The Leveller by Julia Durango (review)

When teens use tricks to get around the time limits to stay in a remarkably developed virtual world, parents call Nixy to enter the cyberrealm and drag the kids out. Nixy knows a lot of inside information about the gaming company MeaParadisus, since both of her parents work there, and she also is clever and determined, making her the ideal person to coax her peers back to their unattended bodies. She’s the first person called, therefore, when all other official options have been exhausted in trying to retrieve the company founder’s son when Wyn seems to have left behind a suicide note and abandoned his body for good. Of course, nothing is quite as it seems, and Nixy soon finds that Wyn is actually trapped behind elaborate technological barriers, unable to leave the virtually recreated Cuban childhood home of his grandmother (an admittedly odd choice for a teen boy, but an appealing and unusual one for reading purposes), and she finds serious sparks with him as well. It really doesn’t matter much who the bad guys are and what the backstory is: this is a spicy romance set in an intriguing virtual world, and the clock is ticking as the teens’ bodies are vegetative without them. Gamers who have looked at the time and been startled by how long they just spent immersed in another realm will find the descriptions of how real the experience feels to be spot-on, and even non-gamers will likely find plenty to appreciate between the romance, Nixy’s sharp, sardonic narration, and the fast-paced finale.