In January 1986, fifteen-year-old boy-genius Nick Hayes discovers he's dying. And it isn't even the strangest thing to happen to him that week.
Nick and his Dungeons & Dragons-playing friends are used to living in their imaginations. But when a new girl, Mia, joins the group and reality becomes weirder than the fantasy world they visit in their weekly games, none of them are prepared for what comes next. A strange-yet curiously familiar-man is following Nick, with abilities that just shouldn't exist. And this man bears a cryptic message: Mia's in grave danger, though she doesn't know it yet. She needs Nick's help-now.
He finds himself in a race against time to unravel an impossible mystery and save the girl. And all that stands in his way is a probably terminal disease, a knife-wielding maniac and the laws of physics.
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[When Dr. Parsons finally ran out of alternatives and reached the word 'cancer', he moved past it so quickly I almost thought I'd imagined it]***
(47North, 1 May 2019, 260 pages, ebook from @AmazonKindle via #AmazonFirstReads)
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This book turned out to be a lot better than I expected. For the first 50 pages or so I wasn't really sure that I was enjoying the book. Then the book really started to pick up and I found myself totally sucked into the story. I understand why the book is compared to the Netflix show Stranger Things. I love books that mess around with time, alternative realities and that kind of good shit. This book ticks many boxes for the kind of books I really love. The book starts of quite light-hearted and gradually gets darker and darker as Mia and the enigmatic stranger become more and more entwined in the lives of Nick and his friends. The book reminds me of Ready Player One as well which blew me away. The end of the book, especially when Nick and his friends confront the school bully who happens to be a psychopath reminded me of IT by Stephen King. This is a great read and I look forward to the rest of the series.
