Gamer Girl
Grade 7–10—Maddy feels as though her life just keeps getting worse and worse. Because her parents have divorced, she has had to leave her friends in Boston and move with her mother and younger sister to live with Grandma in New Hampshire. She has developed a mad crush on handsome, unattainable Chad, whose friends refer to her as Freak Girl. Maddy's only consolations are her beloved manga drawings and the online game Fields of Fantasy, which her father gave her for her birthday. As Maddy becomes more involved with the game, she creates a new identity for herself as a magical Elfin maiden named Allora, and meets the handsome knight Sir Leo online. Eventually Maddy realizes that she cannot continue to use gaming as a refuge from her real-life problems, and she finds the courage to confront both the clique at her school and her neglectful father. And even more importantly, she begins reaching out to potential friends by starting a manga club and enteringGamer Girlin a prestigious writing contest. This is a fun, quick but predictable story. Readers will guess the identity of Sir Leo long before Maddy does, and her grandmother is stereotypically fussy and interfering. However, the manga and gaming themes will appeal to many teen girls, including reluctant readers.—Kathleen E. Gruver, Burlington County Library, Westampton, NJCopyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.