Blog Tour: Otherworld

Otherworld
Rating: 3/5
Buy or Borrow: Buy
Source: Copy courtesy of the publisher! 

The company says Otherworld is amazing—like nothing you’ve ever seen before. They say it’s addictive—that you’ll want to stay forever. They promise Otherworld will make all your dreams come true.

Simon thought Otherworld was a game. Turns out he knew nothing. Otherworld is the next phase of reality. It’s everything you’ve ever wanted.

And it’s about to change humanity forever.
Welcome to the Otherworld. No one could have seen it coming.

Okay I've thought long and hard about this review. I went in to this expecting to really love it, it sounded like it was kind of going to be like SAO, and I recently read Warcross by Marie Lu and it was similar and so good. I wasn't entirely sure what to make of this book at first, and I'm still kind of not sure now. 

Otherworld is straight in with the action, and the narrative was no nonsense to start with. I'm not going to lie, Otherworld wasn't what I was expecting, I was expecting to be spending pretty much all the time in the game but we spend a good chunk of it in the real world. 

Now, the world of the game was interesting, I was intrigued by it. It was described vividly and made for an interesting landscape and was very authentically written. It was more in keeping with a virtual game than the other books I've read, it was truly fantasy with the creatures and the residents of the game and I actually really enjoyed the game world, and there did end up being an almost SAO like quality to it. I was really intrigued by the science and technology to the virtual reality in this world. 

The parts set in the real world however, where a bit underwhelming in comparison. Don't get me wrong they where still interesting..but they didn't pique my attention as much as the game parts did. I had the sense that something was off, and something weird was going on even before the pieces started to drop. It had a very conspiracy theory/thriller vibe to it which was an interesting pairing with what was going on with the virtual reality. 

One of the problems I had was that in the real world parts there was so much going on, so many threads all tangled up together that I found it hard to really focus and get in to those parts. I was intrigued but I ended up getting a bit frustrated because I kept forgetting details or characters to do with the Company and so on and which parts I was trying to figure out and what puzzle piece went with what. I wasn't particularly a fan of the teenage love story that was splashed throughout the whole book either. I felt like it kind of took away from the sci-fi elements and distanced them a bit more. 

Character wise....I wasn't much of a fan of Simon. I'm really not sure I liked him. I have some issues with some of the things he said and did throughout the book and he kept banging on about his nose and I got a bit tiring and repetitive. Carole I really liked, she was a brilliant character and really showed the boys up. I quite liked Gorog too I mean...he wasn't wrong with all of his comments about The One. It was all so true. I wanted to know more about Kat at the beginning of the book and I was all set to like her, but towards the end, to me, she kind of became 'just the love interest' and I was a bit let down by her. 

The pace was fast, perhaps too fast, it feels like it's written for a middle grade audience but there's some content that's not middle grade. I've seen a few reviews saying that this is very similar to a book by Tad Williams, which I haven't read so I can't comment on that. I personally felt like with all the books that have focused on virtual reality and gaming this year, plus Sword Art Online, this kind of paled in comparison. I actually got Percy Jackson vibes if anything more than once. There where some scenes that where similar to it and I haven't read the PJ books, I have watched the films and I'm basing the vibe I got off of that. The quests, and a few other things...yeah. I got Percy Jackson movie vibes. 

I really wanted to enjoy this book, I've been loving all of the virtual reality gaming books this year..but the good things in this book where cancelled out by the bad and a main character that's really hard to like or empathise with to be honest. I'm still intrigued as to what's going to happen next, and how things will be resolved. There's a lot left hanging. But I was a bit disappointed overall.