Mortal Danger (The Immortal Game, #1)

by Ann Aguirre

[Katie King]

**I received this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.**

**1 star**

**Spoiler warning**

Every once in a while, a book comes along that really makes you take a good, hard look at yourself. Mortal Danger did exactly that, but not in a good way.

Our insipid heroine is Edith, unremarkable except for her location on the edge of a bridge at the beginning of the book. Tormented mercilessly by the popular crowd at Blackbriar Academy, Edie dreams of putting it an end - a permanent end. On the brink of despair, Edie is saved by a sexy/dangerous/mysterious stranger, who offers her a deal in exchange for her life. Stay on the bridge, and she will receive three favors for anything she could possibly want. Once those favors have been used, Edie becomes a lackey for the distant/cruel/evil head of the Satanic mafia until she repays her favors. Just kidding, they aren't Italian.

Wedderburn (that name, seriously?) IS the mind behind some weird evil organization that doles out favors and retains formerly suicidal teenagers, but I didn't really understand how this "game" works. There's two competing sides - Wedderburn and Dwyer & Fell - who apparently take interest in suicidal people and offer them favors. There's also third parties like Harbringer (still unsure of who he is) and "monsters" both involved in the game and not. There's a clown executioner (literally), psychic vampire, whatever the teacher was (that was never figured out), a dead guy with a sack and two dead kids, a Slenderman rip-off, shadow wolves, and mirror spirits. All in one book. With absolutely no clear ties to each other or the game, I often wondered what their relevance was. Edie's beloved Kian can't even see any of them. So I'm guessing this is going to lead into some special snowflake plotline in later books. This has already been hinted at in it being revealed Edie isn't just another girl, she's a "catalyst," whatever that's supposed to mean.

What else went wrong? Everything!

A unnecessary emphasis on beauty. Edie is of course ugly and hated before she cashes in her first favor for a magical makeover. Once Kian literally reshapes her face with his hands, she is beautiful, adored, and worthy of attention. Good thing, because we all know it's hard out there when you've been beaten with the ugly stick! But now she makes friends with the popular kids that DROVE HER TO SUICIDE and can flirt like the best of them. In addition, her relationship with her mother is very strained and impersonal until they start going to the gym together and buy her mom some better make-up. Yay for acceptance!

A romance out of thin air. Edie, a shy virgin, uses her new beautiful-people powers to force Kian to kiss her before the first 50 pages are up. After that, she's pretty much in love and determined to hold on to her stalker forever. Because yep, he's been watching her from afar since she was in elementary school. Not to mention he witnessed the grand bullying event that made Edie suicidal in the first place, and didn't intervene whatsoever. Don't worry, he's really sorry! After the multiple flip flops between being in love and randomly being distant, he eventually sacrifices his life to protect Edie. Despite their sordid past (sex is like, REALLY BAD, but don't worry, we can dry hump), this ill-conceived idea does come across as romantic. Good thing Edie undermines it by calling in her last favor!

A stupid plot. If the basics of the game laid out above weren't confusing enough, I've got good news - there's more! There's the random subplot of science summer camp where Edie dates a boy and makes a few friends that she promptly ignores unless she needs them to do something for her. There's the Queen Bee of the school being some weird psychic vampire who apparently drove a boy to suicide and the other to insanity. The popular girl with the face-eating disease hemorrhages to death! The mom's head is cut off by the random dead guy with a bag! Her new popular friend Jen randomly goes to Thailand and is never heard from again! What do all these things have in common? Nothing, except that they're in the same book and none of that ever really gets explained. Listless zombie-like girl attacks vampire girl over hot otherworldly (still don't know exactly what he is...) teacher? Edie just rolls with it! She goes over to Davina's house to gossip and do homework! What if Jen has been killed or abducted and isn't really in Thailand? Edie can't be bothered to send an email! Was this novel even plotted out or did the author just write whatever she felt like for that day??

There's so much more, but then this review would span multiple pages.

Summary:

My subconscious knew I was going to hate this one, and that's why I resisted reading it for so long. I just can't with this one. I LITERALLY cannot name one thing I enjoyed. What a clusterf*ck.