book was a little bit ridiculous to me, and honestly, I don’t think I will be reading the next book in the trilogy.
inked words and wrinkles 