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A review by nooralshanti
In Real Life by Cory Doctorow, Jen Wang
3.0
Well, that was quick. In Real Life is a graphic novel about a high school girl in the US who starts playing an online game and runs into two different characters, one who convinces her to kill "gold farmers" who collect items and sell them to people for real money - the second character is one of these gold farmers, a poor teen who does this as his actual job in China. It's a simple and uncomplicated tale that touches on some pretty complex real world issues in a simplified way with kids being the target audience. If you look at it from that perspective it's not bad. And the art is wonderful.
I was a little bit worried in the middle section when the main character, Anda, started trying to help the Chinese kid unionize and fight for better healthcare and started researching and planning and giving him ideas. It seemed a little white-saviourish and I was worried. Luckily, the story is a bit more realistic than I feared: her plans didn't go well and he ended up getting fired and being made an example of. Other gold farmers employed at the same place then took up the fight and fought for their rights and when Anda went and asked them how she could help they clearly told her that she knew nothing about them and couldn't help them. She insisted she just wanted to help so they gave her a mission that she completed with the help of her guild members - sending messages for them so that they couldn't be targeted by the employer.
So in the end the Chinese gold farmers unionized on their own and even her friend ended up sorting his own life out on his own and finding another job and planning his future/education. He didn't need her help. I thought that was presented well enough in the story at the end. I can see why some other reviewers were annoyed by this whole depiction, but in my opinion since they had the Chinese character clearly say to Anda that she knew nothing about them and so therefore her help made things worse this was at least not too bad. It certainly could have been much better, though.
If the story had focused more on Anda stopping the bullies who were killing the farmers, getting them to leave them alone and to see that what they were doing by killing them for real money was bad and was making the situation worse then it would have been much more powerful. If she had focused, in other words, on her part and her side in it and on questioning her own involvement and how it impacted others then it could have been much better.
Overall, though, it's a good quick read with beautiful illustrations. It shows a character expanding her own understanding of the world and understanding a little bit better how different the lives of other players in online games can be from hers. Don't expect a super complex adult handling of the issues, even teens might find it a bit simplistic, but for younger players of online games it could be interesting.
So in the end the Chinese gold farmers unionized on their own and even her friend ended up sorting his own life out on his own and finding another job and planning his future/education. He didn't need her help. I thought that was presented well enough in the story at the end. I can see why some other reviewers were annoyed by this whole depiction, but in my opinion since they had the Chinese character clearly say to Anda that she knew nothing about them and so therefore her help made things worse this was at least not too bad. It certainly could have been much better, though.
If the story had focused more on Anda stopping the bullies who were killing the farmers, getting them to leave them alone and to see that what they were doing by killing them for real money was bad and was making the situation worse then it would have been much more powerful. If she had focused, in other words, on her part and her side in it and on questioning her own involvement and how it impacted others then it could have been much better.
Overall, though, it's a good quick read with beautiful illustrations. It shows a character expanding her own understanding of the world and understanding a little bit better how different the lives of other players in online games can be from hers. Don't expect a super complex adult handling of the issues, even teens might find it a bit simplistic, but for younger players of online games it could be interesting.