SOLVED. One of those books where there's a virtual video game world. Spoilers ahead. [s]

[Laura]

Alrighty, I'm here because I know very little about this book and what little I do know might be a spoiler. My friend from a few years ago was telling me about a book that he said was similar to Sword Art Online "but good." Unfortunately one of the only concrete things I can remember about it was a plot twist. A lot of people ended up downloading themselves into the game world permanently and at some point the servers get shut down. When this happens everyone freaks out because they think everyone who was in the game without a living body must be dead now but when the servers come back a few weeks later everyone is still alive.

And with such very little information to go on a google search is almost impossible so I'm not sure where else to turn. (I moved away since then). Halp maybe? :/

[Megan]

This might not be it, but there is a book called epic with a sequel called saga. My memory is a little fuzzy on some of the details but it might either one might be what you are looking for because they have different main characters.

[Gillian]

If it is either of those books, it would be Saga. In Epic there's no shutdown of servers. Just a political revolution. In Saga, the main character does end up in a second computer world, where he meets people who live entirely within the computer, and he thinks they are either "not real people" or that they have another life "outside" the computer. He kills one of them (who threatens him) and is devastated when he discovers that he murdered them "for real".

[Kris]

Epic and Saga by Conor Kostick - mentioned by Megan and Gillian

[Laura]

Alrighty! Thank you!