Friday, January 13, 2017

Book Review Thoughts: The Game of Love and Death by Martha Brockenbrough

Book: The Game of Love and Death by Martha Brockenbrough
Genre: YA magical realism
Rating:★★★★☆

A fascinating story about Love and Death who have a competition to see who can win the souls of these two characters. Death's player is the girl, and Love's player is the boy. The idea is if they fall in love, then Love wins. And if they don't then Death wins. Or something like that. I was a bit confused sometimes. But that's the gist of it.

Anyway. they can personify themselves as all sorts of things... animals...people that the boy and girl actually know.... new people in their lives. Etc. Which seems a little unfair. And they can manipulate situations to however they see fit to make stuff happen that helps their cause.

So frustrating. And maddening. I didn't really like them as characters but they became more and more endearing as the story went on.

I really enjoyed the writing and thought it beautiful and powerful. All the trigger issues were thrown in here though... race and LGBT stuff. Which, is okay, but I hate it when it feels... you know... thrown in.

It takes place in the 30s and has a fun musical element with black jazz bars being the central setting. Which I enjoyed too. And lots of nods to Amelia Earhart who our heroine aspires to be. Good stuff.

Anyway. A fun book to start off the year. A very unique look at life and love.

4 comments:

  1. Weird. I've never even heard of this one.

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  2. This book seems manipulative and strange. I don't know if I'll pick this one up.

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  3. I haven't heard of this one. It does seem weird like Jenny said, but while Kami doesn't want to pick it up because it seems "manipulative and strange," I'm now curious about it and want to give it a try. :)

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  4. Huh. Sounds interesting. Maybe too "interesting" -- ha ha. This one's on my TBR list, but I'm not rushing to read it. One of these days I'll get to it. Possibly.

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