Feminista

Rating: 3 out of 5.Gameboard of the Gods is sort of what the name suggests. In this dystopian world, religion has caused the Decline, led to all sorts of bad things. So the new North America, RUNA, has decided to make the State as free from religious cults as possible by regulating them. The rules are really stringent and little things can get religious groups disbanded for sedition or treason. Well, apparently the Gods which RUNA does not believe in are coming back with a vengeance. You can’t keep humans and Gods away from one another. It just doesn’t happen. And so humans, but more especially, some special humans become little pieces in the game played by the greater powers. It should have been a good unique idea for a dystopian world. But the ideas just didn't appeal to me much. The main reason for that, I think, is because the world, even without the suspenseful supernatural elements, wasn’t explained thoroughly enough. There was little context given. Things that came up were mainly explained. The rest of the world wasn't. Mae is a Praetorie, that is, she is a highly trained soldier for the RUNA. It is a highly respectable position that comes with a lot of pride and honour. The whole of RUNA fears the Praetorians. When they walk around in their black uniform, people move out of their way. Their fast speeds comes from technology put in them that controls their adrenaline (thereby speed and strength) and other hormones. So instantaneously, I loved Mae. She is exactly the type of strong, cool and composed heroine that I like.But I didn’t like Justin. The hero makes or breaks the story for me. Justin broke it for me.Justin gets told, in his dream/by-his-god, that he will meet his one true love when he sees a vision of her wearing a crown made of stars and flowers. So he sees it with Mae, and then promptly goes around sleeping with other women. I mean I get it, he doesn’t want to sleep with her again because he doesn’t want to be tied down to a God, but he doesn’t even have a legitimate excuse not to explain it to her, especially when he feels bad about how he keeps on hurting her. This made me feel as though the drama was poorly crafted and it detracted from my enjoyment.Not only that, but I hated how fickle he was with other things too: like his drinking and doing drugs. All his vices including women just depicted him as a weak man, to me. I honestly don’t like him as a romantic interest because Mae can and deserves much better than that. I wished a thousand times that there would be another proper love interest for Mae. But alas, my wishes went unanswered in this book.What was worse was that several times, even after being rejected, Mae showed interest in him, cringe-worthily enough. I just found it embarrassing. I firstly did not feel sympathetic to Justin’s plight, especially because I couldn’t understand why he wouldn’t just explain his reasons to her and save her the hurt. But even if I had, just from Mae’s perspective, it seems really sad giving a guy who keeps on sleeping around with others and rejecting you, undeserved romantic chances.