Favourite book of my year: wonderful.
I loved the characters. I've loved the story telling. I loved the passion around work. I loved the love between the characters.
Crossing multiple decades but the crux takes place during the height of 1990s PC gaming. i.e. shortly after Doom - and our characters are games makers.
Though the weaving part is their company that makes games, I wouldn't call this a "gamer's book". I'm certainly not a gamer by their measure, but the story put into their game design and the love they have is infectious.
The book left me genuinely inspired. The character Marx makes me want to be more like him. He has purpose in helping others without being a martyr.
What's more, the book left me wanting to make. I love that hungry creative feeling (even if it's slightly dampened by having too many projects!).
Loved it. Strong recommend.
7 Highlight(s)
"What's wrong with her?" "Dysentery." Sadie didn't feel like invoking cancer, the destroyer of natural conversation.
Cellar Door
Friendship," Marx said, "is kind of like having a Tamagotchi."
These, of course, are the kinds of vows young people feel comfortable making when they have no idea what life has in store for them.
It isn't a sadness, but a joy, that we don't do the same things for the length of our lives."
It occurred to Sadie: She had thought after Ichigo that she would never fail again. She had thought she arrived. But life was always arriving. There was always another gate to pass through. (Until, of course, there wasn't.)
The way to turn an ex-lover into a friend is to never stop loving them, to know that when one phase of a relationship ends it can transform into something else. It is to acknowledge that love is both a constant and a variable at the same time.