Very interesting premise, I looked forward to reading this but became quite frustrated with the over-writing and a slightly confusing plot. It's not a bad book but it could be so much better. ( )

Myths are often used to tell the story of a rite of passage. Using the Greek lore of the Minotaur, this story recounts a present-day hero's journey as he transcends the veil between worlds. Using the instrument that most young adults (for whom the book is targeted) are well-familiar with, the tool to breech the barrier into the world of legend is via a more-real-than-virtual-reality computer game -- in which the gamer will find himself physically in a world that is no longer made up of bits and bytes, but is very real indeed. Not much different from the, more often than not, make-believe reality, that we sometimes conjure up in our labyrinthian minds, in which the very real beasts of worry, anger, jealousy, greed, etc. roam free. ( )

The Shadow of the minotaur by Alan Gibbons, 2008, 272 pages. By Oscar Vigna 10°B.
Phoenix is a teenager that will go to other place to live, because his father find out a new job in a town, Phoenix´s father, is a videogames maker. When Phoenix went to the school, he don´t have new friends, he didn´t het along with somebody. When the days pass, Phoenix was been bullied in the school, and he feel up to say to his dad that he didn´t like his new school. When Phoenix will say this to his father, he was impressed, for the new videogame about virtual reality and his father say him, that he can play it, so Phoenix was look forward for play this new game.

The game was about Perseus and he has to pass through many places for find Medusa and kill she. When Phoenix play this game during the next days, he realice that the game was weird, because Phoenix can´t know differenciate the real world with the game´s world. Anyway he kill Medusa, but there was more, a new mission was showed an was to kill the Minotaur. This mission was even better than the other.

The days pass and he realice that the game was extremely real, so, it has some difficulties, but he was now on the Minotaur´s terrain, he has to killed and the game was over, but it was more important his health, than kill a Minotaur, so he said to his father the problems that has the game and his father, believe to him and turn off the game forever, because it was very unusual and unhealthy that the game, produces that type of addiction in the people.
When Phoenix go to the school the next day, the boys and girls stop to bother Phoenix, because he was defending as if he was in the game, now he do friends and he was happy in the town.

New words.

Hooves (noun): the horny covering of the end of the foot in the horse, deer, and all other ungulate mammals. It had a swinging tail and mud-splattered hooves. Page 8
Knickers (noun): an undergarment for women covering the lower trunk and sometimes the thighs and having separate legs or leg-holes. Hey surprise, surprise, if it isn´t Free Knickers. Page 48
Baddy(noun): a bad character in a story, film, etc. an opponent of the hero. You know, baddy jumps up, hero kills baddy. Page 52
Sort:(verb): to put (something) into working order. I´m sure soon be sorted out. Page 54
Beat: (verb) to punish by striking; flog. Beats me. Page 55 ( )

An awesome read: I really enjoyed the way that it morphed from a computer-game-comes-alive story into a proper greek myth adventure story, without becoming uncool and without you really noticing. Lots of cool detail about greek myths, plenty of menace and some sweet adventuring ( )