Name: Small Game
Rating: 3.333333333333333 (18 reviews)
ISBN: 9780063066175

Blair Braverman

A Novel

Small Game

Ryan Mateyk

3.5 stars. I found this randomly scrolling Libby and for going in blind, it turned out alright. It wasn’t perfect (the whole concept of why they were stranded didn’t really land) but we love a bi, outdoorsy queen!

elizabeth

In the first half of Small Game, Mara joins a survival reality show as an escape from her unpleasant life. She encounters a unique group of castmates, including the beautiful Ashley, who entrances Mara. (Side note: While Ashley is blatantly not a rugged survivalist, Braverman doesn't distill Ashley down to a shallow ditz; her openness and adventurousness are treated as a strengths, which I appreciated.) In the second half, the cast members find themselves surviving from scratch--and not for the cameras. Throughout, I was interested in Mara and those around her, and my curiosity how it would all play out for them propelled me through this book pretty quickly. 

But I had some major frustrations.  The first half of the novel builds up to ask a massive question (view spoiler)[(WHY did the crew abandon the cast?) (hide spoiler)] with odd little clues scattered throughout (or so I thought) to answer it. I was expecting the second half of the book to investigate this question somehow, whether it became a mystery or a thriller or even if it took on paranormal elements. But the second half almost entirely shrugs off this question and it becomes a relatively straightforward (not boring, just straightforward) survival story. If Braverman wanted to write a survival narrative between a handful of unlikely friends (and lovers), there are so many other (and less misleading) ways to set that up. This leaves the first half without resolution and the second half without the dramatic setup to give it much pay-off.

All in all, I recommend this if you're looking for the mountain vacation equivalent of a beach read; the stakes are high enough to keep you reading, but if you start taking it too seriously (guilty!), you'll be let down.

Petaco

** spoiler alert **
           This was so boring! How can you make a book about survival seem so mundane?? Nothing happens for the first half and then when you think its going to pick up, it tries to get too poetic in the delivery. She has a few meetings with a member of the crew that adds nothing. 

The worst part of all is that it just ends! There is no resolution. We don't ever find out what happens to the crew. We don't know how in the world they do not hear them leave. And you can't speculate and say that it ended in the way that Ashley described. That makes no sense as everyone had ideas about what happened, so what makes this one true? We don't know if it's true. So Ashley went on the show knowing they didn't have enough money to film OR pay the winner? Why not say something before that? Why would the police not be involved? I think the ambiguous ending is supposed to add to the mystery as evidenced in the story about the crew of hikers? where no one, not even now knows what happened to them. The part in the story where they say there found without some clothes in freezing temperature and the tent was slashed. (Speculation is that it was hypothermia that made them delirious)


Did I say that was the worst part? I changed my mind. They waste so much time! Why or why.... when you know you are low on resources and energy... would you waste time HIKING back to a fish trap??! Just tell Ashley that that will now feed the bears. I thought for sure she would go back there and catch the crew with another group or go back there and die. No, she wasted time hiking back to clear a trap that did not need to be cleared (first mention of tides in the book) and wasted precious battery to look at a video. So stupid. 

Also I hated that there is blatant cheating in the book. I'm seeing a huge trend in books that involves cheating. Her excuses are weak. It's nasty.

Also, how did Mara climb the tree so well when the person who is a KNOWN tree climber couldn't?!

All those people and no one looked for them? What about the boyfriend? The daughter? The sister? Co-workers? Neighbors?? Mailman? This is a modern day book. Did they no one think to post online or contact the news?? Instead, it's oh well, they never came back let's just go along with our day. Grrr.

Alexa M

When am I going to remember that I don’t! like! survival stories!! I did think this was going to have some ✨extra✨ element… it didn’t! Boring. 

Unless you like survival stories that are literally just that…. Then it’s perfect!

Mara is the daughter of borderline doomsday preppers. She grew up off the grid. With her current boyfriend, and coworker at a survivalist camp, she still lives off the grid. When “Civilization,” a Survivor-type reality show (except crueler) comes to her work to recruit, offering $100,000 for lasting six weeks in the wilderness, she’s happy to go through the interview process. She doesn’t expect to be picked but she wants out. Will the show be hard? Maybe. But for Mara everything is hard, and she’s always been good at putting her head down and suffering through it. So she’s pliant to producers’ direction and is soon picked for the show. She’s excited for the opportunity, for the ability to leave her boyfriend if she makes it to the end.

The problem is, there is no end. The game starts. There are successes and victories, favoritism among the producers, drop-outs, arguments among the cast. Mara develops immediate romantic feelings for Ashley, another contestant who openly admits she’s playing for fame. Mara provides. And everyday the camera crew shows up in the morning and leaves at night, only the cameras in the trees left catch the contestants’ interactions.

And then the camera crew stops coming. A new twist, maybe, meant to scare the contestants. Except the batteries run out on the cameras in the trees and no one comes to replace them. A contestant is injured and no one comes to help. Something has happened. The survival game is no longer a game.

There was so much to like about this. The author takes her time to flesh out Mara as a complex and interesting protagonist. The other contestants, too, grow into real people, far exceeding their reality tv archetypes. This is where this book sets itself apart from others in the genre, like The Last One, a 2016 novel with a nearly identical synopsis that I just happened to read this year. Small Game is not an apocalypse novel with a reality tv twist. It’s a book about the people who willingly disconnect themselves- why they leave, and what they find.

The author builds relationships and characters you want to read more about. The things that happen are believable- especially post-pandemic. The first half of the novel feels like a peek behind the curtain on a regular survival show, rife with manipulation and capitalistic intent. When the novel changes in the second half, dropping the pretense of a “game,” it feels natural. It’s hard to put down.

A merit badge. A good story. A way out. A new life. Reconnection with a loved one. Everyone who goes out to the wilderness wants something, even the survivalists that come to Mara’s day job to pay big money for one night outside. The desperately want to find something and bring it back to their real, civilized lives.

But as far as these contestants know, there may not be a civilization to which they can go back.

Maggie

Mara is the daughter of borderline doomsday preppers. She grew up off the grid. With her current boyfriend, and coworker at a survivalist camp, she still lives off the grid. When “Civilization,” a Survivor-type reality show (except crueler) comes to her work to recruit, offering $100,000 for lasting six weeks in the wilderness, she’s happy to go through the interview process. She doesn’t expect to be picked but she wants out. Will the show be hard? Maybe. But for Mara everything is hard, and she’s always been good at putting her head down and suffering through it. So she’s pliant to producers’ direction and is soon picked for the show. She’s excited for the opportunity, for the ability to leave her boyfriend if she makes it to the end.

The problem is, there is no end. The game starts. There are successes and victories, favoritism among the producers, drop-outs, arguments among the cast. Mara develops immediate romantic feelings for Ashley, another contestant who openly admits she’s playing for fame. Mara provides. And everyday the camera crew shows up in the morning and leaves at night, only the cameras in the trees left catch the contestants’ interactions.

And then the camera crew stops coming. A new twist, maybe, meant to scare the contestants. Except the batteries run out on the cameras in the trees and no one comes to replace them. A contestant is injured and no one comes to help. Something has happened. The survival game is no longer a game.

There was so much to like about this. The author takes her time to flesh out Mara as a complex and interesting protagonist. The other contestants, too, grow into real people, far exceeding their reality tv archetypes. This is where this book sets itself apart from others in the genre, like The Last One, a 2016 novel with a nearly identical synopsis that I just happened to read this year. Small Game is not an apocalypse novel with a reality tv twist. It’s a book about the people who willingly disconnect themselves- why they leave, and what they find.

The author builds relationships and characters you want to read more about. The things that happen are believable- especially post-pandemic. The first half of the novel feels like a peek behind the curtain on a regular survival show, rife with manipulation and capitalistic intent. When the novel changes in the second half, dropping the pretense of a “game,” it feels natural. It’s hard to put down.

A merit badge. A good story. A way out. A new life. Reconnection with a loved one. Everyone who goes out to the wilderness wants something, even the survivalists that come to Mara’s day job to pay big money for one night outside. The desperately want to find something and bring it back to their real, civilized lives.

But as far as these contestants know, there may not be a civilization to which they can go back.

Ally Perkins

A gripping debut novel about a survival reality show gone wrong that leaves a group of strangers stranded in the northern wilds Four strangers and six weeks: this is all that separates Mara from one life-changing payday. She was surprised when reality TV producers came knocking at Primal Instinct—the survival school where she teaches rich clients not to die during a night outdoors—and even more shocked to be cast in their new show, Civilization. Now she just has to live off the land with her fellow survivors for long enough to get the prize money. Whisked by helicopter to an undisclosed location, Mara meets her teammates: The grizzled outdoorsman. The Eagle Scout. The white-collar professional. And Ashley, the beautiful but inexperienced one who just wants to be famous. Mara’s unusual, rugged childhood has prepared her for the discomforts and hard work ahead. But trusting her fellow survivors? Not part of Mara’s skill set. When the cast wakes one morning to find something has gone horribly wrong, fear ripples through the group. Are the producers giving them an extra challenge? Or are they wrapped up in something more dangerous? Soon Mara and the others face terrifying decisions as “survival” becomes more than a game. A provocative exploration of the comforts, rituals, and connections we depend upon, Small Game is a gripping page-turner and a poignant story about finding the courage to build a new life from the ground up.

Small Game A Novel

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