Review: HEAD CASE by Niki Cluff

Head Case by Niki Cluff
My rating: 3.5 of 5 stars

I was given an e-ARC of this book by the author in exchange for an honest review.

So, for me, Head Case is a hard book to rate. I’m going for a 3.5 because while there were many things I liked about it, there were a few things that just seemed off, and a couple of things that just didn’t suit me as a reader.

The plot of this book is, based on my personal reading experience, original (though I haven’t read many other books of a comparable genre), and I found it refreshing. The opening chapter immediately had me hooked, and I was eagerly reading. The writing is, on the whole, well-written, and characterisation is good.

The imagery is also really great. I particularly loved the image of the old woman waiting in the corner of the hospital room, and how Ally reacted to her. That really infused personality and atmosphere into the scene.

Unfortunately, I had quite a few of issues with the pacing—particularly when Ally reaches the new game world, the pacing seemed slow and the writing got a little heavy with description and threw me off a bit. All the tension that the author had built up started to disappear at that point, and I was a little saddened as up until then I’d felt really invested. It made it a little harder to get back into the story, but I ploughed on. And I’m aware this could be my personal preference as I do prefer fast-paced books.

The other big thing that I didn’t like was how easy it was for Ally to get her parents to believe her when she astral projects to them (particularly the first time) and tells them what the doctors are really doing. It just seemed a bit too easy and I didn’t really believe it. And similarly, there was the same thing with Harrison’s parents too. I would’ve liked a bit more of an obstacle there, some sort of added layer of conflict, rather than keeping the conflict sources as the doctors and Ash.

Ally herself was a great character and really well developed. She felt real, and I liked finding out about her hobbies and interests—especially as they are so different to mine. I went into this book thinking it would be more dystopian sci-fi than it is, and I think that it was these expectations that meant I couldn’t quite get into the book as much as I wanted to as it’s centred around these hobbies—computer coding (which I don’t know much about) and gaming (and I’m not a gamer)—and it assumed some prior knowledge, especially for terminology linked to the coding. I haven’t read other LitRPG novels so this book felt a little “unknown” to me and I personally found it harder to understand the worldbuilding (despite being an avid sci-fi fan) but it was interesting.

Head Case also has an Alice In Wonderland vibe with many of the characters relating in some way to Lewis Carroll’s. This is something that I wasn’t really expecting and I found I really liked it, especially with how the author has put a slant on it. It also helped greatly with the characterisation of the other characters, and made them easier to remember and distinguish once I realised it, as up until then I’d been getting a couple of them mixed up.

Overall, this is a book I think fantasy gamers will enjoy greatly.