Reviews with content warning for Racism - Game Changer

This book is seriously challenging. It would have been a good resistance book club pick. It’s like butterfly wings and the changes that seem small change the entire world. It made me think and reflect on the past, gender, racism, and future.

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alouette's review

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funny hopeful reflective fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

At our best, we only see a glimpse of the universal gearwork, and even then, we don't understand what we see. Some people find that demoralizing- but to me it's comforting. Because if all of existence was something a human mind could comprehend, what a sad, pathetic universe this would be.

as a queer, afab, person of colour (who can't do sports!), i'm basically everything that Ash is not. so none of the revelations he faced in the course of this novel were particularly eye-opening to me. however, i think the idea was important, and Neal Shusterman's writing style is very easy to read- it flows very, very well. the absurdist magical realism and brain-boggling descriptions were so fun and enjoyable; i loved the twists that it took, especially near the start when all we knew of what was going to happen was "blue stop signs"! a lot of the dialogue made me laugh, as well, and a lot of other lines were just good phrasing of what's happening in the world right now. overall, this wasn't some life-changing book for me, but a read that made me happy anyways because of its accessibility and good intentions.

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mira123's review

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adventurous mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Ich bin ein großer Fan von Neal Shustermans Büchern. "Scythe" hat mich total gefesselt und die "Vollendet"-Reihe erst recht. Deswegen war für mich auch klar, dass ich auch sein neues Buch "Game Changer" lesen will.

In welcher Welt würdet ihr Leben wollen, wenn ihr zwischen allen möglichen Paralleluniversen wählen könntet? Ich hätte da schon so ein paar Wünsche, die ich mir gerne erfüllen würde... Blöd nur, dass das in diesem Buch nicht so funktioniert. Ash landet nämlich völlig unvorbereitet in dieser schrägen Position als Mittelpunkt des Universums. Das bedeutet konkret: Er kann zwischen den Paralleluniversen wechseln. Was zu Beginn für ihn zwar eine verwirrende Situation ist, aber keine Katastrophe für die Welt bedeutet, führt bald zur Wiedereinführung der Rassentrennung. Ihr seht: Die Situation ist recht schnell eskaliert. Und irgendwie muss er jetzt dafür sorgen, dass er wieder zurück in seine Welt kommt oder vielleicht sogar in eine bessere. Blöd nur, dass ihm keiner erklären kann, was genau er dafür machen muss...

Bis jetzt hört sich das einfach an wie ein normaler Fantasy-Thriller, oder? Allerdings wäre das kein Buch von Neal Shusterman, wenn es nicht gleichzeitig um sehr ernste Themen ginge. Es geht hier um Privilegien, die man sich oft gar nicht bewusst ist, wenn man sie hat. Ich meine: Ich denke kaum darüber nach, dass ich weiß bin. Meine Hautfarbe spielt in meinem Leben keine Rolle. Gleichzeitig aber doch, denn sie bewahrt mich vor Problemen und Diskriminierung. Und Ash ist da ziemlich ähnlich. In der Theorie weiß er, dass er privilegiert ist. Aber so richtig bewusst wird ihm das erst im Laufe der Handlung.

Ich muss euch leider sagen, dass ich den Schreibstil in diesem Buch schwächer fand als in den anderen Büchern von Neal Shusterman. Bei den anderen Büchern war ich absolut begeistert vom Stil und konnte das sie gar nicht mehr aus der Hand legen. Hier war der Stil schon okay, aber halt nicht mehr. Vielleicht liegt das an der Übersetzung, ich hab bis jetzt aber keines der Bücher im Original gelesen und kann das deswegen auch nicht wirklich beurteilen.

Mein Fazit? Spannend, aber leider etwas schwächer als die anderen Bücher Shustermanns.

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elna17a9a's review

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adventurous informative mysterious reflective fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.75

I love love love Neal Shusterman, and he's really been hitting it out of the park recently, so when I saw he had a new one out I immediately ordered it and took it home to read.

And I'm... disappointed. Let down. I know Shusterman was very earnest about the issues he explores in the book (racism, sexism, homophobia, abusive relationships...I'm sure there's more I missed) and he tries to take as much time as he can (as many times as he can) to have Ash say that he's not the center of the narrative and how he can't understand because he's not been there, it's just all too much, and badly packaged.

I don't need Ash giving me foreshadowing every second sentence, I don't need constant "but how wrong I would be" asides, and I definitely don't need another white man going on a soul journey to finally realize how bad other people have it and decide to do something about it. The whole tone was so meta and flippant that it detracted from the seriousness of events. Something about the writing was cringe and dated and felt like it was trying too hard to be "young".

I appreciate the Shusterman has a lot of strong opinions about these issues, and that he has Ash say many (many many) times that he was ignorant and that ignoring the issues is the same as perpetuating them, but he needed an editor. He tries to address so much in this book, but a) he can't do it all with the same quality which leads to b)

the fact that I literally rolled my eyes and took a little break from the book when the big change in this new universe was that Ash was now and girl AND dating the abusive asshole he's spent the whole book trying to get his friend to break up with

At a certain point, it's almost offensive - but I can see the audience for this. There are young white boys out there who don't pay attention to issues of race or gender and think that willful ignorance makes them good people. This book might be the one to open their eyes.

Not that I'm necessarily praising it. There's a lot of things that rubbed me the wrong way (

: Ash being the literal center of the universe, Ash being crazy celebrated for coming out as gay (which read a little false to me in 2021 but who knows), the terrible handling of abusive relationships (yes, it's very very hard for the victim to see what situation they're in, but Ash basically just hand waves it away as "oh, yeah, OK, now I see that he's not all bad wow people sure are complicated" AND he only cares because he's trying to get into Katie's pants the whole time)

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kbergsten's review

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adventurous challenging dark emotional inspiring mysterious reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Excellent definitely recommend!!

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sarahkv's review

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emotional hopeful reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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