Status Rises - a sequel to Vincent Robert Annunziato's cyber thriller

Commies and game addicts!

Last year I reviewed a marvelous YA cyber thriller by Vincent Robert Annunziato Status, a novel of an addictive game fueled by social egos. Today I am posting a review for Status Rises, a sinister sequel. 

Synopsis
The game too dangerous to stop playing returns in this intense sequel to the original "Status The Game." 

Since Status shut down last year, life has just about returned to normal for the town of Madison. Bob Brookes and his former students have struggled to move on, but Status has other ideas. Odd things pop up around town. Old symbols, people who look out of place and a new version of the game threaten the fragile peace of Madison. Amongst it all somewhere, somehow, someone has gone to great lengths to draw Bob and his alliance back into the game. 

Rumors surface about Timmy, the high schooler who took his life at the end of last year’s finale. Some say he is still alive and he concocted an elaborate hoax to fool everyone about his death. Others say there are prophecies that once fulfilled will allow him to rise from the dead and enact his revenge on those that defeated him. Either way Bob and his crew have to be wary. 

Will the team reunite and take on this new menace? Or will they ignore it all in hopes it will go away? Of course, there's only one way to find out.

Stay Strong! Stay Loyal!

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My thoughts
Like cancer, it returns. The addictive game that had ravaged the town of Madison the year before, having turned students and faculty into zombies. It seems that with the main perpetrators either dead or institutionalized, things should be returning to normal? Not so fast. Too early to let the guard down. You can shut down the game, but you cannot shut down the human weaknesses and vices that fuel the game - insecurity, vanity, hunger for power and revenge. Timmy's bereaved mother reinvents herself as an avenger, determined to make the survivors of Status pay for her son's death. Once again the line between human beings and their embellished virtual analogs blurs.