These Deadly Games
by Diana Urban

These Deadly Games is an amazing psychological YA thriller that was a fast paced and entertaining read for me. I enjoyed this one a lot!

This book was shocking with so many twists that pulled at me like riding a roller coaster that went on and on, and just when you think things are slowing down, another surprise comes that made this read propulsive and heart pounding!

From the first sentence, I was pulled in!

I loved it!

I thought this was a decent second novel, but I think I might have enjoyed the first one a bit more. It was way to easy to figure out who was doing things and exactly who the person was, but it still was interesting enough to continue reading and had a few things I didn't know. Overall, it was decent.

Very twisty and suspenseful.
Many thanks to St. Martin’s Press and to NetGalley for providing me with a galley in exchange for my honest opinion.

3.75 stars

I read her debut last year and enjoyed it, so I was super excited to see what she would write next.

I’ll say this was such a fun and entertaining thriller; very fast paced as well. Though I did find the twist to be predictable—like I knew who was behind the game in the first place, which I figured out halfway through.

None of the characters (except for Crystal, the main character) felt distinct and I couldn’t tell any of them apart. They appeared one dimensional, so I couldn’t really connect with any of them.

Despite my issues, once I started this, I didn’t want to put it down. I was on the edge of my seat the entire time. I kept wanting to know what was going to happen next.

Overall, this was a great thriller. And If you’re in a reading slump, I suggest you pick this up.

Thank you to NetGalley for providing an e-arc in exchange for an honest review.

These Deadly Games is an awesome YA thriller about an esports team and exposing their secrets. The esports team is up for competing to win $250000 - money the kids desperately need for their own reasons. However, someone kidnaps our main character’s sister, and the secrets and deaths start to come out. As we follow the real time ransoming, we are also given snippets of the past, a secret the team members are determined to keep.

I think this book was wonderful. It was really fast paced and engaging. I think a lot of people will be able to relate to the different characters and really become invested in the story. My biggest gripe with the story is that it was a little over the top and unbelievable. If you’re an adult reading this one, you may have to suspend your belief to get through some of the challenges. Also, some of the pop culture references really stick out. If you’re not a fan of those, they may annoy you. Overall, I highly recommend this book to those who are interested.

Overall, a 4/5 stars.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for sending me an advanced ecopy of this book in exchange for an honest review!

Yea I just didn't like this. Reading this was like zoning out in class and then focusing just as the teacher announces a project or calls on you to answer a question you didn't hear. I was so excited to read this because one of my favorite booktubers was hyping this up but I barely made it through this. I knew after the first few chapters I wouldn't even like this book.

What a fun cat-mouse game. This book was so heart-pounding and I enjoyed it for the most part. I loved the premise behind this book so much, just didn’t hit the execution well enough. I loved the ending too, but I felt like there wasn’t enough going on with the characters and I would’ve liked more details on them. It was an overall solid YA thriller.

Be careful who you cross because it may be a deadly decision. These Deadly Games bring the fighting from the computer screen to real life. Crystal Donavan needs to make a money quota to be able to compete in the annual game tournament but that may be the least of her problems. While there were surprises and a twisty story it seemed Urban only wanted to coast with the pace and characters. Crystal is superficial and does not have much depth. She is self-centered and doesn't seem to have any common sense. While her friends are mere side characters with little to add to the plot. The villain doesn't really make sense in the context of the whole book. At times I felt much of the action and suspense were forced and only made the book feel pieced together.

I absolutely LOVED this book!!! I loved Diana Urban’s first book, All Your Twisted Secrets, and I adored this book even more. This is a fun, twisty, fast-paced, soapy, high-stakes thriller and I found it to be such a great read. While I did guess the twists fairly early into the book, that didn’t hinder my enjoyment of it.

It felt very Saw-like with no gore, similar to Urban’s first book which is something I loved. I found the concept fun, the characters unlikeable, but great to follow, and the plot engaging.

I can’t wait to read what Diana Urban writes next!

Crystal Donovan gets a message on her phone during class wanting her to play a game. A game where each task she must do is meant to hurt someone important in her life and if she breaks the rules or tells anyone, her younger sister will die.

There are several 'twists' in this story - most predictable, while others are surprising. Everyone seems to have secrets...but how do they play into the mystery of Who can be trusted, and who is the kidnapper?

Oh, and Crystal is also competing with a team to win three million dollars and the annual (video gaming world) Mortal Dusk Crown.

But as she sees her close circle friends dying off one by one, she realizes the games she's playing are more sinister than she could have imagined.
Overall, a good cat-and-mouse, twisty, action-packed read!

Thank you NetGalley for the opportunity to preview These Deadly Games. When a young woman gets a strange message she thinks it’s a joke. Soon she is caught in a cat and mouse game with a crazy person. She is asked to do a lot of strange tasks or else he sister and friends will be hurt. Soon she finds this game is turning deadly. Maybe she’s next on a list to die.
Predictably difficult to read. 2 stars

This was a fast-moving YA thriller about a group of friends whose past is coming back to haunt them.
I really had high hopes for this story but I wished I had DNF’d this book. It wasted about 8 hours of my life I can never get back. I wanted to like this book so bad but NOPE. I liked the idea of a friend group of competitive gamers, as this is surprisingly uncommon in YA books. I honestly could not get on board with the silliness of this story because it honestly was so unrealistic.
Crystal is a difficult character to like. She's self-centered, selfish and only really cares about what the game tournament can do for her. She mentions helping a friend through an eating disorder (that was quickly resolved) but it came across as Crystal making herself look like a good person. I could fully understand why her friends thought she was paranoid and didn't seem to like her that much. Honestly if she would have trusted her friends she would not have had so many problems. Also, she could have ended the whole story with a phone call. Even has things started to happen she still chose to keep quiet. Just bad choices lead to more bad choices.
The more the back story was revealed I guessed the killer way before the big reveal at the end. The plot twist was not a twist at ALL. If you followed the story closely enough you could guess what happened. I rolled my eyes so many times during while reading this book, my head hurt. If I hadn’t been reading on my Kindle, I probably would have chucked this book at the wall. I’m giving this book 2.6 stars because I was tricked into reading this whole book hoping it would get better. I’m so sorry I did not like this book. Thanks for the advance copy from Netgalley and the publisher.

Thank you Netgalley for this ARC of These Deadly Games by Diana Urban.

Crystal is a serious gamer with a lot to lose, especially after seeing a video of her sister bound and gagged. She has to follow the rules of the captor otherwise her sister will die. But she can't tell anyone, not even those closest to her. Who would do this to her sister, and why?

This smacked just a bit of Ready Player One, where reality and the gamer world collide. It's also full of complex friendships, secrets, lies, romances, and betrayals. It's got twists and turns, and even though it was a BIT cliche and easy to figure out, still a lot of fun.

Thank you to the author, publishers and NetGalley for allowing me to review this ARC with honesty.

I don't read many thrillers based YA. That said, this was an interesting read as the mystery begins to unravel. I will say some of it was little tame compared to what I'm used to reading but knowing the targeted audience, it makes sense. It wasn't all that hard of a mystery to understand (and yes, some of it was again, a bit basic) and not all that surprising. Knowing who did what or why wasn't all that different. I do like the change up with the mixture of texting, gaming and the world of using a game as the center. That wasn't something I've read before.

Overall, it was a decent read. Wish it had a little more mystery to it but that doesn't make it bad. I had a good time with it enough to continue reading if the author put another out.

My Rating:🌟🌟🌟🌟💫 3.5 (rounded up to 4)

I kinda kept this one on the back burner because if I remember correctly, I DNFed her debut because of the drug usage in it. But someone close to me read this one first and said give it a try. I did, and I’m so thankful now. This is so good and I almost missed out.

Crystal Donovan is a gamer through and through. But when she gets a video of her sister bound and gagged with the instructions to make sure she plays a new game. Their game. She knows she doesn’t have a choice but to do what they say, but her idea of a game is very different than the deadly series of events that begin to happen because she follows out their tasks. Will she get her sister back? Will this end the way she wants it to?

I REALLY liked this! Her debut was boring and just not my cup of tea. If I remember correctly, I DNF’ed it. But as a true thriller lover, I knew I had to give this author another try. And lo and behold, this is one of my faves of the year so far. The action in this was NON-STOP. I mean from like chapter 1 it’s immediately giving clues and context, so pay attention! And listen, my adrenaline while I was reading this was always sky high! Like I’m so serious even at the end when all the secrets are out, there’s more left for Crystal to do and I was STILL on the edge of my seat. I was not expecting a full 180 like this, but I’m glad that’s what it was!

The mystery itself was cool but also terrifying. Having a gamer husband, I can only hope that he never encounters a game like this, and if he does, that he is as good at it as Crystal is. Because she beasted it. And as someone else who has made other things her entire personality, I fully stand with how she inserted herself into the situation and solved things that way. If there ever comes a time when I have to think like a main character, I only hope I can do it as good as Crystal did when she was channeling a game master.

There were some things about this that stopped this from being perfect for me. Like the predictability. I didn’t understand how she didn’t know it was faked? Like if they had faked all that other stuff, it should’ve tipped her off that that could be faked too. And listen, I know it’s not going to bother everyone, but as someone with a peanut allergy, I hate when they’re mentioned in books because it always means that person is going to die. I don’t always want to see someone with a nut allergy die. Yes we have to be extra careful, and yes we carry Epipens, and yes our allergy is deadly, but there are others out there also. I hate that as soon as I heard (read? lol) he had a peanut allergy I immediately thought, “he’s going to be one who dies.” Like can we stop always killing off my people?

This book totally came out of left field, but I hella enjoyed it! Definitely gave proof to the fact that not every book may be for every reader, but cancelling them because you didn’t like the first one? No. (Unless its racist or bigoted in some way, which her last one was not.)

I didn’t enjoy this one as much as All Your Twisted Secrets. Some parts were really fast paced while others really seemed to drag. I struggled to get through it in places, though I did want to know what was going on. This is mostly set in the present, there were also flashbacks to 5 years prior that establish some backstory about a secret the friends are keeping. This somewhat worked, but it seemed to drag this secret out a bit longer than needed (and I did guess where that was going long before it was revealed). In general, I guessed some things correctly early on, but I did feel like the book got darker at times than I expected. I did liked the idea of having to do these twisted games to save her sister!

It does feel like there are a lot of references to the present day like Among Us, and the fact that the game seems to be like a fantasy Fortnite (which I honestly didn’t particularly like). While I do enjoy video games, I’m not a fan of battle royale type games, so this just missed for me. I also have to wonder just how well this book will age with these types of references.

I couldn’t entirely connect to the characters overall. I obviously felt bad for Crystal because she’s desperate to save her sister, but she made some dumb choices. I feel like a lot of guilt and certain situations could have been avoided by just telling the truth earlier (especially because some things were just genuinely accidents). She has gone through some tough times with parental issues and toxic friendships, but she can be controlling even if she means well. I did like her trying to solve these puzzles at least.

This was not the best friend group, and I feel like there’s some dysfunctional friendships in there. Akira was probably the most likable. She and Crystal are close and have a pretty good friendship where they can get into heavy things like panic attacks and eating disorders. However, I still don’t entirely feel like I know her well. Zoey does not seem great in general, though her motivations are mildly better when you get to know her more. The guys are kinda bland, though I do feel bad for them about things that happen.

I do feel like the characters held me back from fully connected with the story, and I also felt too old for the references sometimes. However, I would definitely check out whatever Diana Urban writes next and would still recommend this if the premise sounds interesting and you don’t mind not necessarily connecting with the characters.

My video review can be seen on my booktube channel (around minutes 3:13-6:16 of this video): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMXeOmpPEpc

Crystal Donovan and her friends are the nerds. They have a school club for Mortal Dusk, their PC game of choice, and now they're taking top spots on the leaderboard for their state. With a tournament upcoming Crystal and her friends have to get enough points to land one of the team's 5 competition slots. Someone else has another plan in mind though, an in person game with a real human threat. Crystal is told to keep quiet, following a series of videos and messages from the anonymous person, and she'll do anything to save her sister that they're holding hostage. One by one she is tasked with picking off her friends. How can she beat this game?

These Deadly Games is a young adult thriller that packs a punch. What made These Deadly Games so interesting for me was Diana Urban's use of current pop culture references, well known games, and gen-z phrases. The book felt current, relatable, and accurate to what young readers find interesting today. While gaming in a thriller book when I was a teen wouldn't have interested me, it does now, because it's so much more common of a hobby. Crystal and her friends are all competing to make it to the tournament for Mortal Dusk, in order to make the team of five they must take one another out. Unfortunately for Crystal, someone wants her to truly take them out in real life, not just in the gaming world. Crystal is a smart, strategic thinker, the kind of friend you want on your team and she tries to be levelheaded as she attempts to save her sister and her friends. I was totally wrapped up in Crystal's POV, forgetting sometimes she's young, because she handled things so well. I admit, when her friends called her out for everything being such a game, I had to agree, while also recognizing it's why she succeeded.

These Deadly Games is a standout read, one I highly recommend to young adult, new adult, and even adult aged readers who like unique thrillers. This one is twisted, it's not an easy one to guess the ending of, and I think it's connection to current times is excellent.

I loved the sterling of the book but the writing style I didn't care for. I was little disappointed it this one. I would give it 3.5 stars

Crystal and her friends are gamers. Their goal is to win the championship to get a piece of the prize. Crystal and her friends also have a secret from many years ago. One that no one has ever told. Crystal becomes in a game of life and death, so she thinks. Unfortunately, some of things she has to do can have deadly consequences. This book will keep you on your toes to try to figure out who the culprit is, the person behind the game she has to play. Thanks to Ms. Urban, Wednesday Books, and NetGalley, for the opportunity to read and review this book. I think there will be some high school students in our classes that would like to read this one!

Thank you to NetGalley and St Martin's Press for an early copy.

Young adult thrillers meet the edge-of-your-seat trend of adult books in These Deadly Games! And it's a success that readers will absolutely enjoy.

This in part reminded me of the book The Chain (except better... Sorry, I did n-o-t enjoy The Chain), with impossible choices to make all through the book.

You know how you can figure out whether a thriller is really good? With flashbacks – if a chapter that's a flashback makes you groan because it's getting in the way of a good reveal, it's a good thriller.
This is one of those! Definitely frustrating to expect something really important to happen and have a flashback chapter instead (though they're obviously important). It's one of those books that you'll find yourselves still reading at 2AM...