Deadly Pink (review)

Besides being pretty and popular, Grace's older sister, Emily, is a wunderkind when it comes to technology; beside her, Grace has always felt dull and unimpressive. Now, however, Emily has inexplicably bypassed safety protocols in a total immersion video game, refusing to leave the game even though she knows that prolonged exposure will result in her death. The company that pioneered the total immersion gaming system wants Grace to go into the game and try to talk her sister out. When Grace enters the game, she finds herself in a completely insipid world full of flowers, unicorns, sprites, and hunky male servants who either can't talk, or can't speak English—which clues Grace in to the fact that something has gone very wrong between Emily and her boyfriend. By the time Grace finds her own strategies to manipulate her way through the game against her sister's defenses, Emily has gotten weaker, and the game itself has started to rebel against Emily's changes to its programming. Now Grace must find a way to get both her and her sister out before it's too late. This fast-paced action/adventure novel sets up a credible reason for Emily's technologically assisted attempted suicide without being overly psychological or dark (Grace's reminder to Emily that her decision will devastate the people who love her is enough to dissuade her). This allows the focus to remain strictly on Grace's resourcefulness in performing the rescue, which will appeal to readers anxious to shine their own light from under the shadow of more successful older siblings. The gaming protocols amp up the reader appeal for experienced gamers who have had their fill of assumptions about what girls like in the virtual world; there's even a subtle but sly irony here for budding feminists regarding the possibility of being suffocated by sparkles.