Book Review – The Dying Game by Åsa Avdic

 

  

The Dying Game by Åsa Avdic is about seven people who are brought to a remote island during a storm to compete for a top-secret government position over the course of 48 hours.

In 2037, on the tiny, remote island of Isola, seven people are hand-selected to participate in a 48-hour competition. The winner will be awarded a top-secret intelligence position within the totalitarian Union of Friendship.

Anna Francis is chosen to participate in the competition. She is a workaholic bureaucrat known for her mission work. Although she is the mother of a nine-year-old daughter, she rarely sees her because of her demanding career. Anna is also harboring a secret that seems to haunt her every move.

Anna is surprised to be selected since she doesn’t see herself as the ideal candidate for the position. Still, when her handlers explain the true nature of the test, she agrees to take part. Her assignment is to fake her own death and secretly observe the remaining candidates from hidden spaces within the walls of the house. She must take detailed notes on who takes control, who cracks under pressure, and how the others react to the possibility that a murderer may be among them. However, once a storm knocks out the power, the real game begins as everything quickly spirals out of control.

This novel felt like a complete waste of time to me. It had the potential to be great, but instead it was a drudgery to get through. The book was very difficult to get into, largely because the author provided almost no real-world building. What little worldbuilding there was felt so sparse that it added almost nothing to the story. I also didn’t understand why the novel needed to be set in the future or why it took place in a fictional country. I wish the author had explained more about the social structure, political groups, and the war that kept being referenced.

I also didn’t like how the author constantly hinted at things without ever properly explaining them. I’m not sure how readers were supposed to fully understand what was happening when so little context was provided. I also never really understood what the position actually involved or what the overall point of the game was supposed to be.

The story is told through alternating points of view between Anna and another participant in the game who also happens to be her crush. It was somewhat interesting to see how they viewed each other, but it still wasn’t enough to save the book from feeling lackluster. By the end, I felt like the book wasn’t worth the effort because I was left with far more questions than answers.