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GAME ON by Laura Silverman

GAME ON

15 Stories of Wins, Losses, and Everything in Between

edited by Laura Silverman

Pub Date: Jan. 18th, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-593-35278-6
Publisher: Viking

Games of many sorts lead to triumph, tragedy, angst, joy, hookups, and breakups for teens in tales set both on and off the playing field.

Prefaced by content warnings for four entries, these previously unpublished stories by a stellar cast of YA contributors feature casts notably diverse in racial and sexual identity in settings ranging from a football field and an amusement park to a house abandoned for decades in the wake of a bloody mass murder. The disquieting stories are well outnumbered by more upbeat ones, though. Bisexual Mexican American Maddi, who lives with an anxiety disorder, struggles to keep her hot college roommate, Olivia, from finding out that she plays quidditch in Anna Meriano’s “Just Tell Them You Play Soccer.” While Benji, in Shaun David Hutchinson’s steamy “Spite and Malice,” finds a competitive card game gives him the nerve to take a chance with neighbor Dan, giddy Fei (Anglicized as “Faye”) teams up with her crush, Pierce, who presents White, to solve multilingual puzzles in “Mystery Hunt” by Gloria Chao. Other young players pair off or form groups of various combinations and grow, grapple with racism, deal with grief, and even expose a killer. Readers will find this collection fresh, thought-provoking, and wise in the ways of adolescent coming-of-age.

A few chills but mostly thrills and likely to broaden anyone’s notion of what winning is all about.

(author bios) (Anthology. 13-18)