You – Austin Grossman

After a very fantasy heavy start to my reading year, I thought I’d read something a little different, You was the book I chose. I was expecting something along the lines of Ready Player One, superficially there are similarities (it’s about video games d’uh), one chapter is sufficient to divest you of the notion that this is going to follow a similar narrative arc (my hit rate in terms of how often a book is what I’m expecting, is quite frankly, terrible. I should either pay more attention to the back cover, or reviews, or just stop trying to anticipate what I’m getting).

Russell, is interviewing for a job at Black Arts, an independent video game production company, which has successfully transitioned from the home brew era of the mid eighties to the fledgling entertainment brands of the late nineties. Black Arts is owned by a handful of Russell’s old school friends, while he went off to University with big plans to become a lawyer, they set up the company. They got rich, he needs a job as a designer after spending most of his twenties in an extended state of ennui. And there you have it, You is a book about a young-ish male slowly coming to terms with his life and realising that he doesn’t need to fulfil the expectations of anyone else to be content with himself. Sounds pretty exciting huh? If it helps there’s also a mystery, one of the co-founders of Black Arts, the technical genius of the bunch, died, no ones been able to figure out how his software engine works but they’ve still been using it to churn out new RPGs. Something has started to go wrong though, a bug appears, initially very rarely, but the frequency is increasing, and the result is terminal for the player’s hard earnt character. Is this by design?

Reading that last paragraph, perhaps the narrative is a bit more similar to Ready Player One than I suggested, ‘tech genius dies and leaves behind mystery to be solved’ does sound familiar. The tone and setting though are very different. You reminded me of The Magicians by Lev Grossman (to the point that I’ve just checked that Lev and Austin aren’t actually the same person, they’re not, but they are twins!), just replace secret school of magic with public limited company which makes niche video games. With the big difference being, that in You the main character is flawed but relatable, he enters the story broken and is redeemed by the things he thought he should grow out of, whereas is The Magicians the main character achieves exactly what he wants to achieve and it breaks him, plus he’s annoying.

Another book I’d compare this to is Popco by Scarlett Thomas, looking back at my review, I compared The Magicians to another Scarlett Thomas book, The End of Mr. Y. This doesn’t really surprise me now I know about the family connection, but I would say this, I much preferred Popco to The End of Mr. Y and the same holds true for You. I really enjoyed it, it doesn’t have the fireworks of Ready Player One, but it’s a nice satisfying story that I would recommend to anyone with a passing interest in RPG games, or as a slight change of pace for anyone who enjoys fantasy books.