Blog Tour: Don’t Read The Comments by Eric Smith

Item: Don't Read the Comments
Rating: 4
Author: Wendy

Posted January 29, 2020 by Wendy in Blog Tour, Reviews / 0 Comments

Blog Tour: Don’t Read The Comments by Eric Smith

Don't Read the Comments by Eric Smith
Published by Harlequin on January 28, 2020
Genres: Young Adult Fiction, Social Themes, Bullying, Computers & Digital Media, Action & Adventure, General
Pages: 304
Format: eARC
Source: Publisher
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Divya Sharma is a queen. Or she is when she’s playing Reclaim the Sun, the year’s hottest online game. Divya—better known as popular streaming gamer D1V—regularly leads her #AngstArmada on quests through the game’s vast and gorgeous virtual universe. But for Divya, this is more than just a game. Out in the real world, she’s trading her rising-star status for sponsorships to help her struggling single mom pay the rent.
Gaming is basically Aaron Jericho’s entire life. Much to his mother’s frustration, Aaron has zero interest in becoming a doctor like her, and spends his free time writing games for a local developer. At least he can escape into Reclaim the Sun—and with a trillion worlds to explore, disappearing should be easy. But to his surprise, he somehow ends up on the same remote planet as celebrity gamer D1V.
At home, Divya and Aaron grapple with their problems alone, but in the game, they have each other to face infinite new worlds…and the growing legion of trolls populating them. Soon the virtual harassment seeps into reality when a group called the Vox Populi begin launching real-world doxxing campaigns, threatening Aaron’s dreams and Divya’s actual life. The online trolls think they can drive her out of the game, but everything and everyone Divya cares about is on the line…
And she isn’t going down without a fight.

I received this book for free in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

My Thoughts:

Don’t Read the Comments was such a great ode to video games, online connections and friendships while also addressing some hard hitting issues that are very relevant to the current day. Divya, better known as D1V to her online subscribers of her streaming channel, is just trying to scrape by. She uses every bit of income she gets from sponsers to pay for rent and groceries to help her single mother. As a popular female gamer, she comes under attack because she is just that: a female gamer and starts to get hateful messages not just online but things that start to seep into her real life that threaten her safety and her friends.

This is truly a very relevant issue – how often is it that we see people online get attacked? Receive terrible messages because it’s just so easy for someone to hammer something out from behind the safety of their computer screens? Not to mention the sexism and racism that seems to become even more prevalent when someone doesn’t have to look the person in the face. I really appreciated the portrayal of these issues and how people from the online community banded together to support Divya – because even among all the bad things that can happen online, true friendships are forged in that same space! The feeling of comraderie is authentic! I loved seeing that.

That’s why I loved seeing Divya and Aaron strike up a friendship as they explore and chat in the online game Reclaim the Sun. Gamers will love going along for the ride through their gaming sessions! As an occasional gamer (if only I had more time to play more games!) there were a lot of references and nods that made me smile! I just really enjoyed all the game talk and I could feel how fun it was to be a part of the Angst Armada – the group that plays the game together with Divya online. The online community is a very unique space where real life friendships can be maintained. It was so great to see the expeditions Divya leads with her group of followers and a lot of fun.

Aaron is super precious. I adored him. He is really passionate about gaming and the career he wants to pursue writing stories and dialogue for video games. He is just a very kind soul and such a genuine person! Seeing him and Divya gradually talk more and more made me so happy.

I wish there was just a tad more to the book! It ended a bit abruptly for my taste, I was really caught off guard when I realized it was over! I wish I got just a bit more of these characters – I really enjoyed all of them!

In Short:

Filled with memorable characters and video game goodness, Don’t Read the Comments will have you smiling as you remember nostalgic video games (Final Fantasy! Chrono Trigger!) and also enraged as you see the blatant online bullying and doxxing that is actually a very real occurrence. The support and outpouring of solidarity from the online community was great though and reminded me of the good that I still see in the online platforms that I am a part of. I really enjoyed this one and I highly recommend it!

About the Author:

Eric Smith is an author, prolific book blogger, and literary agent from New Jersey, currently living in Philadelphia. Smith cohosts Book Riot’s newest podcast, HEY YA, with non-fiction YA author Kelly Jensen. He can regularly be found writing for Book Riot’s blog, as well as Barnes & Noble’s Teen Reads blog, Paste Magazine, and Publishing Crawl. Smith also has a growing Twitter platform of over 40,000 followers (@ericsmithrocks).