Not quite what I was expecting and not quite as good as I was hoping. Despite alluding to the contrary in the summary, we the reader know what is real and what isn't from page 1. I feel like if the author had left that a mystery until later then this novel would have been a bit more compelling, but even knowing what was going on it was still an interesting read. Just not an amazing one.

I didn't really like any of the characters, not even the main character, Zoo and the story dragged a little about 60% of the way through. I feel like it suffered from having maybe too many characters to focus on and it became more of a "this person did this and that person did that" narrative and less about what people were feeling or thinking. The survivors in the show weren't even referred to by name most of the time being called "cheerleader boy" and "biology" and "waitress" etc so the few times their actual names were used it became confusing to figure out who was being referred to.

I found a few plot points problematic too. A lot of the things that Zoo notices (or doesn't) I feel like you'd have to be stupid not to realise what was real and what wasn't - even with her limited eyesight. And there didn't really seem to be any point to introducing the young boy to the story. I guess he moved the plot along a little, but not in a way that couldn't have happened without him.

That said, the story kept me reading, so it wasn't all bad. It just could have been better.