The last thing video game nerds need is a reinforcement of a regressive view of women as objects instead of individuals
A video game fanatic turns his world upside down.
Bryan Biggins is a gamer. The white middle schooler is obsessed with “Sovereign of Darkness,” a computer game with a secret level that constantly eludes him. But one night, Bryan finally gets all the elements lined up properly to enter it, and—poof!—he wakes up the next day living life as if it were a video game. His bike ride to school becomes a “Mario Kart”–esque race for survival. His gym class turns into a “Call of Duty”–like shoot’em-up. And his teachers become sages and dungeon masters. It’s an imaginative premise that undercuts itself. Bryan’s best friend, Latino Oz Guzman, seems mostly to be on hand for comic relief, but he fares better than the object of Bryan’s affection, gorgeous, brown-skinned Jessica Alcorn, who has all the character development of Zelda. The novel appropriately lifts many elements from video games, but a flat female character who’s just a prize for the male hero should have been left on the table. That’s what the book is ultimately about: Bryan has to level up and win Jess’ heart to complete the game, but Jess is barely in the book, which is instead dominated by video game allegories for middle school troubles.
The last thing video game nerds need is a reinforcement of a regressive view of women as objects instead of individuals . (Fantasy. 8-12)Pub Date: Sept. 20, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4814-4704-1
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Aladdin
Review Posted Online: May 31, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2016
Highly amusing.
The incompetent parents from The Willoughbys (2008) find themselves thawed by global warming.
Henry and Frances haven’t aged since the accident that buried them in snow and froze them for 30 years in the Swiss Alps. Their Rip van Winkle–ish return is archly comedic, with the pair, a medical miracle, realizing (at last!) how much they’ve lost and how baffled they are now. Meanwhile, their eldest son, Tim, is grown and in charge of his adoptive father’s candy empire, now threatened with destitution by a congressional ban on candy (opposed by an unnamed Bernie Sanders). He is father to 11-year-old Richie, who employs ad-speak whenever he talks about his newest toys, like a remote-controlled car (“The iconic Lamborghini bull adorns the hubcaps and hood”). But Richie envies Winston Poore, the very poor boy next door, who has a toy car carved for him by his itinerant encyclopedia-salesman father. Winston and his sister, Winifred, plan to earn money for essentials by offering their services as companions to lonely Richie while their mother dabbles, spectacularly unsuccessfully, in running a B&B. Lowry’s exaggerated characters and breezy, unlikely plot are highly entertaining. She offers humorous commentary both via footnotes advising readers of odd facts related to the narrative and via Henry and Frances’ reentry challenges. The threads of the story, with various tales of parents gone missing, fortunes lost or never found, and good luck in the end, are gathered most satisfactorily and warmheartedly.
Highly amusing. (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Sept. 29, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-358-42389-8
Page Count: 176
Publisher: HMH Books
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2020
Elegiac and hopeful.
In the wake of his brother’s death, a black boy struggles with grief and coming out.
When Kingston’s white friend Sandy came out to him a few months ago, Kingston’s older brother, Khalid, told him to stay away from Sandy because King wouldn’t want people to think he was gay too. And then Khalid died. Their mom wants him to see someone, but King refuses because he knows he has nothing to say except that he is sad. Although his dad says boys don’t cry, King can’t stop the tears from coming every time he thinks of Khalid. But King knows that his brother is not really gone: Khalid “shed his skin like a snake” and is now a dragonfly. Complicating King’s grief over the sudden loss of his brother is the fear that Khalid would not still love him if he knew the truth—King is gay. Every day after school King walks to the bayou searching for Khalid, wondering if he can ever share who he is. When Sandy goes missing, King must come to terms with the true cost of shame. The tale is set in Louisiana, and Callender’s vivid descriptions of the rural area King calls home are magical; readers will feel the heat and the sweat, see the trees and the moss. This quiet novel movingly addresses toxic masculinity, homophobia in the black community—especially related to men—fear, and memory.
Elegiac and hopeful. (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Feb. 4, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-338-12933-5
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2019
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