âThe Stranger Game is a sharp-toothed commentary on the ways in which Ãfollowingâ can foster a pretense of intimacy between strangers, and how the falsity of this intimacyâits utter lack of substanceâoften creates a perilous hunger for more: more access, more communion, more knowledge. Itâs also a fun, moody, twisty thriller, with a sun-touched, West Coast vibe...as much Joan Didion as Patricia Highsmith.â âScott Smith, author of A Simple Plan and The Ruins
A literary suspense novel in which an eerie social game goes viral and spins perilouslyâand criminallyâout of control.
Rebeccaâs on-again, off-again boyfriend, Ezra, has gone missing, but when she notifies the police, they seem surprisingly unconcerned. They suspect he has been playing the âstranger game,â a viral hit in which players start following others in real life, as they might otherwise do on social media. As the game spreads, however, the rules begin to change, play grows more intense and disappearances are reported across the country.
Curious about this popular new obsession, and hoping that she might be able to track down Ezra, Rebecca tries the game for herself. She also meets Carey, who is willing to take the game further than she imagined possible. As her relationship with Carey and involvement in the game deepen, she begins to uncover an unsettling subculture that has infiltrated the world around her. In playing the stranger game, what may lead her closer to finding Ezra may take her further and further from the life she once lived.
A thought-provoking, haunting novel, The Stranger Game unearths the connections, both imagined and real, that we build with the people around us in the physical and digital world, and where the boundaries blur between them.
âThe Stranger Game is a sharp-toothed commentary on the ways in which Ãfollowingâ can foster a pretense of intimacy between strangers, and how the falsity of this intimacyâits utter lack of substanceâoften creates a perilous hunger for more: more access, more communion, more knowledge. Itâs also ...