Assassin's Creed: Oliver Bowden (A LitRPG Novel)

This was really just terrible. I read it only to fulfill a requirement on my reading challenge, and I will never again return to the likes of this book. It was just bad, honestly.

I'm sure I'm not the best person to judge this book as the content is of absolutely zero interest to me, and so it's hard to look at it with a positive attitude. Maybe I didn't give it enough try, but I just couldn't. 

It's obvious that this is a book written by gamers, for gamers, nothing more, nothing less, and for that I can't fault the author or the book. It appeals to a certain niche which is what books are supposed to do, right? I just found the writing to be pretty low-grade, which makes since for the population it is trying to appeal to. It just makes it very hard for me to enjoy. There are areas where Bowden tries to be "fancy" with his writing: long, detailed, complex sentences that just really aren't necessary. I thought several times throughout that this author was trying too hard to be like Dickens, and this is not the place for that type of writing. Much of the book is descriptions of fighting and chase scenes and other action sequences that make sense for a video game book: lots of training to be a good fighter, climber, runner, etc.

I became quickly annoyed at the amount of "fake suspense" in the first 20 pages, and then, to my dismay, throughout the rest of the book. In two pages alone, there were five accounts of the character leaping off a roof and "almost" not making it across to the next rooftop. And each leap contained a paragraph of the character worrying about misjudging the distance and worrying about the fall. Seriously? Five times in two pages is way to much. I would go so far as to say that one time in two pages is too much. Gag.

It's obvious that the action scenes are meant to be more exciting than the overall plot, which again, makes sense for a video game book, especially one about fighting and killing. It's easy to see how the book fits in a video game: there are quests and the next quest begins when the previous quest is completed, and sometimes there are little side gigs to distract from the main quest, and there are always rewards. I don't know much about gaming, but I know this is pretty usual.

I'm glad some people enjoy this type of book, and I'm glad that it's okay for me not to enjoy it. I never have to read this again (hopefully).