Tag Archive | Gaming

REVIEW: The Unfortunate Decisions of Dahlia Moss by Max Wirestone

This one is for the gamers and geeks out there!

The publisher describes this book as: “for fans of The Guild, New Girl, Scott Pilgrim, Big Bang Theory, Veronica Mars, or anyone who has ever geeked out about something.”.

 


 

The Unfortunate Decisions of Dahlia Moss by Max Wirestone

Read: September 2015

Format: Ebook ARC (Kindle)

My Book Rating: 5/5 Stars

Genre: New Adult Mystery – humorous

 

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

 

Confession: I used to be a World of Warcraft addict. It’s true. I participated in lan parties in my boyfriend’s apartment with his roommates and their girlfriends. We were cool like that.

What does this have to do with The Unfortunate Decisions of Dahlia Moss? Well, this book is ideal for anyone with basic knowledge of MMORPG’s. (That’s massive multiplayer online role playing game’s for those not in the know.)

This book is absolutely ridiculous in all the right ways. Everything that happens is so completely unbelievable, it’s believable.

Dahlia has been out of work for over a year. She graduated college with her fancy business degree, then proceeded to spend a year interviewing and not getting hired anywhere. Enter Jonah. He offers Dahlia $1,000 to find out who stole a digital weapon in the MMORPG he plays. Why? She has no background in detective work – save two days as a temp answering phones. She’s the worst (wo)man for the job, but she’s broke. So she takes his money and gets to work.

I can’t say too much about the plot without giving anything away, but it’s a ride. There’s murder, crazy people, gamers (another variety of crazy people – trust me, I know) and learning to deal with the cards life has dealt.

Another confession: I didn’t read this book, while working I used text to speech on my Kindle and it was read to me in a very robotic female voice which I now identify as the voice of Dahlia Moss. I believe this made the humor in this book a thousand times funnier. I actually had a moment where I had to stop working and stifle my laughter, which was turning to tears. It was hilarious. There are references to MMORPG’s (obviously), Pokemon, gaming conventions and so much more. One of my favorite parts was while in the game gathering clues, Dahlia discovers one of Jonah’s guild members is pregnant, and another guild member says said pregnant gamer will be leaving the game soon, because that’s what happens when female players have babies. Real life takes over and they quit their MMORPG’s. I laughed a lot, and shared this part with my husband, because when I had a baby I quite playing WoW.

The best part about the book is Dahlia herself. She’s gotten to the the point where she just doesn’t care. Nothing is working out, so she’ll just roll with the punches. If that means dying her hair pink, so be it. If that means planning a virtual in game funeral for the death of a real person? Why not. She’s surrounded by an oddball cast that are too insane not to be real. Like her roommate Charice, who has completely spontaneous theme parties in her apartment (which incidentally lead to Jonah showing up to offer Dahlia the detective job).

The mystery in this book is resolved perfectly. The clues are all there, though I didn’t have an inkling of ‘whodunit’ until nearly the big reveal.

Seriously, anyone who has ever submerged themselves in geek culture must read this book. It’s a healthy dose of Veronica Mars (though slightly less competent) and The Guild. In a movie, Felicia Day would play Dahlia. There’s simply no other choice.

If there’s a sequel I want to read it to find out what mess Dahlia will get herself into next!