A Book to Read While Playing The Sims

I confess – my biggest distraction from writing (aside from reading books, blogging, social networking sites, promoting my blog, reading other people’s blogs, writing for other people’s blogs, television, YouTube…oh where was I?)…oh right. My biggest distraction with writing is playing The Sims. I love that game.

What does that have to do with any book I’ve read recently?

Over the weekend, you may have noticed my blog post promoting the book SocialPunk by Monica Leonelle, where you can actually win an iPad, Kindle, and some other free stuff, and this week I finished the last bit of the book I had left. There are still chances to win prizes so make sure to click here to check it out!

And, really, I shouldn’t even be making the comparison to the Sims 3 game because that is already giving away too much, but I couldn’t resist.

I haven’t read many books that dealt with futuristic Earth worlds (no, I haven’t read Hunger Games), and in fact, I read a blogger recently who compared this book to Hunger Games. And from what I’ve read about the book Hunger Games, he is probably right. The only comparison I can make with this book and more recent ones I’ve read is Player One by Douglas Coupland, a book about the world coming to an end and five people stuck in an airport with each other.

And the idea of world coming to an end for the book SocialPunk isn’t too far from the truth. The characters that we meet initially live in a “domed city” created to protect the citizens from the damage having taken place in the outside world as a result of global warming and ozone layer damage.

One thing to remember for this type of book that it does follow a standard “sci-fi/fantasy” trend of the hero not ready to “save the world” but learns how to “accept the task at hand.” I shouldn’t judge too much, because I have used a similar theme in the book I’m writing at the moment. An aspect of this book, though, that goes away from standard science fiction/fantasy is that there are a variety of races and cultures referenced throughout the book and that is a refreshing thing to see.

Now my only major complaint — the ONLY real complaint — that I have to warn you about is that the character’s name changes in the middle of the book. That did bother me. But, in reality, after a few pages, it made complete sense as to why this was done and you do get used to it, especially because this is a growing/changing point for the main character. So, it’s fitting.

I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed this book. I’m not usually a fan of books I have to e-read, especially considering that I have an iPhone and the book isn’t all the fun to look at when you have only 100 words per page. But I did enjoy this book – it is quick paced, exciting, and at times, also reminds me of a book version of Final Fantasy VII, especially with the hi-tech advanced world that comes into play, the idea of an “underground” world, and the splashy, tech-y art that gets introduced a bit later on in the book.

Overall, I really enjoyed this book, and if you get the chance to pick this up and read it, you will love the ending. Sort of a shocker. Not the usual shocker either. Hee hee. Just, an ending I can totally see happening to me. But I won’t give it away. Nope. I won’t.

Book Best Served With:

An evening dinner of grilled Chicken and Vegetables – a clean dish to counteract the fear that this may be our future one day. Meanwhile, you’ll sip on an Old Fashion with your laptop open and The Sims game will be running, as you wonder about those little characters that you care about so much.

P.S.

Click the links for the food items – they will show actual recipes I found. Enjoy!

Interested in purchasing the book? Check it out on Amazon or Barnes and Noble. Or feel free to read the first ten pages by clicking this link for the PDF, or the Nook Preview, or the Kindle. (Do let me know in the comments if none of these links work).