The Stranger Game

The smallest in my to-read pile was Peter Gadol’s The Stranger Game, which I got from The Teatime Bookshop, a book subscription service delivering 2 crime novels a month along with hot chocolates and biscuits. 

Gadol has taken the concept of social media platforms like Twitter and Instagram – in which people share content and potentially develop a following – and pushed it into a literal, in-person sense. An unnamed American sun-kissed coastal city holds host to The Stranger Game, a game in which people literally follow strangers around, in almost trendified stalking. As the trend catches on people go missing – presumed players of the game, either followers, or ‘stagers’ – people who act out arguments or even assaults to gain a following. 

Narrator Rebecca, some kind of home improvement guru although her occupation isn’t clearly defined, learns her ex Ezra has disappeared. The largely disinterested and overworked Police tell her he’s probably taking part in said game. To track him down, she plays the game herself. 

I personally had problems getting into this story as it involves the protagonists making up stories about the people they follow, jumping to conclusions, making false narratives in their own head, for their own enjoyment. I do this myself, about people I see around, without consciously thinking, and it causes me personal massive anxiety. So already the story didn’t sit right with me. 

Added to this, there’s a plethora of ‘this-wouldn’t-happen’ moments, odd observations and overly formal, clunky dialogue. 

Rebecca, cut loose from her relationship, becomes some kind of lonely stalker as she uncovers more mysteries of the game. 

Some characters claim they ‘work’ as stagers to facilitate the game. Who pays them? This is never defined. 

As followers are treated as one homogenous lot, hovering on the fringes of people’s lives, the main characters fall into that trap too, becoming almost androgynous, like they’d been plucked straight out of the search bar of Instagram. Dull and conforming popularity contestants, and ironically people you end up not really caring for or even being able to tell apart. 

A short book, to my relief, but one that took a long time to finish.