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A review by elna17a9a
Game Changer by Neal Shusterman
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)
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)
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 (
Content Warnings
Graphic: Homophobia and Racism