Book Review - Gamer

Title: Gamer
Author: Chris Bradford
Publisher: Barrington Stoke
Release Date: 1 Nov 2012
ISBN-13: 978-1781121382

Synopsis
Virtual Kombat: So real it hurts.
Virtual Kombat is the more realistic video fight game ever. So when Scott is chosen to be a gamer, he jumps at the chance. He must work his way up the ranks to win the ultimate prize. But when his friend Kat goes missing in the battle arena, he starts to wonder if it's more than just a game...



My Review
Again this is another book I have to read for book day at work. But at only 100 pages I knew it would be a quick one. Not only is it that short it is designed to be dyslexic friendly so the writing is fairly big and well spaced, meaning I read the whole thing in just over 30 minutes.
I'm never really sure what to expect from short stories, it doesn't give you much chance to get to know the characters or the world, it's a bit like reading on fast forward. But this one wasn't bad. 
Set in the future after a disease that wiped out a lot of adults, there are hundreds of kids living on the streets, their one chance at a better life is to qualify as a game tester. They must prove themselves as a contender on 'virtual kombat' to win a place in an orphanage and work as a game tester.
Scott used to do martial arts with his dad before everything went wrong so he has a high chance of getting in, if he can just be in the right place at the right time.
As I say, this is very short and I could sort of see where it was going, but it would be a great book for boys struggling to get into books. It does it's job well and has an interesting enough story to engage readers. However the ending really annoyed me, it just doesn't finish. 
It just ends on a -'well that's what been going on, I don't know what I'll do about it, but for now I'll go on the run, be warned.' but there is no actual conclusion. I'm a very prolific reader and I felt cheated, if I had been a reader who had struggled through that I would have felt sorely cheated, a hundred pages read and no ending?  come on.
Maybe they will release a part two, who knows. 
But for what it was, it was done well. 

My Rating