This is my second read of this book, it felt much better on the reread, but still the weakest if his Secret Project books.

I absolutely loved the concept, and I loved most of the characters. I thought the use of a white-room narrative was well executed, with some nitpicks, such as remembering a little detail and then telling us the he was actually this or that, without saying he this ks it's what he was, instead he says it like as if it's fact, and so we believe that's his backstory, when it wasn't. It's different when he says stuff like "Oh I think I'm this because I remember this detail", because then at least we can have some wiggle room for speculation, but he repeatedly told us who he was his entire life like as if he actually remembered it, and we take it as fact. Just a little annoying.

Thd other problems I had which I had on my first read was it felt like this weird incompatible mix of an adult book and a YA book. You've got blood and guts and heads blown off and sex talk etc, but then it also had the disneyesque feel to it I find most commonly in YA novels, not to take a crap on those books, it just didn't feel compatible here. And then throw in some love triangle soap opera in to taint a pretty empathetic and impactful character arc, and you've got a mess of a book.

Seriously. There literally this awfully written section where Johnny found out his ex wasn't dead, she faked her death to go undercover and help stop a gang from doing some interdimensional shenanigans, and she didn't break up with Johnny because she didn't wanna hurt his feelings, so she faked her death, as if that wouldn't hurt his feelings, and then tells Johnny once he finds out she's alive that she was cheating on him with his best friend Ryan Chu since the second week of their relationship that went on for a couple years (as far as I remember), all because she found Johnny intriguing, and she was with Ryan because....why? Don't know. And she said all this in front of Ryan too 😂 and this was all after Ryan and Johnny had this nice growth moment together after Ryan seemed like a good guy sick of his friend's bullshit and just wanted him to do better, and Johnny seemed to finally get it and want to do better. Then we find out Ryan was a goddamn hypocrite and the worst kind of good guy, the one that is morally righteous of everyone else but he's alright to be an arsehole. Yuck. It was such an unnecessary part if the plot and it was cringe and such a piece of shitty soap opera. It made the book so much weaker. It came out of nowhere and didn't fit with the book at all. Yuck 🤢🤮

I did, however, still enjoy the experience. Loved the concept, loved the characters, loved the X-Files level of what-ifs and loved the unconventional type of character Johnny ended up being. He was surprising multidimensional (pun intended 😏).
I empathised very deeply with him, he had a lot of self worth issues and had a lot of bad friends in his life, yeah, I'm talking about you, Ryan Chu 🖕.
Johnny had some bad luck and that turned into him seeing himself deserving of it and that he was worthless, and that just meant life kept throwing snow at him until it avalanched and he was stuck, lost, in this self-destructive rut, while his supposed best friend just judged him and belittled him and made him feel further useless and bedded his girlfriend behind his back for years. Johhny deserved a lot better. He might be one of my favourite Sanderson characters, especially on my second read and the new experiences I personally have gone through to make him more relatable.

On my first read I rsted this a 3, I'm going to be more generous this time and give it a 3.75. It's still a good concept that could have been executed better and was injected with YA Soap opera bullshit.