Don’t Read the Comments by Eric Smith [book review]

Don’t Read the Comments summary:

Don’t Read the Comments is a young adult contemporary novel by Eric Smith. This book follows Divya Sharma who plays the hottest game online called Reclaim the Sun. She’s a popular streamer who has a really huge following on the game. She even gets sponsors and uses the money to help her mom pay for bills. 

The book also follows Aaron Jericho who knows his entire life is video games. His mother doesn’t think that that’s reasonable and wants her to become a doctor like her. That’s not his dream. His main escape is Reclaim the Sun. There are trillions of places to explore but he just happens to be in the same world as Divya’s character. He’s extremely excited because in his eyes she’s a celebrity.

They both have to deal with their problems alone. But in the game they can talk to each other and help each other out. Divya deals with a lot of harassment in the game but when it starts hitting her in the real world she gets a bit scared. The trolls want to drive her out of the game but can they really do it?

What I thought of Don’t Read the Comments:

Don’t Read the Comments is by Eric Smith and follows two points of view: Aaron and Divya.

I want to thank Inkyard Press for a copy of this book through Netgalley. Judging by the cover alone this isn’t something normally I would pick up. Not that there is anything wrong with the cover. It’s just not something that attracts me to a book. But boy am I glad I read the synopsis because I loved this book. It is probably one of my favorite young adult novels so far this year! The nerdiness is what attracted me to this book. I love books that have nerdy girl gamers. I mean true girl gamers because there are some that say they like video games but really don’t. There really isn’t enough gamer’s that are a girl.

If you like contemporary young adult novels then you might also like The Half Orphan’s Handbook.

The Characters

My husband is actually wanting to stream games and animation over at Tagimation Studios, so reading about that kind of thing is really awesome. I loved all of the characters in this book. They are all realistic and I can see myself actually being friends with both Divya and Aaron. I absolutely loved Aaron’s dad. He’s the type of dad that I really wish everyone had because he would try to push Aaron towards his dream.

Not many parents will do that because they would rather their children do something that is logical. That’s probably one reason why I liked it so much. They are my kind of people and they are the types of people I hung out with in high school. So, I guess in a way it brought me back to my high school days. What both kids go through is realistic because I know some parents who try forcing their kids to do something in college that they really don’t want to do. And I know YouTubers actually get stalked. I wish it didn’t happen but it does.

After reading Don’t Read the Comments all I want to know is when is Reclaim the Sun being made into an actual video game. When reading the book all I wanted to do is play the game because it sounds so much fun! I love world-building games and being able to claim and name worlds. Playing the game would be a lot like how I was when I first started playing World of Warcraft. Thankfully around the time that I started playing that I didn’t have a lot of responsibility and would spend almost all day playing.

 Do you like reading books that add games to the story line?

If you enjoy this review then make sure to check out my review for Amelia Unabridged.