I haven't read either of these author's other books, so I was going into this one fully based on premise. It seemed an interesting one, and I always really enjoy stories centered around competitions or 'games', as long as they're done well, of course.

This book definitely delivered. The competition remained the focal point of the story the whole way through, with all the POVs either focused on winning the competition or somehow trying to stop it. A story is always stronger when the characters are willing participants, or don't spend the entire book trying to simply escape the captivating setting they've found themselves in, and in this book, each and every character seemed invested and willing to participate, if on their own terms.

I really liked the cast of characters that this book had, even if it took me a while to like some of them. While all the POVs are fairly dominating personalities, it still ended up working together really well. I also like that the authors really stuck with the darkness of the competition and the idea of raising your kid to kill other kids later, and you could really see how that childhood impacted the characters. They were willing to kill if it meant the progression of their own goals, whatever that happened to be. The motivations of the characters themselves were also so varied that it never felt like you were reading the same thoughts and feelings over and over, as everyone had their own reasons for wanting to win and be the last one standing.

One thing I want to note is that I have been seeing this book being advertised as LGBTQ+, and while this is true in a sense, it's not a large part of the story at all. One character makes a few references to the fact that he's bi, and appreciates another guy in an aesthetic sense, but none of the relationships (past or present) in the story are queer (that we know of yet), and the character who is bi doesn't have a relationship in this book (nor seemingly even a love interest for later books). So while this is definitely not a straight cast, I wouldn't recommend it to someone specifically looking for a queer book.

In the end, I did really enjoy this, and I can't wait to see what happens after that mess of an ending. I'm certainly invested now!