Do you need to read another glowing review of this book? Probably not, but I adored it so I wrote one anyway. 

First off, I am not a gamer, but I did grow up with Oregon Trail, so there were some nice nostalgic moments there. But you don’t have to know or care about video games to enjoy this novel. Video games play a major role, yes, but really this is the story of Sam and Sadie’s friendship. The more I think about it, the more impressed I am with Zevin’s ability to provide so much context and information about video game design without info dumping. She seamlessly weaves it into the story, which is hard to do. 

Sam and Sadie (particularly Sadie, IMO) are frustrating. They hold grudges, stay silent when they should talk to each other, try to hide their struggles, assume that no one else could possibly hurt the way they do, and often assume the worst about each other. But real people are frustrating and do all of those things. While I sometimes wanted to shake some sense into them, their actions never felt unbelievable, particularly given how they both had some serious interruptions to their social development as kids. 

The shifting perspective was essential in not viewing either Sam or Sadie as the good guy or the bad guy. Like in life, they were both. But the absolute best part was the section titled The NPC. This was a shift in perspective that could have been a disaster, but was executed so perfectly, was so emotionally resonant, that I’m still thinking about it, days later. 

Anyway, the hype is real. If you’ve somehow missed this one, here’s your sign to pick it up!

CW: cancer, car accident, death of a parent, medical content, gun violence, sexism, racism, suicide, homophobia