5/5⭐️ without a doubt. This book doesn’t only have an amazing premise, but is also incredibly well crafted! Pieces to the plottwists are given to you early on, but not enough to predict whatever’s bound to happen, which definitely made me reread a few pages after finishing it.


An app downloads itself onto Jackies phone.
“PLAYER, WELCOME TO CAPSULE,” it reads.
Right above Jackie sees Peter Moon and Kathabelle Pike , two students who mysteriously vanished a few days ago.
“THE SUBJECTS ABOVE ARE IN DANGER. COMPLETE THE LEVELS IN TIME TO WIN THE GAME. READY FOR A CHALLENGE?”

Jackie, the gamer who uses “dude”, “bro” and “guys”.
Kat, the trendy girl who manipulates people just to feel something.
and Peter, the mean loner, who writes blog posts about people from his school—not the good kind.


Kat and Peter were pretty unlikable (in the beginning). But god, were they interesting! I looked forward to Jackie’s chapters, because she’s the one the book follows. But reading Kat being a manipulative b*tch and Peter being his mean cold self… it was extremely entertaining. Especially the way they struggled with themselves.

This book isn’t exactly about the game they have to complete. Well, that’s part of it. It’s really about friendship. God, that sounds cheesy. At the end of the book we learn that you can become friends with anyone, the most hated boy, and the most popular girl. It’s the character development for me.

I’m trying to wrack my brain for something I didn’t like about this book. They were either not important or there weren’t any, because my noodle’s empty.

originality: 5/5
writing: 4/5
plot and pace: 5/5
relationships: 5/5
characters: 1000/5

(Read the full review on Goodreads)

I really loved the mystery element to this book, it kept me turning the pages and I was hooked from the very beginning. The combination of the app and the events taking place were so unique and I loved our main character Jackie. This book really caught my attention and I managed to read it almost in one sitting, the writing is addictive, the world is brutal but real and the characters are resilient.

I really enjoyed this book! I loved the game concept of Capsule and I loved Jackie, Peter and Kat as characters. The writing was amazing, I just wanted to keep reading.

This book had a very interesting concept and LOVE the cover. I love that the characters aren't super likeable but I personally felt they could've had more depth and a bit more realistic.
For me it was a bit slower paced then I'd prefer but still enjoyed.
I would definitely recommend to maybe someone who wants an introduction to thriller sci-fi genre.
Although this novel was not for me I can see many YA readers enjoying it very much. And I cant wait to see what else this author puts out, I can definitely see big improvements for future novels.

This a wild read! Three days after two students go missing, a strange app appears on the phone of one of their classmates. Jackie seems to have been tasked with playing the game in order to help the missing students, Peter and Kat, survive. Even though there seemingly is no connection, a very strange one begins to form as Jackie makes it past each level. There are twists and turns and a whole lot of surprises!

This serves an interesting look at the consequences of gaming while also telling a very compelling story. I think students will really enjoy Capsule.

I was given a copy of this book in trade for a review by Net Galley.

I'm going to be honest, I found this book boring. Don't get me wrong it wasn't bad and it might be enjoyable to other readers but I just couldn't get into it. Which isn't something someone should be saying for a mystery/thriller. Despite my similarity to the protagonist I couldn't relate or be bothered to care about the characters.

This was a novel about friendship, wrapped into a video game, topped with strange twists of fate.

Jackie, Peter and Kat are three strangers, who go to the same high school. They end up locked into a video game with extreme consequences. They fight through levels to unlock memories, which lead to them getting to know each other.

The character building was really good. And I felt invested in each of their own personal dramas. I especially liked the character of Jackie, who had isolated herself using her computer.

The beginning went by really quick for me. The middle was a bit slower, but it picked up at the end with a few revelations about how the three are tied together.

If you like video games, adventure and great characters you’ll like this book!

A great concept which is supported by strong relationships between characters. Don’t forget this is a YA book written by a young adult. The cover might give you cause to think it is targeting a more mature audience. Regardless of this, the book has a clever plot which is all too credible in this modern context.

I really wanted to like the book more than the three stars. But there were some things I had a hard time with. Such as that the parents never are mom and dad but mr and mrs. That made it sound weird. Sometimes it was just confusing and I couldn’t really follow the story.

R E V I E W ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5

✨ Wow, what a great way to start July, this was exactly what I needed. A fast paced read that was easy to latch onto right from the start.

✨ The concept of this book is really intriguing and was executed very well. I started out extremely confused about what Capsule (the game) was and what it’s objective was. But as Jackie, and her classmates Kat and Peter, navigated the levels of the game the pieces started to fall into place. This was an adventure the entire time and I loved the surprise twists at every turn.

✨ Jackie, Peter, and Kat have never spoken prior to this game but are forced together under the circumstances and end up forging unexpected bonds. Each of them have some deep-rooted issue that ends up being exposed.

✨ First, I have to say that these felt like real teenagers with actual teenage problems. Very refreshing to read about healing the invisible wounds we carry around, especially the ones we aren’t aware of. The underlying themes of online versus reality were woven in quite well and saw a pretty triumphant reveal at the end.

✨ Overall Capsule was a great read and I’d definitely recommend for anyone who enjoys a good YA book.

✨ Thank you to @lostislandpress for this eARC in exchange for an honest review. Capsule releases July 10, you can preorder now!

This book made me feel something
it was was a hell of a ride and i m sad it ended
jackie adeventure started off as a means to prove she still has kindness in her .
but emded with not only kindess but understanding ,great friends and a memorable adventure with nothing and everything to lose

i came in with no expectation and found that this book is truely an amazing read

This book really grabbed my attention as it had a rather unique storyline which is a rare find. It certainly didn’t disappoint, I’d love to see it made into a movie or even a mini series. Brilliant!

I picked this book up based on the description (and partially the cover). First of all. This isn’t a thriller. Despite the ticking clock, it’s a mystery. And it’s a soft mystery at that. It’s more three teens stumbling upon old memories that weave together to tell a bigger picture. If I had to actually categorize it, I’d call it contemporary with mystery aspects. Not a thriller.

Part of this book I would give five stars to. Most of the book fell into 1 and 2 star categories.

I absolutely loved how all of the memories wove together to tell the bigger part of the story. That was done well and I found that part of the mystery to be the most intriguing. But to counter that I hated the entire concept of the Capsule game. It was never explained in enough detail for me to understand what was going on. All of the characters just assumed they knew how it worked and made decisions based off a guess.

I liked how each of the characters had to overcome their individual problems and work together. But I hated how they were all portrayed. Especially Peter. I never felt like his actions and his personality meshed. Kat was a bit better. Jackie mostly annoyed me.

There were things I absolutely hated. I’m beyond tired of the ‘not like other girls’ trope. Jackie screams this in the first few chapters. She’s a gamer girl who doesn’t care about what she looks like but then is concerned about her appearance a few chapters later. She also judges girls who wear makeup and paint their nails. She was tiring throughout the book. She makes snap judgements about everyone then got mad when people did the same thing to her. At one point she realizes she’s been a hypocrite and then goes right back to judging people based on little to no substance.

There are about a million and one coincidences that drive the story forward and it made the whole thing feel a bit too over the top. Jackie is panicking because they’re doing something illegal and a cop shows up. They drive to a different city and they just happen to run into a bunch of people who ‘help’ them along the way.

When they told Jay about the game he more or less shrugged and jumped in to help. I’m sorry. If my sister tried to explain any of these weird things to me I’d be worried about her mental health. Or that someone was playing a mean practical joke on me.

The writing was either done well (and felt forced) or was full of weird metaphors that didn’t work at all.

Here are some examples of the metaphors and odd sentences. If you enjoy them you’ll probably like the rest of them I didn’t include.

‘...a grin smacking her face…’

‘The glass of water on his desk quivered in his presence.’

‘Jackie hadn’t noticed the goosebumps on her own arms until they disappeared.

‘Jackie’s eyes doubled in an instant.’

‘The gray sky illuminated the sacred asphalt in a spotlight.’ (I think this is just a typo - sacred vs. scarred - but I literally have no idea.

‘Kat exhaled, but her breath in the air was nothing but a visual effect. A convincing post-production edit made to fool viewers into believing something fake was reality. It was nothing but a breathy lie.’

‘Jay coughed their wandering minds back into reality.’

There are more. But I want to save room for other items of discussion.

There were some continuity errors.

At some point a girl has her hair in a bun, but a few paragraphs she runs her fingers through her hair.

Jay’s Honda magically turns into a Toyota about halfway through the book.

Peter and Kat reference Peter’s blog, then a few chapters later Peter is ‘surprised’ Kat reads his blog.

There were some serious issues with the POV. It’s in third person and mostly from Jackie’s POV. But there are times something almost omniscient slips in and the non-POV characters answer or ask questions that the POV character had been thinking about. It was jarring. I can’t find any specific examples (I guess I forgot to write them down).

The other thing that bothered me about the POV was where and when things were described. Jackie walks into her room and ‘notices’ her desk. It’s weird. I don’t walk into my room and ‘notice’ my dresser unless I’m specifically getting something from there.

The other thing that really bothered me about the POV was even when we were in Jackie’s POV her parents were still Mr. and Mrs. Mendoza. Every single parent was referred to by their last names, regardless of POV. It made me feel even more detached from the characters.

There were also strange decisions regarding descriptions. I didn’t need a full paragraph describing a single scene at the ice cream shop. What did the heater being on full blast have to do with anything else? ANd the weird cherry themed ice rink? There was also a long and overwrought description of a boy in Jackie’s class, who we don’t see again until the end of the story.

I had a weird personal issue with the idea of 3,000 students in high school living in a town situated an hour away from any other town. My husband and I talked about this at length and decided it really wasn’t reasonable (and he has a degree in city planning so he knows a few things about cities and populations). I actually interrupted him from work to ask him about this. That’s how much I was bothered by it.

And finally. My eARC happened to open on the last few lines of the copyright page. I normally never read the copyright page. And had my kindle not made this choice for me I never would have found the worst typo of all time.

The publisher is based out of Santa Jose, CA

If you have even a rudimentary knowledge of Spanish you know how wrong that looks and sounds. I tried googling it. Just to be sure. Santa Jose doesn’t exist. HOW DO YOU GET INFORMATION WRONG ON YOUR COPYRIGHT PAGE ABOUT A REAL PLACE? A place you probably live since this is essentially a self-published book (And I even checked the preview of the eBook you’d purchase through Amazon and this typo is still there).

Anyway. Two stars. Interesting concept. Misleading blurb. Okay writing with moments of head scratching confusion. Characters who are unlikeable but have their moments. And an ending that both creeped me out and confused me.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for a copy of Capsule in exchange for an honest review!

This was such a great read! There isn’t a single critique I have for this book. The characters were perfectly created. The concept was unique and exciting. The plot twists were amazing. I absolutely loved it!

I loved the concept of the Capsule app. An app installing itself onto your phone that only you can see it, forcing you to complete tasks in order to turn back time and save two lives with less than 24 hours to do so. As a gamer myself, this is such a fun concept and one I haven’t seen often in books.

The novel introduces three main characters; Jackie, Peter and Kat. Jackie is labelled as the “player”, the one who’s phone Capsule appears on and the one who must go back in time to save both Peter and Kat before the end of the day is up. I connected quickly with Jackie’s character. A gamer girl, with her head either stuck in her phone playing mobile games or at home gaming on her PC with her friend Eugene. I found her to be extremely relatable. The other two characters, Peter and Kat, go missing at the beginning of the book, and Jackie’s role is to go back in time and stop this from happening.

Jackie, Peter and Kat, while from completely different social groups and cultural backgrounds, compliment each other so well. I think Mel did such a great job establishing unique background stories for each of the three main characters. As the trio reach the end of each level, we are introduced to an important memory from either Peter or Kat’s past. I really enjoyed how Mel used the use of these memories to further the plot of Capsule and allow all of the “players” to see the same memory at the same time. I also really enjoyed how Jackie, Peter and Kat were the only ones who could actually see the capsules floating around and the Capsule app on Jackie’s phone. It truly gave the feeling of being a player in a video game only you can control.

Overall, I truly enjoyed this book and would 100% recommend. I will definitely be purchasing a physical copy to add to my collection!

Quite good. There are already hundreds of helpful ratings and reviews, so I don't think I can add anything helpful except to recommend it to sci-fi thriller fans.

I really appreciate the free review copy!!

Thanks to NetGalley and Lost Island Press for an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

This book had an interesting premise, two students go missing, one popular and the other hated, and an App mysteriously appears on a gamer’s phone promising to save the two, erase the past and restart the day.

Jackie decides to start the game to save Peter and Kat, but little does she realise she is playing with their lives and this is not simply a game.

The book was a little slow to start and I didn’t really know what was going on until we started to weave in the 3 main characters stories and then it took off and I couldn’t put it down. Capsule was a fast and easy to read book with a message about true friendship and social media. There are a few unanswered questions that I have, like where did Capsule come from, but I liked the ending and think it wrapped up the story perfectly.

Capsule had found a bruise from the past and had burrowed a fist right into it, renewing the pain.

Personal Rating: 3.5/5

The book started with two students who went missing on the same night. There's Peter Moon, who was a jerk that writes blog entries about students from Brookwood High. And then, there's Kat Pike, who was adored both online and offline. They were missing for three days with no leads until Jackie Mendoza, an introvert who was always immersed with her online video games, realized that an app called Capsule downloaded itself onto her phone. Capsule's a gaming app - the most menacing one and apparently, she had to save the two missing students if she were to start to play.

Characters: 4/5

There's Jackie Mendoza, a Filipina American who had a bit of trouble when it comes to family. She believed that she was in her brother, Jay's shadow throughout high school. She believed that only through online games that she gets to be the star of the show.

There's Peter Moon, a Korean American. He's not really a people person. He was a judgemental pescatarian who lives by complaining about everyone in his high school. He was a sarcastic loner with witty and snarky remarks and was not afraid to tell others what he thinks.

Kat Pike is, I reckon, was just a white girl. Like a basic white girl. Instagram famous, thought of every single caption that she puts online as something cliche that one copies off of the internet. You'd think that she's not that special but there's more to her than meets the eye.

I actually am impressed with the characters. Even the side characters like Emmeline, Jay, Nicholas, Isabelle, and Whitney. They're very much relatable and I can see the character development throughout the whole story. I like that I hated Peter Moon right off the bat. The author has written his character arc to open up slowly to the other two characters as he started to trust them.

Themes: 3/5

I love that there aren't any subplots for romance in this book, WHICH I think was great. A good book does not need romance to actually support the whole plot. With that being said, there are a few themes that are being taught here. There are games and puzzles of course, with Capsule being a whole game, friendships, family, emotions and feelings, mysteries, science fiction (in a way), and most definitely life lessons and personal growth.

I feel that the book was detangling all of the common issues that a young teenager would have gone through. I also like that there were no typical Asian tropes in this book. No "straight-As-no-social-life" tropes, no "parents-are-so-strict" tropes. They are just human beings and I really liked that.

However, there are that "I'm-not-like-other-girls" trope and "purple prose" tropes that I really despise. Not sure if other reviewers would have hated that too. Some people may like it. I don't judge LOL

Stories: 3.5/5

This whole entire plot was over 24 hours mark. I was amazed at how the chapters were defined by different parts of the stories. There are proses of songs or poetry, blog entries by Peter Moon, flashbacks, and to the time present. I feel that it is an easy read and that everyone can easily understand the plot as the story proceeds.

But I have an issue with what happened in the certain part of the stories where I felt was unnecessary. I reckon that the author wrote it there to break the tension, but honestly, I felt that it was forced in a sense because the two characters involved in that part of the story didn't have any chemistry enough to go through that situation (I'm trying so hard not to spoil LOL)

Conclusion:
This book was fast-paced and easy to read. I could have finished the book earlier but I was savouring moments because I felt that it was really fast. Perfect for anyone with a short attention span LOL.

I did not expect the ending and the plot twist because MAN, WHAT A PLOT TWIST. Was it the best book I've read? I've read better. Would I recommend this to others? Most definitely. There are actions, funny moments, heartwarming moments, and much more to this book.

Disclaimer: I would like to thank NetGalley, the publisher and the author for an eARC copy of this book. However, all of these are my personal and honest opinions. It has not impacted my review, at all.

Trigger Warnings: Attempted murder, Blood, Bullying, Car accident, Death, Depression, Drug Use, Hallucinations, PTSD.

This was a fun, if a bit odd, little book centering on three teenagers chosen/coerced into playing a real-life virtual reality game, visible to only them, with high stakes and with features that can only be explained as “magical.” The high points for me were the characters themselves, the unfolding of their individual backstories as part of the game, and the chemistry that develops between them. I didn’t have a problem with any of the messaging; for instance, there was enough nuance to the “engage with the outside world instead of your screen” moral that it worked for me okay. The story was entertaining, but upon finishing it, things felt incomplete. The context for the VR game (who created it? what kind of tech was involved?) is never explained or explored, which makes it difficult as the reader to situate yourself.

What a fast-paced, spine-chilling adventure! The writing expressive and transported me into this mesmerising world.

The unlikely friendship dynamics were so fun to read about! I love alternate reality stories and our main character Jackie was likeable much so that I couldn't help but feel everything she felt. Peter was such a soft individual, I just wanted to hug and comfort him! Kat was interesting too, although Jackie has to be my favourite! This book kept me on my toes! I definitely recommend!!

Okay so here's the deal. Jackie is a loner gamer who has isolated herself from her family and her brother. Her only friend is her online gamer buddy, who she's never met. One day two kids from her high school go missing: the most popular girl in school and the most hated boy in school. Jackie is mostly unfazed by their disappearance since she didn't know the kids, but when she's confronted with an app she didn't download and can't seem to erase, she is propelled by the game to help save these two kids before they disappear forever.

Now, I could not put this book down! First of all, what a truly original idea masterfully executed. The writing rivals that of someone who's been in the business some twenty years. I was so invested in each of these characters that I couldn't wait to see how this dark and twisty game played out. I totally recommend this book.