Although I liked and felt very interested about the synopsis, I wasn't impressed with the worldbuilding and character development.
The best parts about this novel were the MMO chapters and the operatives, their story the interesting one, even though their origin was quite clear from the start and not some big reveal.
The rest of it is just okish, with a strong YA vibe, despite the constant swearing.

Firebreak is a standalone dystopian near-future adventure story by Nicole Kornher-Stace. Released 4th May 2021 by Simon & Schuster on their Gallery/Saga imprint, it's 416 pages and is available in hardcover, audio, and ebook formats (paperback release scheduled for 2022). It's worth noting that the ebook format has a handy interactive table of contents as well as interactive links and references throughout. I've really become enamored of ebooks with interactive formats lately; it makes it so easy to find information with the search function.

This is an enveloping, intense, well written powerhouse of a novel which delivered everything it promised me. I've seen lots (and lots) of comparisons from other reviewers with Ready Player One and it has only the most basic commonalities: much of the action takes place in a virtual world (but with very real real-life consequences), and there's a gigantic EvilCorp the underdog protagonist has to fight.

There's a lot of unvarnished social commentary here and I got flashbacks to Sinclair's The Jungle at several points. The author takes on late stage capitalism, corporate power dynamics, exploitation, economic corruption and manages to do so in the middle of a rollicking adventure buddy narrative which is blissfully free from romantic drama.

The author writes deftly and engagingly and I never found my interest waning. I was a little intimidated at the very beginning of the read over the length of the book, but I was gratified to see that there was no page bloat at all and I was never yanked out of my suspension of disbelief. It -is- a first person narrative which is challenging, but the author manages to avoid the "I did this and then this and then this happened" pitfalls.

It's a gripping and well told story. Highly recommended for fans of dystopian underdog adventures with strong protagonists. Four and a half stars.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.

This book wasn’t what I thought it would be. Somehow I thought it was more like what Ready Player One was just without the pop culture references. The first part of the story was more interesting when Mal was discovering the mystery. But once everything was revealed the rest of it just turned into a lot of long fighting sequences that just got boring and repetitive after a while. In the end this overall was not for me and as I see it is a series I don’t plan to read the next one.

I received an eARC via NetGalley and the publisher; all opinions are my own.

I received a copy of this from NetGalley in return for an honest review.

The world-building in this is really great. Information is revealed slowly rather than in one big infodump. I also enjoyed the characters, who each with their own strengths and weaknesses that made them feel realistic. Where this book lost me a bit was that it almost seemed to be trying to do too much. War, powerful government that controls everything, constant surveillance, climate disaster in the form of not enough water and resources to live, and overpopulation. There was so much action that it became like one of those movies where the main characters are in constant danger yet you know they won't get hurt or die. Overall it read very YA in tone and subject matter. I did like the immersive video game aspect. It was a solid book but nothing really stood out to me.

Firebreak is a nice read, blending elements of virtual gaming to escape reality (Ready Player One meets Snowcrash) and environmental/post-apocalyptic societal collapse, with shades of romance blended in for intrigue. While not a challenging read, Kornher-Stace weaves a compelling story through her protagonist and both the choices she makes and those that are made for her by circumstance. Firebreak does present the reader with some troubling potential futures, but, while a primary driver of the story, at no time does Kornher-Stace make this feel like a prediction of an inevitable future, but allows the reader to explore the "what if" of her novel.

Um, excuse me, but skootch on over out of the way, Katniss, because Mallory can totally take it from here, thanks.
I read Firebreak by Nicole Korner-Stace immediately after reading Ready Player Two and definitely could feel some similarity, but the story still manages to be wholly original. Mallory is a protagonist you really want to win. I feel that's such a tough balancing act when writing YA characters: making them fierce and independent, impassioned and willing to fight to the death for a cause, without making them defiant and rebellious for only defiance and rebellion sake, but the author nailed it with our gal Mal. I'm crossing my fingers that there might be a sequel??

I'm middle of the road on this one. Interesting action and world building but riddled with info dumps and maybe too much overanalyzing and information. Although I did like the story and the writing, it's a good apocalyptic story, I didn't like the main character. I'm glad I gave it a try, just wish it had been a bit shorter.

<i>A huge thank you to the author and publisher for providing an e-ARC via Netgalley. This does not affect my opinion regarding the book.</i>

DNF

I’m not going to rate this, because I think the problem is me as much as it might be this book.

The opening chapter throws the reader right into the action, and I found myself struggling to catch up from the get go. I think this has really impacted my ability to connect with the main character, which as we all know is key to enjoying any story.

When I say that I’m part of the problem, it’s because I have so much going on right now that I just don’t have the mental space to devote to figuring out what is going on.
Too much game play info, not enough storytelling and backstory to balance it out. I’m sure all the game play info will be important to how things play out, I just don’t care enough at this point to try and decipher it all.

Others have had much better luck with this, so don’t let this review stop you from giving it a go!

ARC provided by NetGalley

Could you see this in our future? Corporate takeover, paying for water which is rationed, housing crisis because of intentional bombings, power curfews, working numerous jobs to make enough to pay for your food and water, and basically, always looking over your shoulder.

Firebreak is a dystopian sci-fi story that will take you on a wild ride where the main character, Mallory, along with her best friend Jessa take on all of the above and so much more. It is also a story about endurance, friendship and strength. I would love to see a sequel to this book.

First I'd like to thank NetGalley and the publisher for the Arc copy of Firebreak. What a wild ride. Nicole Kornhern-Stace has crafted one heck an enjoyable adventure. She's created some fantastic characters and an incredible world that is instantly compelling, forcing you to keep reading...just one more chapter, just one more chapter, again and again. While I've read plenty of books with an 'online component' those have mostly been LitRPG novels. Nicole's use of an online world is unique and refreshing. This is the first book I've read by this author, but it most definitely will not be the last.

https://www.amazon.com/review/R2CBL6ZLIF0Q2I/ref=pe_1098610_137716200_cm_rv_eml_rv0_rv

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/firebreak-nicole-kornher-stace/1137938682?ean=9781982142742&bvnotificationId=0026a224-0dbb-11ec-ba09-0e5a2cba9461&bvmessageType=REVIEW_APPROVED&bvrecipientDomain=gmail.com#review/186669004

Thank you to Netgally and the publisher for providing me with an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.
I really enjoyed the world building and the nature of this dystopian future. Unfortunately, to the author's credit, it didn't feel very far off from something that could actually happen, considering the world that we live in the way certain companies have a very real dominance. I think both the world building (both in game and irl) and charicter development are were this book really shines.
There were times that the plot felt a little dragged out/ the book felt a bit long but overall I really enjoyed it and felt that it was very well constructed.
I think this book is going to get a lot of comparison to books like READY PLAYER ONE and WARCROSS, which makes sense to me but I think it is important to go into it knowing that the "game" part of the book takes a back seat to the irl stuff and that it is basically non existent in the 2nd half of the book. I think that was a very good choice on the part of the author but it is important that people don't go into it with the wrong expectations.

Mal lives in the future. War and capitalism made life on earth hard. She lives with 8 other girls in a hotel room, has 4 jobs that barely cover her rent and streams her video games in her free time to get a little extra water. Water in Old Town isn’t free and everyone gets one bottle of water a day for everything they want to use it for. Drinking, cooking, washing, etc. After a horrifying discovery during her gaming session everything she thought she knew starts to crumble.

First of a little trigger warning, this book contains some gore, violence, torture, kidnapping and death.

The characters in this book are great. Mal is funny and has her own head, she doesn’t believe everything she is told and tries to get all the information herself. She also is asexual/aromantic, which is implicied more than once during this book. And she has a friendship-crush, which is amazing. I haven’t seen this represented in any way in media.
Jessa, Mals friend and roommate, is funny and quirky and not just a plot device. She has her own story, her own opinions and everything that a good side-kick needs to stand out.

Duirng the story we as a reader, and Mal and her friends, learn more about the gruesome and brutal world she is living in. I often felt like Firebreak is what Ready Player One wanted to be.

The atmosphere is transported through the pages and when Mal was feeling bleak, I
felt to. Sometimes I had to laugh because it was really funny and some other times this book made me really sad, emotional and mad.

I would recommend this book to anyone looking for a dystopian sci-fi with a great lead and a setting not too far in the future.

Firebreak is a compelling, action-packed story inspired by video games set in a dystopian future that seems eerily close. It also fools you at the beginning. I almost put it down because I wasn’t that interested in hearing about Mal fought her way to the top of the leader-boards. But I kept reading and, as soon as the mystery kicked in, I started to enjoy the book more. Kornher-Stace layers the mystery, sending Mal and the reader ever deeper into the rabbit hole. The world-building is great on the surface, but more and more things didn’t quite make sense as I read further.

While the majority of the plot is high-stakes with lots of action, there are a few places where it slows, allowing for the characters to explain the implications of what just happened. Unfortunately, these sections ended up distancing me from the book and the characters. I particularly struggled to connect with Mal, even though she’s the main character. Also, a lot of the major plot points seemed to happen mostly by chance instead of because of the actions of one of the characters, which diminished their agency a bit.

Overall, I just wanted more complexity to the characters and for the plot to be driven by their choices/actions. And, fair warning, this book contains a LOT of swearing (I don’t usually mind, but this was just a tad excessive). Firebreak had a lot of excellent parts, but they didn’t quite add up to a cohesive whole.

DNF - Did not finish. I decided not to keep reading this title because I did not connect with the writing or plot. Thank you, NetGalley and publisher for the early copy!

Firebreak plugs us into a virtual game play from the very start. I really liked being plunged into this game and learning about how it interacts with the outside world – the power curfew, the 1000 kill score, the mysterious SecOps that literally haunt the game. From the synopsis it wasn’t quite clear what they were but I am glad that the first part of the book developed the storyline in an effective manner and had me hooked. Jessa and Mal have a nice working relationship and how they came to be together in the same hotel speaks to the atrocities of the world and the war around them.

After their encounter with one of the SecOps in the game and getting footage of them up close, Jessa and Mal have caught some people’s eye and are able to get sponsors. The situation around water is so sad and this seems like such a dreary world to live in as we learn more about the water supply, the kinds of jobs people do, the curfew and more. The game has become the life of so many people. Not to mention the lens implants.

I think this book had a unique concept and the execution was quite well done. Now that I think about it, I would not mind reading more books set in virtual reality and role play. Firebreak showed us the potential of a dystopian society and how it can rely so heavily on advanced technology to keep people engaged. One thing I loved about this book is that as much as it was scifi with advanced technology, it was written in a manner that I could understand it. I never felt like the author was dumbing things down for me or using words that went right above my head.

This was a buddy read with Erynn. See full review and part-by-part discussion on Armed with A Book. Many thanks to the publisher for providing me with a complimentary digital copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.

Firebreak is the kind of novel you just grab for something to read on the plane and when you start it, you can't get is out of your head, you can't put it down and you just have to find out what happens.
Mal is a 20 something survivor. During the corporate wars she lost her family and her home. She now lives in a hotel room with 8 other people doing odd jobs so that she can receive her water ration and survive. One of her jobs is in a VR action game that simulates the current forever war between the only remaining corporations in America.
Very dismal world setting. Great action story; easy to read - 4 stars because I got goosebumps at the end.

Ready Player One meets Cyberpunk 2077 in this eerily familiar future. Enjoyable. Two corporations have replaced the US, splitting the country’s remaining forty-five states (five have been submerged under the ocean) between them: Stellaxis Innovations and Greenleaf. There are nine supercities within the continental US, and New Liberty City is the only amalgamated city split between the two megacorps, and thus at a perpetual state of civil war as the feeds broadcast the atrocities committed by each side.

Thanks to Netgalley for an ARC of this book, in exchange for a fair and honest review.

Let's start with this - reading the description, you'd think that this would be a book that would appeal to someone who's a gamer. I imagine it would - but I'm not a gamer in the current sense of the word, and I enjoyed this book tremendously. So don't let that stop you from reading it!

I do like a good dystopian novel, and this one is. The book focuses on one particular area in the U.S. - appears to be the Northeast. All of the states have been handed over to various corporations to run, and thanks to mergers and takeovers, there are basically only two corporations that own everything - Stellaxis and Greenleaf. They appear to be involved in a sporadic war with each other. Mallory, our main character, lives in Old Town, an area controlled by Stellaxis. Most people don't have "regular" jobs - they piece together a living by various odd jobs (Mallory, for instance, does a lot of dog walking), but especially by playing video games. Their viewers can give them tips, items of use in the games, and more importantly, money and water.

The book, in many ways, revolves around water. It's controlled by Stellaxis, who provides a small amount of water each day, but to get more, you have to buy it. Sadly, it's a plausible extrapolations of where the world may be going.

As the plot goes along, there's an interesting intersection of the game and reality - I found it a much more interesting book when it began focusing on reality - but the game is how Mal and her friend Jessa get hooked into the issues that are actually important in real life. By the middle of the book, I was compulsively reading, because I wasn't really sure how things would come out, and I really wanted to know.

For me, the ending was a bit of a letdown, although I won't get specific here. Mainly, I came away saying, "well, this book needs a sequel, and I will definitely read it if it comes out."

All in all, a good read. It moves quickly, has an interesting plot, and characters I enjoyed, even if I wished I knew more about them.

This book was absolutely stunning and I'm extremely glad to have read it. I am immediately going to read everything this author has ever written in the world.

Mal is just trying to make money to have food and water. Doing odd jobs and playing the virtual reality game for tips. And trying to get some footage of the elusive in-game version of Secor Operators who are supersoldiers in reality. An unexpected windfall throws her into the middle of a mystery that calls into the question the reality that Mal and society has been living in. The more she learns, the more she begins to realize how society is manipulated by the few and how low those few are willing to go to win. With horror and outrage at circumstances compounding, Mal knows she has to do something, but doing that something is more dangerous than she ever thought.

This was a pretty good one! I really enjoyed the dystopic capitalist world and the virtual reality gaming co-mingled with real life. I think the mix if the two was nicely done. I also liked the main character, very practical, cynical, but supremely decent. Even though I didn't understand her obsession with the one SecOp operative. I didn't love the end of the book though. The tone shifts and it becomes much more gruesome and dire. And the end is fairly open-ended, which I didn't love for this story. Overall, enjoyed it though!

Thank you to Netgalley and Sagasff /Gallerybooks for gifting me with the e-copy!