Book Review: The Eye of Minds by James Dashner (The Mortality Doctrine Book 1)

     Michael lives as much of his free time as possible in the VertNet inside his coffin. Here he can browse the web, play games with his friends, and much more all in stunning and realistic virtual reality. When he is tasked to save a random from jumping and committing suicide in the game things get real quickly. She pulls her core which stops her brain from realizing its a game and kills herself for real. Shortly after the government tasks Michael and his friends with finding the person who drove her and many others to permanent suicide. They must find Kane and allow the security to access his inner coding. What they find may be much worse than they are willing to handle. 

    This book was suggested to me on LikeWise because of my recent spiral into VR books. I have read bits and pieces of the Maze Runner (I own them and will get to it. But, I made the mistake of watching the movie first so it's hard to separate what I seen on the screen.) and have enjoyed them so seeing this was by James Dashner was an immediate yes for me. I was not disappointed as it was an exciting book with twists I did not immediately expect. 

    As with a lot of VR books this is a Young Adult book. We follow a teenager through a virtual reality setting with his friends as they track down s big bad in an attempt to help the good guys. These teenagers are skilled coders and that is an important tidbit within the book. In a way I expected the big twist in the book, while they were going through the challenges, but not enough to believe in it completely. One of the twists in the book, about Kane, was painfully obvious from the beginning though. Maybe because of how many VR books I've been reading recently. 

    The characters are well developed and have mindsets that you would expect of teenagers. One is obsessed with his looks. Another is a bit of a nerd. And the girl doesn't want attention drawn to her looks only wants to play games and have fun. The explaining away of adults in their lives is interesting as well as the time passing in the same format in the VertNet as it does in the real world. I couldn't imagine living in a coffin while playing a game for multiple days on end. I can't say I wouldn't enjoy being in a coffin. 

    This book wraps up most of the big questions while still leaving plenty unresolved to be able to continue on into the series. I haven't decided yet if I am going to read the other two books in it yet. It is possible, but I don't know. I'm not adverse to it, at least. 

    This book is available on Amazon for $8.99 by clicking here.