The review:
The premise, in short, is James comes from an impoverished background and is the first in his family to go to university. The book takes place around his transition from elementary to high school.
James is a surface level protaganist who is given no room to be characterised by anything other than the fact he is poor. He spends most of the book seething about "socio-economic status" (a phrase repeated 11 times) and comparing himself to other people, He is given a boring set of morals: "James, being the sincere student that he was, always interacted with his
teachers and did not partake in his peers' plans," in any other story this would have been given to a side character who was made fun of. There is no other aspect to him, so forming any kind of connection with this plain Jane is damn near impossible. He is not even given a surname.
It follows his dead-end journey through some of his life, his relationship with Mike, and his experiences being the teacher's pet.
As a book focused on socio-economic status, it gets a lot wrong. The "majority" of the school is described as having relatives with enough wealth to "to serve multiple future generations". How the fuck is that possible? It is a "publically funded elementary school". The author makes it seem like everyone is an oligarch. It is grossly over-exaggerated and unrealistic.
As an example, some summaries:
Chapter 1: I am poor and my rich peers are assholes to teachers.
Chapter 2: I am poor and my rich peers are better at Shell (because they can pay for better hardware).
Chapter 3: I am poor and my rich peers are going on holiday and I'm not so I'm sad now.
Chapter 4: I am poor and we have to be frugal in Walmart.
Chapter 5 makes no sense. He boards the packed bus loaded with people he's never met, yet he immediately knows "everyone seemed to earn family incomes that were sufficient enough to lead comfortable lives". WTF? Is he psychic? And the way he meets his flavourless best friend is nothing short of poetry: "Mike was his name, and he instantly became a close friend of James'," just like that. Mike's character is that he is a carbon copy of James.
In Chapter 6, the creativity on display from someone who moderates all day is astounding: "James and Mike were both upset over the whole incident, as it is never a good thing to come up with offensive nicknames based on individualistic characteristics. They wondered whether or not they should report the mischievous group of students to a nearby teacher, but since they did not have any solid proof of their activities, the duo remained quiet." Gripping storytelling, debating snitching. In fact, this chapter is completely pointless, and achieves nothing.
Chapter 7 they both cry because they're in the same class for some reason despite only knowing each other for like a few hours. Peak fiction.
Chapter 8 has James looking at everyone playing Shell in the cafeteria. MAJOR OVERSIGHT! BWD shut down Shell Mobile!
Chapter 9 glazes how emotionless James is. Something mildly funny happens where most of the class can have a harmless laugh, and he thinks its really sigma to not laugh.
In Chapter 10, the BASED rich kids get AI to complete their pointless slideshow assignment.
In Chapter 11, they are self-conscious enough to realise that snitching will just ostracise them for no reason. So instead they decide to pitch to the teacher to make the slideshow assignment a physical thing that has to be made in class time. Clearly though they do not realise that in real life this would be MUCH WORSE! You are asking for the entire fucking class to do their shit YOUR WAY just because you were pissed that the poshos cheated the assignment. No wonder they fucking hate them! If you want to make it harder, just do that to yourselves.
Anyway, somehow the teacher already knew about the other three poshos cheating, so all that was pointless anyway. Well that really paid off didn't it.
The rest of the chapters (12-14) should have been condensed into one, even by the standards of this novella. They basically boil down to yippee I won by being a cuck and selling my soul.
The style of writing is uninspired and the over-explanation of things such as FPS come off as robotic: "For some context, the more Frames Per Second one has, the smoother their gameplay tends to be". Some of these explanations seem to have been written by AI (putting it through a checker though doesn't give any results) due to how ridiculous they are. Either that or it's extreme padding.
All in all, this book is too short to waste time explaining the mechanics of fucking Shell Shockers. None of the 14 chapters are more than 3 pages long, with some barely passing at a few paragraphs (namely the ones at the end - implying interest was dropping off). The story is just a loosely strung series of snitches and envy. Major events such as the blossoming of their friendship are relegated to single sentences, causing an incredibly jarring story in terms of pace as things like the "dystopian" cafeteria being given significantly more attention for seemingly no reason.
The characters do not generate any sympathy from the reader, neither do they have any progression other than at the end they magically stop caring about being poor. Their constant comparison between themselves and others comes across as unnatural and more akin to the author's projection. They just seem bitter, jealous and authoritarian; ironically they are shown to be willing to put others down a lot more than they would just to get ahead. They seem to only be united by this set of ideals. The "rich" people are fairly passive and don't do anything that objectionable other than calling people names and being... children. The real bullies seem to be James and Mike (also just realising this IS LITERALLY CINEMASSACRE, if that is intentional then genuine respect lmfao).
To conclude? The book is childish, probably because it was written by one. It doesn't deserve any serious attention for any reason other than curiousity. The main allure is it is a glimpse into the minds of moderators, how they think a utopian society is run. Authoritarian, soulless and lacking individuality.
Note: Actually, I take back my statements about it being written by a child. It was written by a uni student, so at least 17/18. You could have done much better.