Arena (Arena, #1)

by Holly Jennings

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With all the talks of eSports potentially becoming an Olympic event at some point, this book gives a preview of some sorts.

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If I had to summarize what I think of the book then it’ll be a collection of things I’ve already seen before. Again, this doesn’t necessarily automatically means that a book will suck but it just raises the bar a bit too high depending on where the obvious inspirations come from. What about Arena? Well, to put it simply, it works in some things and there are other aspects that leave more things to be desired. Being a book focusing on video games and basically the VR version of it makes the gamer in me very giddy, I mean if I can play video games for a living then I honestly don’t think I’ll be saying no but, BUT I wish the book explored that aspect a little more than what we got.

In better words, the game being portrayed in this championship is just a make shift game of capture the flag but the issue here is that the scenery never changes. It’s the same exact playing field, over and over and over again that after a while the games just become short and shorter. I tried playing the moba game Smite, but after the third game of it being the same exact thing but with different characters or a slightly altered arena made it plain boring so I really couldn’t wrap my head around this game being this popular when it didn’t do anything but run the same course over and over again. The worst part? The book mentions the existence of other VR games too and they can easily incorporate new things in the stage but not actually capitalizing on that is a waste.

What I did enjoy though is the fact that Holly Jennings treats these characters like they’re replaceable actors as should be expected from teams that are owned by greedy bustards. How she didn’t shy away from it was very nice since the places they needed to go to and what they ended up doing (like the substance abuse if you will) gives a very clear idea of how fame and such needs to be something that is approached by a clear head, a very clear set of rules and an iron fist that will allow none of these to bend to peer pressure. How she handled it in this book shows that black hole of a peer pressure with great clarity, and the journeys some of these character take is actually pretty interesting to see to someone like me who’s lives in a country where stuff like these aren’t publicized nor glorified.

However, the change that happens to Kali if you will kind of makes it a little hard to believe because of the speed. Making a complete change like that in the span of 6 months is difficult to comprehend but maybe it does happen? Again, I’m not sure since my ignorance in the matter makes me a little skeptical of it for sure but more inclined to accept it, I guess? I don’t know, personality wise it’s a little too fast for sure but I guess it might’ve happened if certain conditions were met. If anything a persona change happening was appreciated in the bigger scheme of things because Kali starts out as an annoying, haughty and egotistical little girl before she becomes a bit wiser and a little less self centered.

There are many obvious things in this novel, the new teammate and that plot line being one of them but I think I’d rather they focus on the tournament instead of the romance. Maybe the teams in it for one, I mean other than Kali and the new teammate, there are 3 more members in the team that are defined by a few traits because they lacked a real focus on them. I really wished that because two part of the team got focused on, there will be others who got it too but I didn’t get it in the same extent I hoped I would, really forgettable unfortunately. The other teams in the tournament getting the spotlight too would’ve been great since I honestly have no idea about why the majority of these teams even made it to a tournament as big as this and it’s a shame that the only team Holly Jennings focused on was Kali and her team. You know that feeling of an obvious outcome you get because the main guys are always the center of attention without anyone else getting a chance to shine? That’s the one thing going on here.

Despite the very glaring problem with this book from the characters to the focus on some things to the mellow reactions to some other very major things and of course the constant focus on drugs which I’m not a fan of (but I appreciated the way she handled it as I mentioned earlier) and of course the many many bouts of “wisdom”, it was a quick and fun read. Like when you watch a film for some nice time without expecting some major outcomes out of it sort of thing, it did make me interested to see where we go from here though so I would be reading the sequel at some point to see what happens.

Final rating: 3/5