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The Most Dangerous Games
THE BOOK EVENT OF THE YEAR: An unprecedented blockbuster collaboration between MrBeast, the world’s #1 creator with more than a billion followers, and James Patterson, the world’s #1 bestselling author.
In a world on the brink of collapse, one hundred players face off in a ruthless, high‑stakes competition with everything on the line. The reward? The chance to save humanity — and one billion dollars. The stakes couldn't be higher.
Across brutal environments and relentless challenges, players are pushed beyond every limit as the stakes escalate — and survival becomes the only rule.
Fast‑paced, cinematic, and impossible to put down, The Most Dangerous Games is a global thriller event where spectacle meets suspense — and the world is watching.
· The Highest Stakes: Enter a thrilling, high-stakes survival competition where contestants compete for a one-billion dollar prize and the chance to save humanity
· Nothing Can Prepare You: You’ve seen Beast Games, but now the games are more dangerous than ever, pushing players to their limits in a fight for survival across treacherous landscapes
· Order now to get the limited deluxe hardcover edition with stenciled edges and illustrated endpapers — available while stocks last!
You’ve seen MrBeast break the internet.
But nothing could prepare you for a competition this wild.
In a world on the brink of collapse, one hundred players face off in a ruthless, high‑stakes competition with everything on the line. The reward? The chance to save humanity — and one billion dollars. The stakes couldn't be higher.
Across brutal environments and relentless challenges, players are pushed beyond every limit as the stakes escalate — and survival becomes the only rule.
Fast‑paced, cinematic, and impossible to put down, The Most Dangerous Games is a global thriller event where spectacle meets suspense — and the world is watching.
· The Highest Stakes: Enter a thrilling, high-stakes survival competition where contestants compete for a one-billion dollar prize and the chance to save humanity
· Nothing Can Prepare You: You’ve seen Beast Games, but now the games are more dangerous than ever, pushing players to their limits in a fight for survival across treacherous landscapes
· Order now to get the limited deluxe hardcover edition with stenciled edges and illustrated endpapers — available while stocks last!
You’ve seen MrBeast break the internet.
But nothing could prepare you for a competition this wild.
Audible Audio
First published September 1, 2026
About the author
MrBeast
3 books35 followersJames Stephen "Jimmy" Donaldson, better known as MrBeast, is an American YouTuber, media personality, businessman, and philanthropist.
The founder of Beast Industries, a conglomerate that holds various media channels, MrBeast Burger, Feastables, Lunchly, and more, he produces high-paced YouTube videos built around elaborate challenges and grandiose philanthropic efforts, that are noted for their high production values. With more than 490 million subscribers, his main channel is the most subscribed on YouTube. He is also the third most followed account on TikTok.
The founder of Beast Industries, a conglomerate that holds various media channels, MrBeast Burger, Feastables, Lunchly, and more, he produces high-paced YouTube videos built around elaborate challenges and grandiose philanthropic efforts, that are noted for their high production values. With more than 490 million subscribers, his main channel is the most subscribed on YouTube. He is also the third most followed account on TikTok.
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September 5, 2026
I don't even know where to start. I suppose I'll open by emphasizing that this was a public library loan, because of course I would never pay money for this, and of course the library would acquire many copies simply because new James Patterson books always circulate well, so it was easy to get on the hold list for the first round. It was obvious from the first announcement about this book that it would be a hot pile of garbage and as a self-styled bad book afficionado, I simply had to get ahead of the curve and read this right away.
I would like to be able to say that this was the first book I've read with two named authors in which neither of them wrote the book, but that would actually be The Man That Follows God. At least this time, one of the listed authors has at least read a book before. Probably.
My history with James Patterson is thus: one time on an overnight ferry between Greek islands, I oversaw a young American man reading a paperback. I could see it had incredibly short chapters, sometimes less than a full page of text. Each new chapter started with a huge "Chapter XX" title and the text only started on the bottom third of the page. I couldn't imagine what kind of book needed to fluff itself out like this, nor what kind of experience such incredibly short so-called chapters could provide. Many years later I learned that James Patterson books and other comparable thrillers, like Dan Brown's, were like this. At no point in my life would this kind of book appeal to me. No shade to readers of such, if they enjoy them. I assume that some of them are of acceptable quality and provide the desired experience. The only other things I know about James Patterson is that his books have always sold very well, and that it's been a long time since he wrote them himself, even when the co-author who actually wrote it is not co-listed. So while I don't know first-hand what the typical quality of a James Patterson book is, I can authoritatively say: this book is awful.
This book reads like no one involved in the writing or editing gave a shit. It's a rapidly churned-out piece of formulaic dreck. It's got good production values; the interior and exterior designers did their jobs well. But the entire concept of the book is stupid, the execution of the concept equally so, the writing quality is abysmal and the whole affair is nonsensical.
The book opens with a list of characters and their descriptions, which is simultaneously helpful because often a tertiary character will be named and there's little reason to expect the reader to recall exactly which one they were, and unnecessary because every time a character appears they will be presented alongside their one-sentence background and single personality trait. There aren't exactly any well-rounded characters with depth and genuine emotion after all.
After that, we are presented with a letter from MrBeast. That's right, not only is his name on the outside of the book, he's also a character! This letter is the invitation he wrote inviting 1,000 selected individuals. The letter reads like a mass-mailing scam pitch written by an untalented thirteen-year-old. It invites the recipient to a competition for one billion dollars, currency not specified; it could be US dollars but it could equally be Liberian dollars or Zimbabwean dollars, jokes on you! It's a worldwide competition after all. Ah, who are we kidding, obviously this book defaults to American whenever it can. The letter further states that the games will be dangerous and include a risk of death, but that's okay because the real prize is even more important than a billion dollars: the winner will vaguely be positioned to cure all the world's ills! These include,
Naturally, very few of the letter recipients go along with this poorly written letter promising vague influential powers if only you survive potential death and come out on top. It's obviously absurd—just kidding! All one thousand people go along with it! And it's not like they kept inviting people until they got one thousand gullible buffoons, it's specifically stated, "The letter has never been seen by anyone who didn't participate in the final competition." They must have carefully chosen a thousand proper patsies.
The book is helpfully divided into parts, titled "GAME #1", "GAME #2," etc. "GAME #1" covers the first game. "GAME #2" covers the second and third games. "GAME #3" covers the fourth game. "GAME #4" covers the fifth, sixth, and seventh games. See, helpful!
This type of thriller is all about short, snappy chapters. There are 125 chapters in 450 pages, which makes for approximately three pages of text per chapter on average, factoring in the many illustrations, so many that it approaches the appearance of a children's book. The illustrations are decent line art, and enhance the reading experience. See, when some competitors are in the water trying to swim past some sharks and a helicopter suddenly shows up, it's an amazing experience to then see a helicopter drawn right there on the page!
Jack's line in the passage above in nonsensical, by the way. There is no reason for him to comment on how fast or slow the helicopter appeared or travels. Whether it is in the air or not at any time point is utterly irrelevant to anything else going on.
Anyway, back to the thriller format. It is admittedly effective at times. In the early chapters, it did enhance tension, as the story flipped between two locations and sets of characters, both swimming through groups of potentially deadly ocean dwellers. But much more often the format undercuts itself, with its constant need to try to create snappy chapter finishes that propel the reader onward, desperate to find out what happens next. More than once, this is attempted with "shocking reveals" that have already been revealed dozens of pages earlier. More often, it's a "shocking twist" that is instantly negated in the next chapter. At one point, a contestant goes looking for her friend in the friend's room. The friend isn't there! OMG what could have happened to her! She goes to another mutual friend. "Hannah is missing?" Other guy: "Holy shit! She's missing!" Start of next chapter: "Oh there she is sitting across the room." Even actual theoretically major developments are then made to go, pttthhhbbtt. One time a up-to-then major character is bitten by the same deadly spider species that another character just died from. Next chapter: he made it to a medical team in time and got antivenin. And it's not like this played out dramatically; the next chapter just jumps ahead in time to another location and the character explains that's what happened. Probably the worst one is when a character who was set up as vulnerable and endearing is blown up by a grenade, which he threw himself in front of to save others. Next chapter:
The writing, whoever did it, is the hackiest of hack writing you've ever seen. It is, of course, very much constant telling and never showing of any emotion, such that character relationships are utterly devoid of impact and there is absolutly no reason for any reader to experience any emotion. Oh, this guy loves this girl now? Sure, why not. Oh, she died? He's sad? Oh well. Emotional stakes are not the only type absent: story stakes are equally null. There is no stated secret (I wish I could say "hinted-at secret" but the book simply says at every turn: "he has a secret"), no possible outcome, no choice of winner of the competition that matters a damn at any point. The vagueness of "how exactly will the winner be positioned to change the world for the better" does not resolve at any point. Any line of dialogue or pseudo-profound statement in the text in that direction is meaningless when it's not confusing. Dialogue is performative and inhuman. And the style, featuring short clipped sentences and overwritten, tacked-on statements of significance has the opposite effect as intended. I thought at one point that the quality of the writing was not significantly above that of The Forensic Certified Public Accountant and the Cremated 64-Squares Financial Statements, and this is not the last time I'll reference that book in this review.
It's certainly written for the lowest common denominator, based solely on the repetition. There's absolutely no risk of losing track of what's going on in this book, because it recaps itself at every turn. I mentioned already how each character brief background and solitary personality trait is reiterated at each appearance. In addition, the text will re-list for you all the characters who are in the "good guy" group repeatedly, specifically remind you of the basic current goings-on, etc. It's great for a bathroom book or other situations where you might only read a few pages a week (and the bathroom is the only place this book deserves to live). Or if you're reading this because you're a MrBeast fan and reading isn't exactly your bag. The repetition even extends to the in-paragraph level with passages like this:
The ending. Ugh. Let's just say that the big reveal, the unveiling of the book's main mystery, is a real Clef Treble moment. (If you know, you know).
And the real, very ending, is literally indistinguishable from that of Handbook for Mortals, a book that I guarantee will outranks this one in terms of its top NY Times Bestseller List placement. See if you can spot any difference:
(For those of you not on the desktop site for whom the images don't show, the lines are, "THE END (OR IS IT?)" and "And they lived happily ever after ... OR DO THEY?"
I would of course be remiss if I don't mention the elephant in the room, which is the spectre of AI-generated writing, or as it more appropriately known, AI slop. Now, I don't think anyone thinks this book is entirely the product of AI. But some of my friends immediately grafted onto specific AI-isms that appear at frequency even in just the free preview pages of this book available on Amazon. I, as someone who has let himself go into unfortunate depths of AI slop books in the past (I'm in ongoing recovery), have sometimes found myself triggered by stock phrases and sentence patterns endemic to AI "prose" that appear even in books that I have absolutely no belief involved AI in any way. Of course LLMs were trained on real human writing, and so of course occasionally real human writing will include something that LLMs regenerate ad nauseum, and it's only because of exposure to the latter that they stand out when encountered. Like, in Breath of the Dragon, the phrase "unwavering determination" (an earlier generation AI favourite) appeared twice, which stopped me both times, both it fit the tone of the book and the moments in which they appeared. There is zero chance that Fonda Lee writes with AI. But in books like this one, the frequency that such things appear must give one pause in this age. There are long portions in which no such thing occurs. But there are others in which stereotypical AI phrasing recurs often enough to make the knowledgeable reader wonder. It could be that, since this book is written by the hackiest, schlockiest means possible, by one or more ghostwriters that churns this kind of crap out without concern for art or meaning, that this style of phrasing is par for the course. I haven't read anything published under Patterson's name before so I can't personally say. But if the best-case scenario is that your actual writing is frequently highly similar to slop AI output ... maybe your writing is really shitty.
(I previously shared many examples from the text, rife with paragraph-averse strings of sentence fragments, "Not this. Not that. overly dramatic ellipsis THIS! statements and other negative parallelism, nonsensical or extremely lousy simile, etc. but moved these to the comments to leave room to share a couple last things before I hit the GR review character limit).
This review is basically done as of a couple paragraphs ago, but I can't resist sharing a couple more stupid things from this very stupid book. There are many more than I could possibly detail, but these ones stand out in my memory.
One is that MrBeast, superspy, tracks down the people responsible for the games in part by confirming the shipment of pallets the "correct" size/shape for IV lines and other items that are small enough to be packed in any number into boxes of any size, and those boxes stacked in any number and orientation to create a pallet of literally any configuration. This is nonsense "evidence". Coincidentally, following this type of evidence is exactly what another super-smart character suggested in a letter to her French police investigator parents, a letter which she gave to the showrunners because of course they will definitely mail anything from the participants unread and intact. The same goes for taking secret spy calls from MrBeast on phones that the conspirators provided to them, while on property owned and monitored by the conspirators who use impossibly high-tech cameras and microphones constantly. But it's okay because MrBeast, being the superspy he is, says he figured out how to "scramble" the calls! You know, via that very real technology employed in every cheap spy action movie since the 1960s, generic scrambling! Surely the bad guys won't then be able to listen in on every word spoken into the phones they provided themselves if it's scrambled from the other end.
And back to the ending ... seriously, the entire end sequence is so mind-numbingly nonsensical that it's almost worth reading the book for yourself just to experience it. I'm talking multiple villains who are defeated by someone walking in and saying, "I'm in charge now!" and the villains saying, "Damnit, okay," and glumly sauntering off to sulk in the corner. I'm talking a complete lack of clarity added to any of the vague, absurd ideas driving the book from its opening.
From beginning the end, this book is stuffed with lazy ideas, and even lazier, cringe-inducing, sloppy writing, and we can only hope for a just world in which publisher loses most of the absurd amount of money they invested in it and, even better, learns a lesson from the experience.
I would like to be able to say that this was the first book I've read with two named authors in which neither of them wrote the book, but that would actually be The Man That Follows God. At least this time, one of the listed authors has at least read a book before. Probably.
My history with James Patterson is thus: one time on an overnight ferry between Greek islands, I oversaw a young American man reading a paperback. I could see it had incredibly short chapters, sometimes less than a full page of text. Each new chapter started with a huge "Chapter XX" title and the text only started on the bottom third of the page. I couldn't imagine what kind of book needed to fluff itself out like this, nor what kind of experience such incredibly short so-called chapters could provide. Many years later I learned that James Patterson books and other comparable thrillers, like Dan Brown's, were like this. At no point in my life would this kind of book appeal to me. No shade to readers of such, if they enjoy them. I assume that some of them are of acceptable quality and provide the desired experience. The only other things I know about James Patterson is that his books have always sold very well, and that it's been a long time since he wrote them himself, even when the co-author who actually wrote it is not co-listed. So while I don't know first-hand what the typical quality of a James Patterson book is, I can authoritatively say: this book is awful.
This book reads like no one involved in the writing or editing gave a shit. It's a rapidly churned-out piece of formulaic dreck. It's got good production values; the interior and exterior designers did their jobs well. But the entire concept of the book is stupid, the execution of the concept equally so, the writing quality is abysmal and the whole affair is nonsensical.
The book opens with a list of characters and their descriptions, which is simultaneously helpful because often a tertiary character will be named and there's little reason to expect the reader to recall exactly which one they were, and unnecessary because every time a character appears they will be presented alongside their one-sentence background and single personality trait. There aren't exactly any well-rounded characters with depth and genuine emotion after all.
After that, we are presented with a letter from MrBeast. That's right, not only is his name on the outside of the book, he's also a character! This letter is the invitation he wrote inviting 1,000 selected individuals. The letter reads like a mass-mailing scam pitch written by an untalented thirteen-year-old. It invites the recipient to a competition for one billion dollars, currency not specified; it could be US dollars but it could equally be Liberian dollars or Zimbabwean dollars, jokes on you! It's a worldwide competition after all. Ah, who are we kidding, obviously this book defaults to American whenever it can. The letter further states that the games will be dangerous and include a risk of death, but that's okay because the real prize is even more important than a billion dollars: the winner will vaguely be positioned to cure all the world's ills! These include,
not only the endless number of growing wars. It's systems breaking. Rolling blackouts. Water you can't count on. Supply lines snapping. Storms and heat and fires and floods. People being pushed from their homes. A crisis of what is real and what isn't, where no one can be sure of what to believe anymore. Trust in our world is almost entirely gone."Surely, one person fix this, if only they win this series of games, they will "get the scale and access to make a difference." You can believe this, because as the real world has shown us, billionaires make the world a better place.
Naturally, very few of the letter recipients go along with this poorly written letter promising vague influential powers if only you survive potential death and come out on top. It's obviously absurd—just kidding! All one thousand people go along with it! And it's not like they kept inviting people until they got one thousand gullible buffoons, it's specifically stated, "The letter has never been seen by anyone who didn't participate in the final competition." They must have carefully chosen a thousand proper patsies.
The book is helpfully divided into parts, titled "GAME #1", "GAME #2," etc. "GAME #1" covers the first game. "GAME #2" covers the second and third games. "GAME #3" covers the fourth game. "GAME #4" covers the fifth, sixth, and seventh games. See, helpful!
This type of thriller is all about short, snappy chapters. There are 125 chapters in 450 pages, which makes for approximately three pages of text per chapter on average, factoring in the many illustrations, so many that it approaches the appearance of a children's book. The illustrations are decent line art, and enhance the reading experience. See, when some competitors are in the water trying to swim past some sharks and a helicopter suddenly shows up, it's an amazing experience to then see a helicopter drawn right there on the page!
They hear the roar of it, feel the whirring of the rotors, the helicopter so close to the water it's creating waves all around them the way a storm would. The sound is enormous. Physical. Jack feels it in his ribs.
Too fast, Jack thinks. Like it was already in the air.
Jack's line in the passage above in nonsensical, by the way. There is no reason for him to comment on how fast or slow the helicopter appeared or travels. Whether it is in the air or not at any time point is utterly irrelevant to anything else going on.
Anyway, back to the thriller format. It is admittedly effective at times. In the early chapters, it did enhance tension, as the story flipped between two locations and sets of characters, both swimming through groups of potentially deadly ocean dwellers. But much more often the format undercuts itself, with its constant need to try to create snappy chapter finishes that propel the reader onward, desperate to find out what happens next. More than once, this is attempted with "shocking reveals" that have already been revealed dozens of pages earlier. More often, it's a "shocking twist" that is instantly negated in the next chapter. At one point, a contestant goes looking for her friend in the friend's room. The friend isn't there! OMG what could have happened to her! She goes to another mutual friend. "Hannah is missing?" Other guy: "Holy shit! She's missing!" Start of next chapter: "Oh there she is sitting across the room." Even actual theoretically major developments are then made to go, pttthhhbbtt. One time a up-to-then major character is bitten by the same deadly spider species that another character just died from. Next chapter: he made it to a medical team in time and got antivenin. And it's not like this played out dramatically; the next chapter just jumps ahead in time to another location and the character explains that's what happened. Probably the worst one is when a character who was set up as vulnerable and endearing is blown up by a grenade, which he threw himself in front of to save others. Next chapter:
Somehow, he survived the grenade blast.That is some top-notch writing right there! So thrilling.
The writing, whoever did it, is the hackiest of hack writing you've ever seen. It is, of course, very much constant telling and never showing of any emotion, such that character relationships are utterly devoid of impact and there is absolutly no reason for any reader to experience any emotion. Oh, this guy loves this girl now? Sure, why not. Oh, she died? He's sad? Oh well. Emotional stakes are not the only type absent: story stakes are equally null. There is no stated secret (I wish I could say "hinted-at secret" but the book simply says at every turn: "he has a secret"), no possible outcome, no choice of winner of the competition that matters a damn at any point. The vagueness of "how exactly will the winner be positioned to change the world for the better" does not resolve at any point. Any line of dialogue or pseudo-profound statement in the text in that direction is meaningless when it's not confusing. Dialogue is performative and inhuman. And the style, featuring short clipped sentences and overwritten, tacked-on statements of significance has the opposite effect as intended. I thought at one point that the quality of the writing was not significantly above that of The Forensic Certified Public Accountant and the Cremated 64-Squares Financial Statements, and this is not the last time I'll reference that book in this review.
It's certainly written for the lowest common denominator, based solely on the repetition. There's absolutely no risk of losing track of what's going on in this book, because it recaps itself at every turn. I mentioned already how each character brief background and solitary personality trait is reiterated at each appearance. In addition, the text will re-list for you all the characters who are in the "good guy" group repeatedly, specifically remind you of the basic current goings-on, etc. It's great for a bathroom book or other situations where you might only read a few pages a week (and the bathroom is the only place this book deserves to live). Or if you're reading this because you're a MrBeast fan and reading isn't exactly your bag. The repetition even extends to the in-paragraph level with passages like this:
They've dressed them all the same: thermal gear, goggles, face wraps. And the same little add-on nobody talks about—a plastic wristband clipped snug over her glove, warm against her pulse. A tracker. Heartbeat, location, motion. If it flatlines, they're already moving. Her wristband warms against her pulse.Yes, that was already stated not two lines of text ago. The fact that this appears on page one forces you to wonder, did anyone at all review this before it went to print? Later errors include events happening out of order (There are fifty people. Now there are thirty left. Now almost half the remaining people leave. Now there are thirty people left. Later: the group is flown to another country, then to another continent. On the same page they are then still in the first city before their flight. All in present tense with no suggestion that the second part is a flashback or recounting of earlier events), and more repetition like (paraphrased but not at all inaccurate):
There are spiders. There are snakes.In a book full of nonsensical, stupid moments, every scene with MrBeast wins the Most Cringe award. After a chapter that finishes dramatically with, "Jimmy Donaldson has reappeared and is walking to the microphone," ooohh boy, we get this delightful scene:
Spiders and snakes.
...
Spiders. Snakes.
Jimmy is onstage and leaning toward the mic stand now. He lifts a hand for quiet. But right before he begins to speak someone from the crowd yells out, "You're crazy until you're successful and then you're a genius."Sure it does. I suppose this is a MrBeast quote? No one who reads this book will ever know. MrBeast as portrayed in this book is a at various times a shark expert and expert underwater mimer, ...
Jimmy taps his index finger to the side of his head, smiling, and leans toward the microphone.
"Who said that?" He looks around and no one admits it. "It's a pretty good line, even if it's a little cringe," he says.
It gets him a good laugh.
Then he sees the shark's attention shift to his immediate left. And then the whole pattern changes, like someone just pressed a button. Jack carefully turns his eyes in the same direction—no sudden movements, not now—and sees another swimmer.(Please, dear reader: make a simple motion that communicates "Stay close. Don't thrash.") ... an utterly virtuous man, and later, MrBeast becomes an on-the-ground superspy and is able to fight off multiple trained thugs in close spaces and crack an entire multinational conspiracy.
Someone Jack recognizes instantly.
Jimmy Donaldson.
MrBeast himself.
As blown away as he is to see him here, Jack is even more shocked to see the guy is actually smiling at him. Like he's saying, Breathe. Move. Don't give them a reason.
He hadn't seen him since they boarded together.
Jimmy takes charge of the situation and makes a simple motion: Stay close. Don't thrash. Something about him makes Jack trust him: the calm. The way he moves like panic is a choice.
The ending. Ugh. Let's just say that the big reveal, the unveiling of the book's main mystery, is a real Clef Treble moment. (If you know, you know).
And the real, very ending, is literally indistinguishable from that of Handbook for Mortals, a book that I guarantee will outranks this one in terms of its top NY Times Bestseller List placement. See if you can spot any difference:
(For those of you not on the desktop site for whom the images don't show, the lines are, "THE END (OR IS IT?)" and "And they lived happily ever after ... OR DO THEY?"
I would of course be remiss if I don't mention the elephant in the room, which is the spectre of AI-generated writing, or as it more appropriately known, AI slop. Now, I don't think anyone thinks this book is entirely the product of AI. But some of my friends immediately grafted onto specific AI-isms that appear at frequency even in just the free preview pages of this book available on Amazon. I, as someone who has let himself go into unfortunate depths of AI slop books in the past (I'm in ongoing recovery), have sometimes found myself triggered by stock phrases and sentence patterns endemic to AI "prose" that appear even in books that I have absolutely no belief involved AI in any way. Of course LLMs were trained on real human writing, and so of course occasionally real human writing will include something that LLMs regenerate ad nauseum, and it's only because of exposure to the latter that they stand out when encountered. Like, in Breath of the Dragon, the phrase "unwavering determination" (an earlier generation AI favourite) appeared twice, which stopped me both times, both it fit the tone of the book and the moments in which they appeared. There is zero chance that Fonda Lee writes with AI. But in books like this one, the frequency that such things appear must give one pause in this age. There are long portions in which no such thing occurs. But there are others in which stereotypical AI phrasing recurs often enough to make the knowledgeable reader wonder. It could be that, since this book is written by the hackiest, schlockiest means possible, by one or more ghostwriters that churns this kind of crap out without concern for art or meaning, that this style of phrasing is par for the course. I haven't read anything published under Patterson's name before so I can't personally say. But if the best-case scenario is that your actual writing is frequently highly similar to slop AI output ... maybe your writing is really shitty.
(I previously shared many examples from the text, rife with paragraph-averse strings of sentence fragments, "Not this. Not that. overly dramatic ellipsis THIS! statements and other negative parallelism, nonsensical or extremely lousy simile, etc. but moved these to the comments to leave room to share a couple last things before I hit the GR review character limit).
This review is basically done as of a couple paragraphs ago, but I can't resist sharing a couple more stupid things from this very stupid book. There are many more than I could possibly detail, but these ones stand out in my memory.
One is that MrBeast, superspy, tracks down the people responsible for the games in part by confirming the shipment of pallets the "correct" size/shape for IV lines and other items that are small enough to be packed in any number into boxes of any size, and those boxes stacked in any number and orientation to create a pallet of literally any configuration. This is nonsense "evidence". Coincidentally, following this type of evidence is exactly what another super-smart character suggested in a letter to her French police investigator parents, a letter which she gave to the showrunners because of course they will definitely mail anything from the participants unread and intact. The same goes for taking secret spy calls from MrBeast on phones that the conspirators provided to them, while on property owned and monitored by the conspirators who use impossibly high-tech cameras and microphones constantly. But it's okay because MrBeast, being the superspy he is, says he figured out how to "scramble" the calls! You know, via that very real technology employed in every cheap spy action movie since the 1960s, generic scrambling! Surely the bad guys won't then be able to listen in on every word spoken into the phones they provided themselves if it's scrambled from the other end.
And back to the ending ... seriously, the entire end sequence is so mind-numbingly nonsensical that it's almost worth reading the book for yourself just to experience it. I'm talking multiple villains who are defeated by someone walking in and saying, "I'm in charge now!" and the villains saying, "Damnit, okay," and glumly sauntering off to sulk in the corner. I'm talking a complete lack of clarity added to any of the vague, absurd ideas driving the book from its opening.
From beginning the end, this book is stuffed with lazy ideas, and even lazier, cringe-inducing, sloppy writing, and we can only hope for a just world in which publisher loses most of the absurd amount of money they invested in it and, even better, learns a lesson from the experience.
Want to Read
June 22, 2026I am going to love hate reading the f**k out of this bullshit. it might be the first time where i've read a book with multiple authors and none of them have actually written the book
September 7, 2026
I genuinely think this might be the worst book I’ve read this year and that’s saying something because I’ve read Alchemised.
September 3, 2026
Jimmy D and Jimmy P crossing the generations to serve the worst shit you'll ever read. Just horrendous stuff folks.
Also this is a middle grade book masquerading as an adult thriller. Read 39 Clues or something instead. Christ.
Also this is a middle grade book masquerading as an adult thriller. Read 39 Clues or something instead. Christ.
June 27, 2026
Edit #1 (Sep 1 2026): ITS AI DON’T WASTE YOUR TIME
and it is not just any AI, it’s most probably Meta AI, which is the absolute worst if you’re not familiar.
I said I was going to read this once, but I don’t shit where I eat.
Edit #2 (Sep 5 2026): I read till 43%, and boy let me tell you, this was torture reading. Sure I said I don’t shit where I eat, but I realized I was making accusations that were based on the foundation that I only read the preview, and felt that that was unfair. And I shat where I eat and tortured myself.
I’m not gonna go into detail because Marc has a phenomenal review already, so go like and check his out. He says it better than I can ever say it!
Jimmy once said in a video then later confirmed in an interview that he doesn't even read lol
and now we're getting a book written by him. It's all just a marketing scheme.
am I going to read it? hell yes. Is it going to be worth it? probably not but hell, how bad could it be? (Famous last words)
and it is not just any AI, it’s most probably Meta AI, which is the absolute worst if you’re not familiar.
I said I was going to read this once, but I don’t shit where I eat.
Edit #2 (Sep 5 2026): I read till 43%, and boy let me tell you, this was torture reading. Sure I said I don’t shit where I eat, but I realized I was making accusations that were based on the foundation that I only read the preview, and felt that that was unfair. And I shat where I eat and tortured myself.
I’m not gonna go into detail because Marc has a phenomenal review already, so go like and check his out. He says it better than I can ever say it!
Jimmy once said in a video then later confirmed in an interview that he doesn't even read lol
and now we're getting a book written by him. It's all just a marketing scheme.
am I going to read it? hell yes. Is it going to be worth it? probably not but hell, how bad could it be? (Famous last words)
September 3, 2026
0.5/5
before anyone has anything to say, i pirated this ebook. james patterson and mr beast have seen enough success that i dont want them to even receive one cent from me. i didnt even want to review this and give it any more attention but i decided i need to speak my piece and hopefully this stops someone else from having to read this
as predicted, this was not anywhere NEAR what i would consider a good book.
mr beast "wrote" a self aggrandizing novel where despite his self insert literally him character being literally USELESS he was still somehow a celebrity hero who saved the world.
masterclass of show not tell. constant time skips past what would actually be interesting and a criminal lack of any information that would benefit the story. this book tried so hard to have emotional moments but NONE of them were earned. just an unfortunate and unnecessary read.
i knew this was going to be bad going in but genuinely this was surprisingly bad. i have read acceptable james patterson novels in the past so this was really a shocker. there's no chance in hell mr beast actually wrote any of this and we all know james patterson barely writes his own books. save yourself the time and grab literally any other thriller novel you can find.
before anyone has anything to say, i pirated this ebook. james patterson and mr beast have seen enough success that i dont want them to even receive one cent from me. i didnt even want to review this and give it any more attention but i decided i need to speak my piece and hopefully this stops someone else from having to read this
as predicted, this was not anywhere NEAR what i would consider a good book.
mr beast "wrote" a self aggrandizing novel where despite his self insert literally him character being literally USELESS he was still somehow a celebrity hero who saved the world.
masterclass of show not tell. constant time skips past what would actually be interesting and a criminal lack of any information that would benefit the story. this book tried so hard to have emotional moments but NONE of them were earned. just an unfortunate and unnecessary read.
i knew this was going to be bad going in but genuinely this was surprisingly bad. i have read acceptable james patterson novels in the past so this was really a shocker. there's no chance in hell mr beast actually wrote any of this and we all know james patterson barely writes his own books. save yourself the time and grab literally any other thriller novel you can find.
September 4, 2026
Whoa that was close, something interesting almost happened!
September 9, 2026
“ChatGPT, write me a book that shamelessly rips off Squid Game and kisses Mr. Beast’s ass every 2 pages!”
September 3, 2026
The winner of the most dangerous games wins 1 billion dollars. You couldn’t pay me a billion dollars to read that hot pile of garbage again
September 2, 2026
A bizarre, almost psychedelically incoherent book. Easily finish-able in one session, and I’m not sure it took too much longer to dash out the first draft.
On some level, I find myself respecting the effort to try and make this happen. And if it introduces some 12-year-old to a lifelong relationship with airport bookstore thrillers, worse things have happened.
On some level, I find myself respecting the effort to try and make this happen. And if it introduces some 12-year-old to a lifelong relationship with airport bookstore thrillers, worse things have happened.
Currently Reading
June 19, 2026 °•*⁀➷ pre-ownership .ᐟ
So it came out a few days ago and apparently it's AI slop?? All the negative reviews just make me more excited to read it 🤭
You know it's going to be bad when I'm more excited to write a hate review than actually real the book 😅
°•*⁀➷ pre-release .ᐟ
Is this book going to be good? Probably not.
Do I like MrBeast that much? No.
Am I going to read this cover to cover? Absolutely!
So it came out a few days ago and apparently it's AI slop?? All the negative reviews just make me more excited to read it 🤭
You know it's going to be bad when I'm more excited to write a hate review than actually real the book 😅
°•*⁀➷ pre-release .ᐟ
Is this book going to be good? Probably not.
Do I like MrBeast that much? No.
Am I going to read this cover to cover? Absolutely!
September 9, 2026
Video review in the works. This will be fun.
September 6, 2026
I obviously knew going in this book would be pretty bad, but no one could have prepared me for how genuinely terrible this was. The characters had no personalities besides being “army guy,” “athlete guy,” “14 year-old British guy,” or "girl with dead sister.” But MrBeast portrays HIMSELF as wise, charismatic, selfless, and always one step ahead of everyone.
Also, half of this is literally AI-generated. Every other page has some version of “It’s not ________, it’s ___________.” The plot is nonexistent. At any moment you could skip 20 pages and not miss a single thing. And somehow the last chapter hints that there’s going to be a sequel.
I’m tired.
Also, half of this is literally AI-generated. Every other page has some version of “It’s not ________, it’s ___________.” The plot is nonexistent. At any moment you could skip 20 pages and not miss a single thing. And somehow the last chapter hints that there’s going to be a sequel.
I’m tired.
September 9, 2026
This HAS to be AI, right? It has to be. They’ve not named a ghostwriter for a reason, surely, and I doubt James Patterson or MrBeast even read a draft of this book, let alone wrote a single one of the words in it. Plus there are so many tells - the em-dashes, the ‘not this, not that, BUT THIS’ sentence structures.
I read this because I love a deadly games scenario, not because I wanted to hate it. But it was truly, horrifically awful. Plot points are raised that are never mentioned again. Tipton supposedly has someone he loves being held hostage for leverage over him, but we never find out who it is or any details. We never find out the backstories of any of the many, many boring characters beyond a quick paragraph of introduction before the book starts. ‘Twists’ wrap up a chapter in a way that someone will say ‘he couldn’t believe what happened next’ but then nothing happens!!! This ended so many chapters in the same way that I stopped expecting anything to make sense.
Also, there’s absolutely zero reason these people didn’t quit. Sure, it’s a billion dollars, but a) you’re being lied to at every point so why even trust that it’s real? And b) you’re being shipped into a literal warzone?
The games were barely games. The duel part was the most interesting in the entire boring book, and that’s not saying much.
Also, the AR phobia rooms… you’ve nearly been killed by sharks/whales. You’ve been shipped into an active warzone and had grenades thrown at you. You’ve been in a literal fight to the death. But you’re so scared of spiders, needles or small spaces THAT AREN’T EVEN REAL that you give up on the competition????
The ending is ridiculous, of course, and what’s worse? MrBeast being an actual character. It made me RECOIL with cringe. Of course he’s the bravest hero with mysterious ways, and I can’t think of another reason for him being there other than to get reluctant 12 y/o readers to pick up a book and to feed his own massive ego.
Who was this aimed at? Most of the characters are adults, with adult worries, and a few random teens chucked in. I can’t imagine being interested in this as a kid. But what adult (other than me) is buying a pissing MrBeast book??
I want to burn this book. It’s not even a book, let’s be honest. It’s AI slop bound into 450 pages.
I read this because I love a deadly games scenario, not because I wanted to hate it. But it was truly, horrifically awful. Plot points are raised that are never mentioned again. Tipton supposedly has someone he loves being held hostage for leverage over him, but we never find out who it is or any details. We never find out the backstories of any of the many, many boring characters beyond a quick paragraph of introduction before the book starts. ‘Twists’ wrap up a chapter in a way that someone will say ‘he couldn’t believe what happened next’ but then nothing happens!!! This ended so many chapters in the same way that I stopped expecting anything to make sense.
Also, there’s absolutely zero reason these people didn’t quit. Sure, it’s a billion dollars, but a) you’re being lied to at every point so why even trust that it’s real? And b) you’re being shipped into a literal warzone?
The games were barely games. The duel part was the most interesting in the entire boring book, and that’s not saying much.
Also, the AR phobia rooms… you’ve nearly been killed by sharks/whales. You’ve been shipped into an active warzone and had grenades thrown at you. You’ve been in a literal fight to the death. But you’re so scared of spiders, needles or small spaces THAT AREN’T EVEN REAL that you give up on the competition????
The ending is ridiculous, of course, and what’s worse? MrBeast being an actual character. It made me RECOIL with cringe. Of course he’s the bravest hero with mysterious ways, and I can’t think of another reason for him being there other than to get reluctant 12 y/o readers to pick up a book and to feed his own massive ego.
Who was this aimed at? Most of the characters are adults, with adult worries, and a few random teens chucked in. I can’t imagine being interested in this as a kid. But what adult (other than me) is buying a pissing MrBeast book??
I want to burn this book. It’s not even a book, let’s be honest. It’s AI slop bound into 450 pages.
September 4, 2026
1.5 stars. A bizarre action book with mr beast inserted as the worlds kindest man.
I read worse and it was funny but more of a laughing at the book than with it situation.
at one point a guy is drowning in shark infested waters and then he sees mr beats swim towards him with a smile and he suddenly know that he need to relax and breath.
Then the guy goes ”Jimmie is putting on a brave face… for me”
And one part is smth like
Mr beast: ”if anyone need to be a target… it need to be me”
The others, sadly: ”jimmy…”
Me beast, sadly: ”i know”
I read worse and it was funny but more of a laughing at the book than with it situation.
at one point a guy is drowning in shark infested waters and then he sees mr beats swim towards him with a smile and he suddenly know that he need to relax and breath.
Then the guy goes ”Jimmie is putting on a brave face… for me”
And one part is smth like
Mr beast: ”if anyone need to be a target… it need to be me”
The others, sadly: ”jimmy…”
Me beast, sadly: ”i know”
September 9, 2026
I guess you aren't allowed to give books 0 stars on Goodreads. I had the lowest of expectations, but my curiosity could not contain itself. All this book confirmed to me is the following:
1. MrBeast is sad that he can't kill his Beast Games contestants.
2. MrBeast genuinely doesn't understand the point of Squid Games.
See Mr. Beast has gone on the record saying he doesn't read, (though recently backtracked it into saying he reads Walter Isaacson biographies and self help books.) and that he finds movies "too drawn out". However, he watched Squid Games once and has now seemingly made it his whole personality. So needless to say it was time to do the logical next step after YouTube video clones of it, two terrible seasons of reality tv show and his amusement park. Yes, write, err I mean co-write a book, err I mean co-write an outline and have some unnamed third party pump out a book. (Heavily with AI assistance at time, or so it feels.)
I could spend all day referencing the terrible prose. So. Many. One. Word. Sentences. Or how it repeats itself, while using terrible prose and one word sentences. Did I mention the prose? Anyway you get the point. Now, chucking all the prose aside, to nobody's surprise the story is terrible.
Look, you know it's going downhill when he self inserts himself in chapter 6 (of 125 in this 400pg book). He then proceeds to turn himself into some shark whispering super spy, and constantly has to mention how amazing he is. This book already had enough soulless characters, who are also the most bland stereotypes, we didn't need another content creator. I shit you not there is a guy who makes a podcast to make a difference as opposed to going into Politics.
So who are the other characters? We have Chinese gymnast/diver siblings, German super genius, Tough girl from war torn unnamed eastern European origin (because Mr. Beast is probably still holding out for a Russian government sponsorship), vaguely middle Eastern prince, generic evil Bond Villain, generic American military guy, yuppie NYC coastal elite. Oh wait are you like wtf so many characters? Yup, don't worry almost none of them matter. The ones who matter will get constantly shoved in your face, back stories repeated, just so you remember which one they are. In case you forgot.
What do they all do? Compete in some nebulous games (which are barely games and just outdoor hikes gone wrong), that Mr Beast helped organize, but didn't vet the sponsor as it all came via encrypted messages, peak YouTuber excuse for nearly killing his audience, to become THE ONE. Yes, The One, a person to be given a billion dollars to save the world from climate disaster, world wars, famine etc. etc. Yes a person who can be entertaining in a game of checkers against a computer (sorry spoiler) will be given a billion dollars to save the world! By people who presumably uh have the money and could try to save the world? If money was truly all they needed. Which they keep saying we need a person people will rally behind, but the games are not televised, supposed to be private (or not since they seemingly can tell their loved ones, but sometimes can't as it kicks people out) and have happened a few times before, but I guess failed to find the one.
If all of this sounds like the worst version of Squid Games, Hunger Games, Red Rising etc. you are right. The only original thing about this book is Mr. Beast is in it...
The book ends in a fashion that makes no sense. A bunch of twists (if you can call them that) happen. The bad guy basically goes "fine I stop" and they crown a better The One. Its unclear if they get the money, no discussion on how they plan to save the world, tell the world this person is The One, no "how do we explain all the people these games randomly killed" etc. Just here's one more twist and lets set up for potentially the worst sequel ever.
I will say I can now say I have truly read the worst book of my life. I also unfortunately understand Mr Beast more. While I don't think he wrote a word, he definitely was involved in the outline. It reeks of his podcast/YouTube bro approach to philanthropy. The world will be saved by good rich guys, not the bad rich guys in the book. Ignoring the fact that time and time again Mr. Beast in a book, where he is the hero, nudges misfortune people on to continue in a set of games that is killing them, because he's close to cracking the code. He might have somehow made himself a villain in his own book, by simply showing a disregard for his own actions that set the events of the novel in motion. Saving people isn't the point, it only matters if it's cool and over the top.
1. MrBeast is sad that he can't kill his Beast Games contestants.
2. MrBeast genuinely doesn't understand the point of Squid Games.
See Mr. Beast has gone on the record saying he doesn't read, (though recently backtracked it into saying he reads Walter Isaacson biographies and self help books.) and that he finds movies "too drawn out". However, he watched Squid Games once and has now seemingly made it his whole personality. So needless to say it was time to do the logical next step after YouTube video clones of it, two terrible seasons of reality tv show and his amusement park. Yes, write, err I mean co-write a book, err I mean co-write an outline and have some unnamed third party pump out a book. (Heavily with AI assistance at time, or so it feels.)
I could spend all day referencing the terrible prose. So. Many. One. Word. Sentences. Or how it repeats itself, while using terrible prose and one word sentences. Did I mention the prose? Anyway you get the point. Now, chucking all the prose aside, to nobody's surprise the story is terrible.
Look, you know it's going downhill when he self inserts himself in chapter 6 (of 125 in this 400pg book). He then proceeds to turn himself into some shark whispering super spy, and constantly has to mention how amazing he is. This book already had enough soulless characters, who are also the most bland stereotypes, we didn't need another content creator. I shit you not there is a guy who makes a podcast to make a difference as opposed to going into Politics.
So who are the other characters? We have Chinese gymnast/diver siblings, German super genius, Tough girl from war torn unnamed eastern European origin (because Mr. Beast is probably still holding out for a Russian government sponsorship), vaguely middle Eastern prince, generic evil Bond Villain, generic American military guy, yuppie NYC coastal elite. Oh wait are you like wtf so many characters? Yup, don't worry almost none of them matter. The ones who matter will get constantly shoved in your face, back stories repeated, just so you remember which one they are. In case you forgot.
What do they all do? Compete in some nebulous games (which are barely games and just outdoor hikes gone wrong), that Mr Beast helped organize, but didn't vet the sponsor as it all came via encrypted messages, peak YouTuber excuse for nearly killing his audience, to become THE ONE. Yes, The One, a person to be given a billion dollars to save the world from climate disaster, world wars, famine etc. etc. Yes a person who can be entertaining in a game of checkers against a computer (sorry spoiler) will be given a billion dollars to save the world! By people who presumably uh have the money and could try to save the world? If money was truly all they needed. Which they keep saying we need a person people will rally behind, but the games are not televised, supposed to be private (or not since they seemingly can tell their loved ones, but sometimes can't as it kicks people out) and have happened a few times before, but I guess failed to find the one.
If all of this sounds like the worst version of Squid Games, Hunger Games, Red Rising etc. you are right. The only original thing about this book is Mr. Beast is in it...
The book ends in a fashion that makes no sense. A bunch of twists (if you can call them that) happen. The bad guy basically goes "fine I stop" and they crown a better The One. Its unclear if they get the money, no discussion on how they plan to save the world, tell the world this person is The One, no "how do we explain all the people these games randomly killed" etc. Just here's one more twist and lets set up for potentially the worst sequel ever.
I will say I can now say I have truly read the worst book of my life. I also unfortunately understand Mr Beast more. While I don't think he wrote a word, he definitely was involved in the outline. It reeks of his podcast/YouTube bro approach to philanthropy. The world will be saved by good rich guys, not the bad rich guys in the book. Ignoring the fact that time and time again Mr. Beast in a book, where he is the hero, nudges misfortune people on to continue in a set of games that is killing them, because he's close to cracking the code. He might have somehow made himself a villain in his own book, by simply showing a disregard for his own actions that set the events of the novel in motion. Saving people isn't the point, it only matters if it's cool and over the top.
Want to Read
June 22, 2026Mr. Beast is writing a novel? God we're so cooked. I will genuinely read this just for a laugh.
September 2, 2026
damn. money cannot buy talent to write a book hahahahahha
September 9, 2026
To be clear this is not a five star book, closer to 3.5 BUT there are so many haters giving 1 stars just because they don’t like the authors, and i hate that shit lol
Anyway the book was fine! I think it was purposefully written as an easy read as to make the IRL challenges accessible to a younger crowd because of the co-op with MrBeast. I actually did not see the twist coming, but also there were some explanations i didn’t quite follow and i think that was a problem with the writing- not me lol
Anyway the book was fine! I think it was purposefully written as an easy read as to make the IRL challenges accessible to a younger crowd because of the co-op with MrBeast. I actually did not see the twist coming, but also there were some explanations i didn’t quite follow and i think that was a problem with the writing- not me lol
September 6, 2026
So off my normal reads. But these last few new James Patterson have been nothing but stunning. This was kinda like survivor on steroids. There were lots of contestants but they made it simple by just showing the ones the book really focused on. Wyatt was hands down my fav. Especially with all the character growth. Just don’t get too attached to people 😂 please sequel
September 7, 2026
predictably, this is probably the worst book i’ve ever read.
“read” is maybe not the most accurate term; i skipped the list of characters (not part of a story, to me) and skimmed through some of the earlier parts, but i probably read about 85% of this. not because it was good, mind you. i read it to try figure out what the book is even about. i still don’t know! i read the book, finished the ending, and still have absolutely no clue why a) anyone would sign up for this, b) how it’s allowed to happen (straight up murder is occurring!) and c) what the purpose of the games are. like, what, you need to test the mettle of people before you give them one billion dollars? okay. stupid, but okay. it’s your money, do what you want. but then you don’t even want to see who Actually would win, and instead you have a board of directors trying to skew the system. like. just give them the money straight! stop making them kill people (who deserve so much better than death) to prove they’ll do what you want with the one billion. just use it yourself if you’re that picky?
speaking of, why doesn’t mr beast (the version in-universe. yeah, this book is essentially commissioned self-insert fanfic that reads as extremely ai generated in both prose and structure. mr beast is IN this story. but as his real name, jimmy) just USE one billion dollars to help save the world? instead of putting his name behind a shady death games that have the nebulous aim of Finding The One (definition unclear) to give them one billion dollars as long as they don’t die along the way.
also the identity plot twist is really dumb. completely reads like one of those ai generated twitter story threads with a name that’s presented like it’s impactful when it means nothing to the reader. it doesn’t help that the most likeable (to whatever extent you can use this description for this book) characters died, and the ones left neither carry a narrative coherently (tbf, this might not have been helped even with the full cast still in play; it’s that underbaked) nor grieve particularly convincingly. just an extremely Extremely flat story with an ambiguous premise that remains incoherent right to the end.
“read” is maybe not the most accurate term; i skipped the list of characters (not part of a story, to me) and skimmed through some of the earlier parts, but i probably read about 85% of this. not because it was good, mind you. i read it to try figure out what the book is even about. i still don’t know! i read the book, finished the ending, and still have absolutely no clue why a) anyone would sign up for this, b) how it’s allowed to happen (straight up murder is occurring!) and c) what the purpose of the games are. like, what, you need to test the mettle of people before you give them one billion dollars? okay. stupid, but okay. it’s your money, do what you want. but then you don’t even want to see who Actually would win, and instead you have a board of directors trying to skew the system. like. just give them the money straight! stop making them kill people (who deserve so much better than death) to prove they’ll do what you want with the one billion. just use it yourself if you’re that picky?
speaking of, why doesn’t mr beast (the version in-universe. yeah, this book is essentially commissioned self-insert fanfic that reads as extremely ai generated in both prose and structure. mr beast is IN this story. but as his real name, jimmy) just USE one billion dollars to help save the world? instead of putting his name behind a shady death games that have the nebulous aim of Finding The One (definition unclear) to give them one billion dollars as long as they don’t die along the way.
also the identity plot twist is really dumb. completely reads like one of those ai generated twitter story threads with a name that’s presented like it’s impactful when it means nothing to the reader. it doesn’t help that the most likeable (to whatever extent you can use this description for this book) characters died, and the ones left neither carry a narrative coherently (tbf, this might not have been helped even with the full cast still in play; it’s that underbaked) nor grieve particularly convincingly. just an extremely Extremely flat story with an ambiguous premise that remains incoherent right to the end.
September 16, 2026
This was purely a screening for me. My middle-school
aged kids wanted to read it after seeing MrBeast talk about it during an episode and I decided to see if it was appropriate for them. It was appropriate for a middle schooler. But it was also so so so bad.
This is my first James Patterson, I think. I don’t remember any others. From what I know of James Patterson, he used to be a popular thriller writer and leveraged that success to become a stamp machine, putting his name on any ghostwritten or AI written slop as long as the check clears. And my kids have loved MrBeast for years. This is one of those books where neither of them should’ve put their stamp on it. It’s very very bad. The writing, storyline, characters, and pretty much everything else is so bad that it kind of made my brain hurt. If I hadn’t been screening it I definitely wouldn’t have gone beyond the first few chapters.
All that being said, it was clearly written for middle-schoolers. And middle-schoolers might love it. It’s sad that that’s where we’re at, but if it gets them reading more then so be it. I am going to make my oldest read the Old Man and the Sea before I let him read this, just to try to even the scales
aged kids wanted to read it after seeing MrBeast talk about it during an episode and I decided to see if it was appropriate for them. It was appropriate for a middle schooler. But it was also so so so bad.
This is my first James Patterson, I think. I don’t remember any others. From what I know of James Patterson, he used to be a popular thriller writer and leveraged that success to become a stamp machine, putting his name on any ghostwritten or AI written slop as long as the check clears. And my kids have loved MrBeast for years. This is one of those books where neither of them should’ve put their stamp on it. It’s very very bad. The writing, storyline, characters, and pretty much everything else is so bad that it kind of made my brain hurt. If I hadn’t been screening it I definitely wouldn’t have gone beyond the first few chapters.
All that being said, it was clearly written for middle-schoolers. And middle-schoolers might love it. It’s sad that that’s where we’re at, but if it gets them reading more then so be it. I am going to make my oldest read the Old Man and the Sea before I let him read this, just to try to even the scales
September 5, 2026
Atrocious, obviously.
September 10, 2026
This was so bad I had to Google whether it was a joke. Unfortunately, Google said it is not. 😬😬
September 9, 2026
I cannot find the right words to articulate how sad this book made me. I've been a massive James Patterson fan for many years, dating back to my early teens, when I read Suzanne's Diary for Nicholas in 2001.
My 11-year-old is a huge MrBeast fan, so naturally I've done plenty of research and watched a lot of his content, and I was pleasantly surprised by how generous and creative he really is. I looked into his philanthropic work and came away very impressed.
So, as an avid reader, when I saw the announcement for a new book created by these two gentlemen, I was ecstatic. I counted down the days and picked up TWO copies on release day so my wife and I could read it in tandem.
To say the story was appalling does not properly convey just how bad this book is. I do not make this accusation lightly, because I am well aware of the damage it can do to "regular" authors, but I would bet my entire bank account that this book was written entirely by generative AI. While it was littered with the classic giveaways we all know to look for now, the more obvious sign of its non-human origin is simply how convoluted and fragmented the book is. The plot, the dialogue, the transitions between chapters, the time jumps — it was all so unapologetically illogical. I kept thinking to myself that it read like an alien from another planet trying to write like a human. It's clear an attempt was made... but it's disjointed and... odd.
Whether it was written fully by AI, assembled from AI-generated chapters, or handed to the worst ghostwriter in history, this book does NOT reflect the quality of writing I've come to expect from James Patterson or, for that matter, from HarperCollins. The grammatical errors were extensive, but even worse was the repetition of phrases throughout the entire book: "The water drips from his face. He's scared as the water drips down his face." I'm not convinced a human ever read this book in full before it hit shelves.
To me, that is unbelievably disappointing, because no matter who you are or what genres you enjoy, this is a bad book. For these two men to put out this junk under a Big Five name can only be a cash grab. It genuinely saddens me to see this quality of storytelling coming from such giants.
Please save yourself the money and time: don't buy it, don't borrow it, don't even glance at this book again.
My 11-year-old is a huge MrBeast fan, so naturally I've done plenty of research and watched a lot of his content, and I was pleasantly surprised by how generous and creative he really is. I looked into his philanthropic work and came away very impressed.
So, as an avid reader, when I saw the announcement for a new book created by these two gentlemen, I was ecstatic. I counted down the days and picked up TWO copies on release day so my wife and I could read it in tandem.
To say the story was appalling does not properly convey just how bad this book is. I do not make this accusation lightly, because I am well aware of the damage it can do to "regular" authors, but I would bet my entire bank account that this book was written entirely by generative AI. While it was littered with the classic giveaways we all know to look for now, the more obvious sign of its non-human origin is simply how convoluted and fragmented the book is. The plot, the dialogue, the transitions between chapters, the time jumps — it was all so unapologetically illogical. I kept thinking to myself that it read like an alien from another planet trying to write like a human. It's clear an attempt was made... but it's disjointed and... odd.
Whether it was written fully by AI, assembled from AI-generated chapters, or handed to the worst ghostwriter in history, this book does NOT reflect the quality of writing I've come to expect from James Patterson or, for that matter, from HarperCollins. The grammatical errors were extensive, but even worse was the repetition of phrases throughout the entire book: "The water drips from his face. He's scared as the water drips down his face." I'm not convinced a human ever read this book in full before it hit shelves.
To me, that is unbelievably disappointing, because no matter who you are or what genres you enjoy, this is a bad book. For these two men to put out this junk under a Big Five name can only be a cash grab. It genuinely saddens me to see this quality of storytelling coming from such giants.
Please save yourself the money and time: don't buy it, don't borrow it, don't even glance at this book again.
September 5, 2026
Wow! I am disappointed in the AI computer that wrote this and tried to market it as a book. There are so many flaws with the plot. All of the elements are there in theory, but the transition and buy in are not even in the same realm. The books tries to build tension through compassion. However I found myself waiting for them to all parish. Then out of no where a random new name would appear for a character that AI cut out during the editing process but left them in chapter 90. Then spoiler here, Mr Breast has a fantasy self image of himself as the kindest, most trustworthy person on the planet. Out of no where a chapter is dedicated to him having eye contact with another character establishing complete trust. It is like MrBeast cloned his two or three good reviews and forced AI to put him in the book. That is level if character depth. Save yourself some time. I did check the book out from the library and it had a terrible weed odor. If you cant resist not reading it maybe give that a try - it cant make it any worse.
September 12, 2026
Literature is dead
September 8, 2026
????????? actually what was that. and why did i think it would be "interesting to try"
September 2, 2026
Just finished it! It’s like Beast games mixed with Squid games. If you like both it’s a win.
September 7, 2026
.75/5
Now I went into this with low expectations but this went way worse than I have even thought possible.
The majority of the book was probably at .5 star but the ending was a 1.5 star so that brings the score up a bit.
The prose is so bad. I have read Web serials written by teenagers that are much better written. I know there's a lot of debate on who the actual author of this book is but it's so poorly written that I have to think there's a chance that Jimmy actually wrote a large portion of it. With the trash the prose what is even worse is the dialogue. The dialogue is insanely cringe and very unrealistic and almost unreadable.
I think the second worst part of this book is that it's mainly a character driven book where you should care about the characters who are playing the games. But the character work is so bad that you end up not caring about any of the characters and they're also all somewhat similar not necessarily in their background but in their achievements before getting to the game.
The saddest part about the whole thing is that the games weren't even cooler interesting you would have thought that in a series like this the games would at least be cool. If the games had more strategy that would have been much better. Or if they at least work different from each other the vast majority of the games were just complete endurance based games.
The two most important parts about a story like this is the characters and the games and it fell short on both of them.
The plot is essentially a recycled plot of squid games. So decent plot but I've seen it done a few times before much better and the twists were very obvious.
I also find it hilarious that Jimmy put himself in the book as one of the main characters and made himself extremely badass where he saved the day multiple times.
The thing I kept thinking is if I was a not well read 14 year old. How would I rate this. And I think that if that was the case I would have enjoyed it quite a bit more and it probably would have been a three to four star book.
The book is also not insanely darker graphic so can certainly a big given to a young teenager.
Easy Contender for worst book of the year and probably in the top 10 worst books I've read in the past 6 years
P.S.
The book is set up to have sequels. It looks like Beast is going to try to create his own universe.
Now I went into this with low expectations but this went way worse than I have even thought possible.
The majority of the book was probably at .5 star but the ending was a 1.5 star so that brings the score up a bit.
The prose is so bad. I have read Web serials written by teenagers that are much better written. I know there's a lot of debate on who the actual author of this book is but it's so poorly written that I have to think there's a chance that Jimmy actually wrote a large portion of it. With the trash the prose what is even worse is the dialogue. The dialogue is insanely cringe and very unrealistic and almost unreadable.
I think the second worst part of this book is that it's mainly a character driven book where you should care about the characters who are playing the games. But the character work is so bad that you end up not caring about any of the characters and they're also all somewhat similar not necessarily in their background but in their achievements before getting to the game.
The saddest part about the whole thing is that the games weren't even cooler interesting you would have thought that in a series like this the games would at least be cool. If the games had more strategy that would have been much better. Or if they at least work different from each other the vast majority of the games were just complete endurance based games.
The two most important parts about a story like this is the characters and the games and it fell short on both of them.
The plot is essentially a recycled plot of squid games. So decent plot but I've seen it done a few times before much better and the twists were very obvious.
I also find it hilarious that Jimmy put himself in the book as one of the main characters and made himself extremely badass where he saved the day multiple times.
The thing I kept thinking is if I was a not well read 14 year old. How would I rate this. And I think that if that was the case I would have enjoyed it quite a bit more and it probably would have been a three to four star book.
The book is also not insanely darker graphic so can certainly a big given to a young teenager.
Easy Contender for worst book of the year and probably in the top 10 worst books I've read in the past 6 years
P.S.
The book is set up to have sequels. It looks like Beast is going to try to create his own universe.
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