Gamer Girl
By Mari Mancusi
Dutton Children’s Books
248 pages
Reviewed by Matt Monte
Gamer Girl is like a new candy flavor, new and sweet but doesn’t last long. The story is about Madeline “Maddy” Starr, a teenage girl who moved from the big city to a small suburb in New England after her parents divorced. Add to the fact it’s halfway through the school year, and she has to live with her mother in her grandmother’s house, far from her friends; and on the first day of school, through a series of misfortunes, is named “Freak Girl” by the popular group, which she nicknames the Haters (and she has a crush on one of them), her life is not rockin’. If this sounds familiar, it’s only because this setup has been done many times in many romance stories. After reading the first 4 chapters or so, you’ll be able to predict how the story will generally end.
What makes this story stand out (and separates it from other romances), is that Maddy is into manga and video games. She gets through school drawing, and when she’s home, she play’s the MMO Fields of Fantasy, where she is a totally different person, even having an online romance with another player. The pop culture references are small, but make the story more realistic, mentioning animes/mangas like Inuyasha, .hack//sign, My Chemical Romance, and even Voltron. The only problem with this story, though, is that it’s short, took me 2 days to finish it, and thus, only Maddy fully develops, the rest of the characters don’t change, or change slightly (save for one character), and there’s no real reason. In one part, Maddy’s sister is described as a Hater, but later, she stands by Maddy’s side with no real reason. Also, the manga and MMO details were good, but could have been developed more. This book gets a 3.5/5, the story is short and predictable, but has enough ideas to make it somewhat original (maybe it would’ve been better as a manga).
