Tags
book reviews, fantasy, Fiction, justin calderone, LARP, literature, live action role play, reading
Publisher: Lachesis Publishing
Publication Date: September 28, 2012
Pages: 203
Genre: Young Adult, Action & Adventure, Fantasy
Book Description: “Sometimes even a geek can become a hero.
Dennis and his friends have been LARPing (Live Action Role Playing) since high school. Now, in his 20s, Dennis is seriously considering giving up LARPing for good. He’s tired of dealing with his overzealous friend Mark; he’s tired of his older brother Brad’s constant put-downs; and he’s tired of the fact that he doesn’t have a girlfriend. Check that. Not a girlfriend, but the girlfriend.Alyssa—the one woman he’s been pining over for years.
Dennis and his fellow LARPers have never been considered cool, in their small island community of Verona, located off the coast of Washington State.
But all of that is about to change . . .
While Dennis and his friends are attending a big LARP tournament on the mainland, a rogue terrorist group of Mongolians in medieval garb, led by an American madman, invade Verona and take its citizens hostage—including their families and friends.
When the LARPers find out what’s happening in their home-town, they do what any dedicated LARPer would do: they put on their armor, strap on their swords, and fight their way home—LARP-style!” (Amazon)
~*~*~SPOILER ALERT~*~*~
This is going to be another one of those “I don’t know what to say” reviews. This book was given to me through Three Nerds to read and review as part of a book tour. What had originally caught my attention was the fact that it was about LARPing. For the uninformed, LARP is live action roleplay where in people take on characters and actually go into battle (fake battle). There is a strong storyline, set rules, and overall people have fun. It’s something that I always wanted to do despite my lack of physical prowess.
At the beginning, I thoroughly enjoyed the book. It was well written, fluid, and really engaging. The characters seemed real and deep. They were people in boring every day jobs who felt alive LARPing. They were free to be who they wanted to be and forget about their responsibilities for just a weekend.
However, as I continued to read the book, the promising book slowly fell apart before me. I read in one of the reviews that some people tend to forget that it’s a fantasy book. Be that as it may, in any form of literature there are rules, and you have to follow the rules set by the universe in which you immerse your story. Calderone chose to set his story in the 21st century, and he tried to incorporate a more medieval theme into it, yet failed. The story was charming I must admit, yet it was completely unrealistic, it made no sense, there was no logic. It felt like everything he wanted to write was just randomly thrown into the last 100 pages or so.
Mongol conquerers, LARPers, and the US Army went out on a full on war scale. It didn’t make sense that the military would allow these civilians to put themselves in danger, yet at the last minute threw in their special armed forces to help them. Why couldn’t they go in there without civilians? I just feel like there were too many gaps, he tried to dig deep into too many characters, and overall it was just scattered everywhere.
The writing wasn’t bad, but the story-line just wasn’t strong and cohesive enough to push the novel as far as it could. I’m just disappointed that it had so much potential if it was taken in a different direction.
Overall: ★★