#travis bach

Honestly I’m behind still on my movie reviews but I finished this book last week (read by the talented Josh Hurley courtesy of Audible) and I could not stop thinking about it! This book is the first in a series and written by one of my current favorite authors, Rachel Aaron and her husband, Travis Bach. Can I just say, RELATIONSHIP GOALS. This story to me felt like Sword Art Online but different and better! It follows two siblings, Tina and James, as they play their favorite virtual reality game: Forever Fantasy Online, or FFO as they refer to it in the book.

Both siblings use the game to escape their not-so-ideal actual realities. Tina is a college student, working hard to stave off loans and James is the failure older brother who blew through both of their college funds and now works multiple jobs. The game makes them feel more alive, until they get stuck there. Here is where Rachel and Travis’ mastery of wielding a full cast of memorable characters really began to shine.

Tina is stuck in a hard side of the world filled with monsters to fight and surrounded by less than competent fighters with which to fight them, but that doesn’t stop her from being the in-game leader she’s been playing for the past few years. Tina is an amazing leader and, for me, it was really really cool to read about a strong female warrior leader who wasn’t annoyingly bossy, was competent, and above all strong. Though James’ timeline was my favorite to read, Tina was my favorite POV character because of all her amazing qualities.

James ended up on the opposite side of the world stuck in the savannah inhabited by cat-people. The reason James’ storyline was my favorite was because, though his situation was still dire, it was less immediate life or death like Tina’s and I got to see more of the world and learn more about the true nature of their situation through his eyes. Shout out slash special mention of my favorite side character: Arbati. (Forgive me if I spelled this wrong, I listened to the audiobook so I’m taking a guess here). The head warrior had such a strong personality and character arc in this book and I loved every minute of it.

When I first started reading this, I reached out to Rachel to ask if she and Travis had split up the writing by character—I asked this because, at first, James reminded me a lot of Rachel’s character, Julius from her Heartstikers series—however, Rachel informed me that they both wrote both characters. That shows the true talent of both of those people right there. I tore through this book. I tore through this book in two and a half days. And that CLIFF HANGER oh my gosh! All I can say is that I am so thankful they are fast writers! According to their websites the next one comes out Fall of 2018! Ya’ll rock!

Overall I would definitely recommend this book. I devoured it and the pace was nonstop, there were no lulls, no real “stopping points” which made it so hard to put down! Also for sure check out Rachel’s Heartstrikers series because it is also absolutely amazing and devourable.

WARNING: The rest of this review contains HELLA SPOILERS in which I discuss more in depth what did and didn’t work for me in this book so if you haven’t read this book PLEASE LEAVE.

WHAT WORKED

The concept. I have to say I was very worried when I first read the description of this book because it sounded like the exact plot of Sword Art Online (an anime), but it so isn’t. The concept that somehow this “virtual world” was a real world and that all of the NPC’s (Non Player Characters) were stuck in the game is so original and, when I figured that out in the book, so mind blowing! Because the concept was so strong the plot was even stronger. Both of them fighting for their lives and for a world that they don’t belong to and yet they feel like they do because they’ve spent a good portion of their lives in it. So good.

The characters and themes. I raved about them already above but, once again, I love TINA. She is so strong and such a good leader. I also love that she is a giant 800 pound rock lady. AKA a female main character who isn’t the societal definition of beauty—I don’t know if they did that on purpose but I appreciated that. I also really liked NicoBaby and SilentBlade. I love Nico’s personality a lot, again with the distinct characters and Rachel and Travis just knocking them out of the park! Seriously can’t gush enough about how much I love their characters. SB is such a little mystery ninja and I can’t wait to learn the answers to all the questions that were set up about him in this first book. Is he a forty year old man with as many cats? Is he a celebrity? Honestly I don’t know what they’re going to do here since we don’t really know anyone else important in Tina’s life from the outside (yet). So either he’ll be someone shocking, like a girl instead of a guy, or a forty year old cat-man, or he’ll be someone shocking from her real life that we find out about later, those are my predictions anyways. I loved every single character in James’ storyline. Every. Single. One. Arbati was so fun to watch change. One of my favorite moments with him was when James when to see him in the wagon on the way back to the clans and he broke down about how many times he had died. That was such a powerful moment and it made my heart ache for him. Speaking about theme, I loved how you can really tell what is important to these writers by the themes in this story (and in Heartstrikers).  They fight racism through James with Arbati and the Knolls (Nolls? Again, audiobook, I’m so sorry). They also show the power of diplomacy and the use of words to open understanding rather than violence. And with Tina they showed that if you use enough force, people can and will be motivated to save their own lives!

Honorable mentions that I won’t get into or else this review would be hella long: The intricate and creative settings. The fact that the villain has a (glimpse of a) heart. The super cool magic system. The super cool way that the rules of the game intertwined with reality once they were stuck.

WHAT DIDN’T WORK

The characters. Just some minor things because as I said before, these characters have captured my heart! James reminded me A LOT of Julius from the Heartstrikers series. His voice and the way he thought, the way he values diplomacy over violence, were very similar and even to the fact that he is considered to be a failure by his family. I will say though, he gives a lot less diplomatic speeches than Julius did which is the one thing I didn’t care for about Julius so that’s a plus. Don’t get me wrong, I still love James, it’s just that the similarities were there and I couldn’t help but make the connection.

The timeline. This threw me off. I’m not sure if it was because, in listening to most of this book while at work (hehe) I might have missed an explanation, or if it just wasn’t there but the game characters claim to have been stuck in this game for 80 years. The book never mentions how long FFO has been out in Tina and James’ world, or if it does, it’s at the beginning when we don’t know that that detail is important to remember, but I feel like it hasn’t been out for 80 years. Maybe it was 8 years and every one year in “our world” equals 10 years in the “game world”? Neither Tina nor James point out the strangeness of this and there isn’t a conversation about it. Again, I could have missed it because of the whole Audiobook at work thing so let me know if this is the case.

The SB Tina ship. This mostly works for me. Mostly. I think that a lot of it was told rather than shown and that more showing of their chemistry, especially maybe in some more reaction scenes (if we think of scenes as action/reaction) when there is less imminent death then that might help in the next book. Also I’m so worried about how the heck will they get together when they are no longer attracted to each other?? (This isn’t a part that didn’t work it’s just a worry that I have in general, I really liked that detail a lot actually.)

OVERALL: I loved this book! I can’t stop recommending both it and Heartstrikers to everyone I know and I can’t wait to see what happens next! Their writing inspires me to write more and write better. I know this review was a little long but I couldn’t help it!