24 hours on campus with a stranger and zombies set to kill you. Can you make it out alive?
About The Lucky Egg Game: Cai Dan You Xi
The Lucky Egg Game: Cai Dan You Xi Book 1: Death Game is a novel by Bo Mu Bing Lun, published in English by Seven Seas Entertainment. Bo Mu Bing Lun is also the creator of Welcome to the Nightmare Game: Huanying Laidao Emeng Youxi, which Seven Seas Entertainment recently licensed. This unlimited flow novel follows Jin Jue, an architecture student, who inadvertently joins a death game. In this game, he must survive a night on his university campus that is currently crawling with zombies. He must not get bitten by a zombie, or killed by any of the other students in the game. As the hours pass by, Lin Jue starts to question everything he knows about himself as he does whatever it takes in order to survive.
My Thoughts
In thinking of where to start the review, I landed upon this: I am not a horror person. I do not enjoy being scared, I don’t watch scary movies, and I avoid anything scary at all costs. Why yes, I did close my eyes AND ears during that mom movie trailer while waiting to watch The Odyssey. It’s important that I lay that out immediately because that fact about me does inform how I read this book and approach this review.
The other fact about me to know is that I love LOVE. I mean, at over 200 reviews written, most of them are about love stories. If there is a promise of love at a point, you can count me in. So when I received an arc for The Lucky Egg Game, the little I knew about the unlimited flow and my overconfidence at loving anything with love in it, made me jump right in. Mistakes were made.
With that knowledge now in mind, let’s get into this...
The Lucky Egg Game scared me. Truly and deeply, this book scared me! First of all, the writing is incredible. Every single description, whether its of a zombie, a disgusting mutating bug, or the paranoia of not knowing who to trust is jarring. Many times I was horrified, disgusted to the point of nausea, but I forced myself to carry on. Lin Jue and Song Hanzhang didn’t really have much chemistry in this first book, but I believe in the ship so I kept going! However, as I read on I realized the romance aspect or potential of it, would take a back seat to what this story made me feel.
As you follow Lin Jue, you learn the big part of this story isn’t just him surviving. It’s about what it takes for him to survive. The decisions he has to make, the justifications for those actions, and the struggle to want to live more than he doesn’t want to kill someone else. As the hours in the game dwindle, so does Lin Jue’s resolve to do the right thing. This is what scared me to my core. The fact someone can start a game as one person, with a strict moral code, and end it in less than 24 hours completely and irreversibly changed. Initially, Lin Jue just wants to make it until dawn with Song Hanzhang. But as the game gets more twisted and it brings out everyone’s drive to survive. And it turns out everyone will do anything, including killing, in order to live.
This book made me sick in more ways than one. I can’t get the psychological aspects out of my brain. I thought the brewing love between Lin Jue and Song Hanzhang would make the scarier parts easier to stomach, but I don’t think it’s quite there yet. (Also, the events of this book are literally only a few days so I need to settle my lover girl heart down!!) The Lucky Egg Game is what nightmares are made of. Specifically, my nightmares where I fear the unrelenting change of society and how it’s making us all ruthless, cold-hearted beings, concerned only with our own survival.
Where to Buy The Lucky Egg Game: Cai Dan You Xi Book 1: Death Game
The Lucky Egg Game: Cai Dan You Xi Book 1: Death Game
Written by Bo Mu Bing Lun
Translation: Suika, Divetus
Adaptation: Heather Wychbold
Book Design: M. A. Lewife
Copy Editor: Jehanne Bell
Proofreader: juurensha, Winter Greene
Quality Control: Meg van Huygen
Editor: Jasmine Thone
Illustrations by 千二百
Interior illustrations by nokdock4
Publisher: Seven Seas Entertainment
The Lucky Egg Game: Cai Dan You Xi Book 1: Death Game is available now.
Thank you, Seven Seas Entertainment, for the ARC.
