I absolutely loved this book. I got major Ready Player One vibes… and how could I not? The early-days video game designers…

Two guys, one girl… both guys in love with the girl… one guy willing to come out and take a chance, therefore getting the girl. It broke my heart that Sam wouldn’t open up and let Sadie know how he felt until it was too late. It was like the friends-to-lovers and enemies-to-lovers tropes combined. They were technically friends, but Sadie kept hating Sam because she kept interpreting his actions as hateful when really it was because he had no idea how to express himself and behave with her. When it got to the point from Marx’s point-of-view with the shooting… that entire segment was absolutely heartbreaking and perfect. When we got to see Marx’s POV the night that Sam cut off his hair… my heart was breaking for all of them, but for Sam in particular. Sam had finally accepted how he felt about Sadie but it was too late. And the fact that he was admit it all to Marx was just so sad. And then Marx was dying and the terrible part of me thought “wow if he dies Sam can finally be with Sadie” but the other part of me knew that both of them would die a little themselves without Marx and that they could never be together after such tragedy. If Sam and Sadie would have gotten together romantically after that, I would have questioned the entire book. That would have been the “happy ending”, but this is not a book about happy endings.

While reading this it made me want to play video games. At the same time, it also makes me feel guilty for playing the video games that I do since all my games are big-company produced 🫤

I really want to reread this book one day as either a physical or ebook- I opted to listen to the audiobook… and the audiobook was great, but there were so many wonderful lines that I wish had the opportunity to highlight so that I could remember them. That is the one downfall of an audiobook. There is one line in particular from Marx’s section (74% through the book) that I absolutely loved so I wrote it down…