Booklight: Endgame – the Calling
The Calling is the first book of the Endgame series. Co-written by James Frey, The Calling is a modern masterpiece displaying violence, love, and sacrifice. It keeps you on your toes from start to finish, and there will be two more books to follow it. Although the Calling is extremely suspenseful it is also somewhat predictable, but nonetheless great. If you liked Lorien Legacies, which were also by co-written James Frey, then you would definitely like Endgame.
The book starts with the comets, twelve of them in all, representing each player from each line crashed down to Earth to signal the start, the start of Endgame, a game played on a global scale. Thousands of years ago the sky people came and gave us life in return for gold and established a game. They would be back one day, and until then, each line of original tribes would have to have a player prepared at all times. The game is simple. There are three keys hidden on Earth and the objective is to find them. There are no rules, so everything is fair game.
For this reason, some people say Endgame is a rip off of Hunger Games. But for one, Endgame is not about a broken down society, and two, Endgame is not broadcast and celebrated throughout Earth; instead it is played in secret. In this game the last player standing wins, and the failed player’s lines is obliterated by fire.
It is important to realize these players are only human. They can die and with their death follows the death of millions of others in their tribal line. Players must be between the ages of thirteen and eighteen, and they are trained brutally. Some become masters of disguise. They live among us waiting for the signal, and the signal has come as Endgame starts. Like the jacket says: Endgame is here, Endgame is now.
The book revolves around all 12 players, but three – Sarah, Jago, and Chiyoko – get most of the attention and development, and they all happen to be the good guys. Before the game, Sarah is all you want in a girl wrapped in one. She is your typical homecoming queen/star athlete/valedictorian, loved by everyone. Sarah is always the easiest to connect with because of her her easygoing American nature. Unlike Sarah, Jago is atypical. His family lives in South America and is the most prominent family in Peru. They are gangsters and charity workers all in one. Jago is strangely handsome and intriguing as a character, always leaving you with wanting something a little more. Of course these two beautiful players are bound to have an alliance and maybe a romance despite such circumstances. Last out of the three main characters is Chiyoko. Chiyoko is a Japanese girl and is a master of the mind. She is stereotypically the stealthy one of the group and the mute, but she also shows a capacity for love and kindness.
There were other characters too, not as played up as these three but also very important to the story, two of them being the main villains, Macabee and Baitsakhan. These two form an alliance and terrorize players from the start. Both Macabee and Baitsakhan were brutal and bloodthirsty, always physically reacting before thinking, which led to problems later in the story. Both were also unbelievably stupid considering how important the game was and it was hard to believe a person could act that way.
Although there were some character flaws, Endgame the Calling was a great book and was worth the read.
