Sophomore Slump – VERSUS: The Elite Trials Review

After waiting a whole year, not a whole lot actually happens in this chapter. It's a lot shorter than the 1st one, and it FEELS short too. Earth shattering revelations are thrown at you one after another, but there's very little downtime in between to dwell on these revelations, before you're punted to the next one. As always, the writing is phenomenal, the world building and imagination are as engrossing as ever. Which makes it all the more disappointing that so little time is spent playing in this wonderful world laid out for you. Much ado is made about the choices you make and how monumental each one is, but there are very few all in all and consequences are nuanced, or left out entirely to the next book. You will be reminded about your goals almost every other page, and there are actually quite a number of possible goals to choose from, so prepare to be infuriated when you discover that "choosing" is pretty much all you accomplish in this book. Everything you do here boils down to one choice, with a thousand words thrown in enumerating the ramifications of your choice. And then the game ends. It's not as fun to read as you would think. Character interaction is ultimately unsatisfying too. Large swathes of screen time is placed on a few old and new characters, and what is present is revealing more than affecting, but don't expect to see anyone you care about, as they will likely either have only a few lines of flat exposition or be absent entirely. That goes for romances too. I romanced Breeze initially, though I had planned to ditch him in favor of Oli in this book. I was hopeful when the text assured me that I could engage in just that scenario. Unfortunately, that was also meant for the next book, as Oli had nothing for me but more exposition and Breeze is only present for a few paragraphs, in none of which I could dump him as promised. There's plenty of balance issues in this game, which is far more a novel than its predecessor, with far more story and world building than character interaction and actual events. If you're a sci fi buff, you will love every word, but for me sadly I had expectations that weren't fulfilled, and now must wait a year for the story to actually get going rather than just "promise" to get going.
Review by Battler89 on VERSUS: The Elite Trials.