Alter Ego by Julia Riew and Brad Riew
Kokila – Penguin Random House | May 4th, 2026
From the New York Times bestselling sibling duo behind The Last Tiger comes Alter Ego, a genre-bending thriller about a young woman with a chronic illness who wakes up inside her favorite sci-fi series and must decide whether to follow the story she knows––or write her own.
ABOUT
High school drop-out Wilma Oh has missed out on what were supposed to be the most critical years of her life, due to a severe chronic illness. Now, she wants nothing more than to escape the confines of her bedroom…
…until one day, she miraculously wakes up inside her favorite hit sci-fi series, The Reality Show: a brutal, high-stakes world in which competitors must fight to the death on a televised game show in outer space.
Trapped in the body of Kira, the series’ hero–but with none of Kira’s training or survival skills–Wilma’s only saving grace is her encyclopedic knowledge of this deadly universe. To survive, she’ll have to replicate Kira’s journey.
But can Wilma bring herself to kill? What happens when her actions cause the plot to diverge? Or when she starts to develop feelings for the wrong character, the antagonist of the series? Can Wilma bring herself to let go of the story she was so attached to, the story she thought was meant to be?
