First, let me say that the premise is very interesting. A young man named Nikolay who is offered the opportunity to experience life inside a virtual world, Territoria, instead of getting the lethal injection for the supposed murder of his parents he hasn't seen since his sixth birthday. Such a story has a lot of potential, given not only the fact that it's about traveling to another dimension, but there is also a mystery around Nikolay's origins and the disappearance of his parents.
This was a very interesting take on the virtual reality premise. Nik is given an offer he can't refuse to be inserted into a virtual reality. For reasons that move from hidden to murky and suspicious his handlers are very interested to see how this works out for him, and for murky reasons Nikk seems to be especially suited to the task.
The people he meets inside the virtual reality seem unaware this is not the real world, although there are game stat displays, and non-human avatars. While Nik is brought to an in-world school, this isn't the typical narrative of schooling often seen in Sci Fi/Fantasy, as we come to the Academy while classes have not yet started for the next session. Nik is a loner, one that likely doesn't completely deserve the trouble maker reputation he's been burdened with, although one he's resigned himself to. He comes to the Academy to figure out the world, what's going on, and what are the true motivations of those who sent him here.
Unfortunately, during the book's first half, the feel of the story is somewhat lost in a flow of the description, first of the characters and then of Ravenscroft itself. I felt as if the story was slow to start and had to fill the missing part with descriptions to achieve the required length.
The main character, Nik, also take some time to get accustomed to. Since he's been on his own for so long, he doesn't trust anybody and doesn't care about making friends for most of the, which makes it harder to really to connect with him. The other characters are somewhat more approachable, and I thought the author made a good job giving each of them an interesting background explaining their presence in Territoria.
However, when you get to the book's second half, the story unfolds quickly and becomes way more interesting. I had trouble putting the book down from that point on and can't wait for the next book to come out to find out what will happen. It is only a shame that the whole book lacks constancy, since it appears as if the first half was written to fill in so much, so the author was afraid he wouldn't have time to tell the whole story in the required length and had to rush towards the end. None the less, I would probably recommend this book to my friends.
I enjoyed this story, although I was disappointed it ended without even a cliff hanger type ending, but got to a point and then ended, with more clearly to come. I'm eager to read the next book and learn about what is going on, how Nick fits into it, and how he and his friends will get out of the mess.

Although I am not a teen this was a interesting story and a good start to a series.
The characters were all very different if not likeable.

Wow, I was so surprised by this book. It is so amazing. Once I started it, I could not stop.

It is story of Nicolay, who is wrongfully convicted of murdering his parents. Whilst on death row, he gets an offer to test a secret virtual world. But all is not as it seems

Nicolay is genius, with IQ levels off the charts. He can come across crude and cold, but deep inside has a kind soul. His life was really hard. His character is really easy to relate to.

The book is really fast paced and full of action. You don't know what is really going on.

One of my favourites for sure. Only complaint- I wish it was longer. :) I would really love to read more about this place.

Highly recommend it.

I liked the second half of this book a lot more than I liked the first half. Nico was a fairly bland character, I didn't really root for him until he got to Ravenscroft and befriended Chunk. When he made friends and started to work on the conspiracy, he got a whole lot more interesting than the genius delinquent that we saw at the beginning of the book. None of the characters were that great to me, they were all fairly one-note at first and when we started to get some more substance from them, the book ended. I wished we could have seen more of Nico and his friends before the plot started to move along and force them apart, I think that could have made the book much more interesting to me. And I think in the case of Mrs Banks, the book spent so much of its time trying to convince me she did as much as she could do under the circumstances, that didn't change the fact that for me, she was ineffectual at best.

The plot was okay. I liked the idea of the video game and the school conspiracy but I really wish that they had been kept separate from each other. The two of them would have been really impressive plots on their own, I really don't think they needed to be combined in this way. There was one plot twist I did like and one plot twist I thought was ridiculous (what Nico is ridiculously paranoid up until the point where it does actually matter?) and I did like how the bad guys were developed.

The first half of this book dragged but I did like the second half and if the sequel comes up on NetGalley, I probably would request it to see what happens. But I probably wouldn't recommend this book.

I really really liked this book and i loved how it was written abd how fast pased it was for me.

I enjoyed this book in terms of the idea and where I felt the author was trying to take the reader. I do think there were some things that did not sit well with the virtual reality world, such as the avatar feeling hungry when the body is being fed via tube in the real world. It also spent so much time explaining, that the storyline was slow to happen and actually have any action, and that meant as a reader it was difficult to relate to the whole concept. It could have been carried along at a faster pace with more action. I would be interested to see how this book takes this storyline into the next book, and the parents I thought they might have somehow become more of the first books storyline.

Intrigue is truly the name of the game, the twist confuses me as well but the intrigue is awesome, were they in a simulation game or was it one of those hidden labs they kidnapped kids to experiment on, that is the question. I love the characters of Niko and Jefferson, these guys give the story its ultimate high, Niko had brass, not like Jefferson who only talk tough nope he was the real deal. The storyline is awesome, I was so hooked that when I reached the end I kept looking for more, I couldn’t believe I was left hanging but guess what it was a good high to be left on, Love this book.

http://fkrants.blogspot.com/2017/04/april-ng-fails-2017.html

Really great concept, the delivery was lacking. The authors voice was not my style. There was a lot of "telling" versus "showing". The virtual world and it's characters were flat, and not terribly interesting to me. However, I have a lot of YA patrons that I think would love the book. Thanks for allowing me to preview this title.