The setup is a little weak—both the Matrius and the Patrius countries seem horrible, and there appears to be plenty of undeveloped land surrounding them, seems like the vast majority of people would want to abandon both countries and start a normal one. I had a hard time believing that men would want to stay in Patrius, where few women would want to be because they are literally property, and I had a hard time believing that women would want to be in Matrius, where men likewise didn’t have the same rights and therefore wouldn’t want to be (and families would reeaalllyy have to drink the Koolaid to be ok with having their male children taken away to work as miners because they weren’t passive enough!). When you read fiction, you need to be able to suspend belief and have everything be real and make sense in the world of the book. And I don’t like it when I’m thrown out of the book because things are too hard to believe. There's even an indie adult game renaissance of sorts in the making. On platforms like Patreon, top adult games have thousands of fans paying monthly subscriptions to support their favorite creators. Violet was quite unfortunate in this story that she kept finding her way into trouble. At points it even seemed like she was doing it on purpose as she had very little regard for rules and regulations, and just did things that she knew she shouldn’t be doing. I need a big old picture spelled out to me as I listen because let’s face it, I sometimes get distracted when I listening to my books. The pornography is all impressionistic ASCII art, the kind of porn I imagine characters looking at on those retro computers in Fallout. You explore it via increasingly debased categories while under time pressure, because every noise you hear could be your parents in the driveway.

Though I don’t know that this is a true “cliffhanger” ending, I felt the ending was abrupt. Important questions are not answered and we really don’t get any “closure”. I hate to feel that way, but I do. I realize that in a series, we have to want more in the next book, but as a seasoned reviewer and blogger, I can say that it doesn’t need to be this way. In truth, it feels very much like this was all written together and then broken into multiple books. Early cover art has the title “The Gender Games” and she noted it was the longest book she’s written, so I think this is very possible. That being said, if Ms. Forrest keeps her insanely-fast production schedule as she has with the ASoV series, it probably will have very little bearing.What it is: We’re putting AChat here as a representative of the online multiplayer genre of porn games, with open world hubs for cybersex interactions that range from the flirty to the hardcore. While AChat was all we had immediate access to, other games of this variety came more highly recommended by our expert. Machulis suggested the more expansive, customizable, and graphically advanced 3DXChat (which requires a monthly subscription). James recommended Red Light Center, which appears more inclusive by offering transgender customization options. In AChat, you can initiate sex scenes with a partner and, if they consent, create a scene by choosing environments, positions, speed, arousal, etc. All in all, despite the inherent awkwardness of virtual sex with strangers through glitchy dolls, there’s an excitement and aliveness to role-playing with IRL people. It can be especially useful during the pandemic, when many folks are abstaining from real-life sexual encounters for public safety. But...I knew that I had become a different kind of passenger. The kind of passenger to leap from a runaway train. The kind who would not wait until the end.

As with most Dystopian novels, however, I am left with the question of "Where is the rest of the world?" Assuming that this is set on Earth (and we're not told otherwise), these are small countries and the book is written in a very North American tone, so I'd love to know where the rest of the world has gone that these two nations appear to be all that is known to our heroine (Violet).Violet is tough but I was very surprised by a weapon she uses early on and will view dental work in a whole new light! I wasn't happy that her pigheaded ways put her in danger when she could easily avoid it but I'm guessing being treated as little more than a subservient pet really grated on her. The author introduced a habitat that was very intriguing and I'm wondering not just what but who might actually survive there? Then of course there's the ending which was a complete surprise and hopefully it will lead to all manner of things coming to light . Yes it's YA but I was enthralled and would definitely read the next book The ending was OK but like I say it brought up too many questions and tbh I called it from the beginning thanks to a sentence which appears near the start. This sentence was SO OBVIOUSLY an attempt at foreboding the ending that it was just way too 'on-the-nose' and gave away the whole damn twist.