Pros: One of the best things about this book is the battle sequences. The main character always has some clever and creative strategy to get out of any sticky situation. Lots of fun to read! Also the overall story and character development are good and engaging.
Cons: For whatever reason, I really didn’t like the narrator. He sounds like a monotone Homer Simpson that often puts strange emphasis on different syllables. Also doesn’t know how to pronounce trebuchet, cadre, and a few other words. Narration very nearly made me return the book.
Also the world building/game mechanics are a little wonky. Awaken online is apparently a huge super popular game with millions of players, yet there barely seem to be any other players in the game for how apparently popular it is. Everything seems to be centered around 2 cities with maybe only a couple thousand players between them. Where are the rest of the players? Npcs seem to be the only characters of note in Jason’s starting area. Also Jason’s high school bully just happens to be the highest level player in the game. Are they on a server just for their home town or something? Just the scale of things seems a bit off.
There are some other small things with the game mechanics that don’t really make sense or are not explained very well. But overall the story was good enough to make up for these issues. Hopefully the author fleshes these things out a little more in the next book.