Game On: 15 Stories of Wins, Losses, and Everything in Between
– Laura Silverman (ed.) –
Viking Books for Young Readers
Published 18 January 2022
♥♥♥/♥
Game on is a collection of 15 short stories that span a range of genres that all mention, in some way or form, competition.
I was expecting a sports fiction anthology. This is not a collection of sports fiction short stories. Instead, this is a collection of short stories that span a range of genres, from horror and paranormal to realistic and mystery. Actually, there are only a few stories where sport is mentioned at all and only one where it was the focus (admittedly, that was my favourite story, so maybe that tells you something about my reaction to this collection). The rest use games or competition as a backdrop to the main story of racial discrimination, revenge, disappearing people and houses, or going after the guy you love. There are mentions of some board games, but the game theme is actually pretty loose. The first story is about a game of spin the bottle at a party.
Maybe it was because I am not a big reader of some of the genres included in this collection, such as horror, that I didn’t enjoy all the stories. There were also a few stories with no or little resolution or explanation, just a story of noticed disappearances or fragmented and disjointed writing, making it even harder to connect to the characters in such a quick time span. Writing short stories is not easy and needs to be done well to capture the reader.
Other stories in this collection were fantastic. I enjoyed the thrilling revenge story, was saddened by the story of police brutality and racism and delighted by the story of a first date at a role play card game. And, as I mentioned above, I loved the cheerleading sport story.
This YA anthology sets out to be inclusive, and it certainly does that. Most of the romantic stories are LGBT+. There is a range of ethnic diversities represented and our characters range from high school age to just starting college.
Looking for a short story collect that defies a genre and celebrates all form of competition? Then you’ll enjoy Game On.
The publishers provided an advanced readers copy of this book for reviewing purposes. All opinions are my own.
More information
Category: Young adult fiction.
Genre: Short Stories
Themes: Romance, games, competition, friendship, roleplay, sport, LGBT, relationships.
Reading age guide: Ages 12 and up.
Advisory: Coarse language, f*** (9), sh**(18), ass**** (2), pi** (3), di** (1). Vague sexual references. Mature themes, racism, police brutality, death, self harm.
Representation: Heterosexual and homosexual relationships, LGBT characters.
Published: 18 January 2022 by Viking Books for Young Readers
Format: Hardcover, ebook. 448 pages.
ISBN: 9780593352786
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