GAMER GIRL Book Review
Gamer Girl: Light Read but a Fun One.
Title:Gamer Girl
Author:Mari Mancusi
Publisher:Speak, an Imprint of Penguin
Publish Date:November 2008
I will admit outright, I enjoy reading Manga, I work on dojinshi (fan made comics) with a friend, and I do own a whole two (or maybe three) book shelves full of Japanese comics. So saying that I was rather pleased when I looked at the back blurb of the book and saw it was about a young woman who was fan of Manga I knew I had to pick it up. It’s rare to see a story written about a fan of anime, manga, comics or games that also happens to be a girl as well. Doing a look over Amazon and online it’s not that easy to find stories where the lead is female and into anything that has to do with video gaming, anime, or manga, even though this is a large following with females. I’m pondering why this might be, and wonder if there’s some worry with writers that see anime, manga, games as competition. If this is so maybe it’s time for the YA community to embrace females and males that are geeky in this way. They may be surprised to find people that read comics don’t just read them for the pretty pictures. This book came to me courtesy of my younger sister while we were looking at Borders books.
Summary from Good Reads: After Maddy's parents divorce, she's stuck starting over at a new high school. Friendless and nicknamed Freak Girl, Manga-loving artist Maddy finds refuge in the interactive online game Fields of Fantasy. In that virtual world, she reinvents herself as Allora, a gorgeous elfin alter ego, and meets a true friend in Sir Leo. Maddy can't hide behind Allora forever, especially as a real-life crush begins edging in on her budding virtual romance. But would anyone pick the real Maddy, gamer girl and Manga freak, over the fantasy?
This fresh, geeky/cool novel includes online chats and exciting gaming, and features Maddy's Mangastyle artwork.
Summary thoughts: So I went into reading this with a curious and open mind, not sure of what I would find here. At first I have to admit I didn’t enjoy Maddy’s personality. She was angry at her mother about leaving her father, and admittedly her mother doesn’t help matters by not explaining to her child why they are divorcing, but that doesn’t excuse all the temper tantrums she seems to have later after things are going better for her. We’re treated also to a rather, not so unusual, view of suburban teenagers in small quiet America vs. big city teens. The one thing that I should say here is that this has a very familiar feeling to me, having lived in such a place. Smaller towns do tend to have less diversification, and in some cases many teens follow a mold to fit in with the populace there.
Maddy’s Grandmother does not help her. While she is a caring woman, there are quirks to her that remind me of some of my older relatives. She set’s Maddy up in an outfit that, for the life of me I swear made me physically cringe inside when I read the discription, causes a huge stir with the “school Royalty” Lucy, Chelsea, Billy and Chad. Interestingly, if not for the actions of the Grandmother there probably wouldn’t be as much teasing for this girl as there was. In short, after a rude introduction via Billy who teases her about her shirt (and most likely would have dropped it at a later time), Maddy’s Grandmother recognizes him as a boy that she baby sat. Her reaction upon seeing little Billy all grown up is to:
Upon her sixteenth Birthday Maddy receives a gift from her father, a game called Fields of Fantasy which is pretty much an allusion to a mix of World of War Craft, and quite possibly Gaia’s MMO. Maddy soon learns that the game may have played a large role in her parents’ divorce as she notices her father choosing to go off with his online friends rather than hang out with her. It’s during this time that she meets a player by the name of SirLeo who saves her in-game avatar, Allora, a drop-dead-gorgeous elf mage, and helps her level up. During this time Maddy feels surer about herself via her online persona and this helps her gain some confidence in school. SirLeo also becomes her budding love interest, along with the crush on Chad, although she sometimes feels a bit sad about the fact that he may live far away from her. She also wonders if he likes her for her personality or if he’s into her due to Allora.
Maddy’s growing up in the story is interesting as it takes place over several months of time, and actually shows her changing opinion on some of the students. However this is not shown to her mother, and although Maddy admits her anger and guilt about saying mean things to her mother, she still says them, which does give her some flaws. Her interaction with the cast of characters grows too, as she learns to open up to people. The first one being her teacher Miss Reilly, a young English teacher that really does have an interest in manga and anime, who helps her create a manga club that, to the surprise of Maddy, draws attention from all over the school and not just people like herself.
During the course of the story Maddy gets into trouble for fighting with Billy and is given a detention. It is during this time that we learn more about Chad and his liking of Maddy’s artwork. He points out a Manga graphic novel contest for Maddy to enter and eventually comes to join the Manga club bringing along drama students that also are interested in it. All these events plus actions happening with her father and mother come to a head in the final chapters where I actually felt dread. I give the author credit in creating that feeling in me and causing me to recall similar feelings for events in my past.
All and all the plot eventually resolves itself, and I was pleased at the ending and the way Maddy reacted to things.
Plot: So is the plot clichéd, in a way yes. The whole story reads like something you may see in a Manga itself, which is probably what the author, Ms Mancusi, was trying to go for. The story starts out a bit typical. Girl with some problems gets shipped away from home and life that she is used to only to find that she has been enrolled in a school that is the exact opposite of what she is used to. As per the norm, she gets off the wrong impression with the school royalty; however I was a bit delighted to see as to how that was different then your typical story. Maddy’s Grandmother is the main cause, and not Maddy herself. Being dressed in her Grandmother’s clothing, since the woman would not let her go to school without changing, and she attracts the attention of one Billy Henderson. In doing so this gets her Grandmother to notice and give Billy a hug, which results in Billy calling her a Freak for how she is dressed that day.
The plot weaves along well, and isn’t as simple as it may appear. Maddy’s torment resonated with me due to similar experiences when I moved away from my home, and I was pleased to see a take on a teacher that wasn’t your typical after school teacher. It was interesting to see how the pieces of the divorcee came about, and we can see what Maddy can’t at times about her father. It’s both ironic and rather heart breaking when we see her Maddy’s father give her a gift allowing them to have something in common, only to have the father choose to go off with his friends and later ignore his younger daughter, when it suits his need to be online.
We also get to see some basic concepts of an online world, and I give the writer credit for at least getting a lot of the basic idea of how a MMO works. The game becomes an easy way to deal with life for Maddy, and she starts to spend more time online with a boy named SirLeo. What’s interesting and again I give the author credit, she addresses the dangers but at the same time she shows that there are nice people online as well. The internet can be scary but it can be friendly too.
The only point that I found a bit off putting in the plot was the contest itself that Maddy entered. True I’m sure that it’s based on the Rising Stars of Manga competition that was held by Tokyo pop, but it just came off a bit hard to buy that a 15 year old could win such a contest. Then again there are artist in Japan that are younger then Maddy is that are working on Mangas. The ending did surprise me some I must admit, though I was not surprised by one act, the other shocked me and sickened me some. As a writer and sometimes artist the pain that Maddy went through near the end of the book really hit me. Ms Mancusi managed to show that Billy and his friends were not just your usual bullies and the school acted in the right way about this crime that they commit. Does the book end happily, yes, but there is something nice in the fact that Maddy didn’t magically get a perfect ending. She was going to go and do something being fully prepared for rejection and her friends pull through in the end. Which was a plus for me, and as I said this is a lighter read then some other novels one can pick up.
The Set up : Is it believable? Kinda. On the one hand Maddy’s family having to move in with her grandmother is believable. It’s easy to see her mother choosing to do so, but selling all her husband’s items seemed a bit extreme to me. Also the idea that her Grandmother would force her into such an awful outfit seemed to be a bit odd, but I went with it since it’s something that I do know people would do.
Meeting the Haters and dealing with them is a realistic aspect of life that I’ve had the unfortunate privilege of dealing with personally, so that much I can say comes off as realistic. The parts that seem the most unbelievable are near the end, not the climax, but rather the very ending of the book. Firstly, the contest itself that Maddy enters, while I know that the Tokyo Pop Rising Star’s of Manga was a big deal when it came out I don’t know how well it’s holding up now as I haven’t heard much about it.
Something felt off to me seeing her, Maddy, create the Manga in question. One of the first things you’re told to do when creating any sort of graphic novel is to create the script, edit it, then create the actual manga. The fact that she made no copies, there was no talk of forms, what the rules were, etc., it made me wonder exactly just how much about contests Ms. Mancusi read up on before deciding on this. I think this is about the only part of the whole story I find a bit difficult to believe. The fact that she meets Chad on the same game isn’t such a surprise as there are a lot of servers, and only some can be accessed by players at different times. It doesn’t surprise me a bit that people that Maddy has made acquaintances of happen to be on the same server as she is.
Characters: This is where I know that some people will disagree with me, but I happen to like the Characters and the supporting cast. Let me take them character by character and explain why, starting with the main three: Maddy, Billy, and Chad.
At first I have to admit I disliked Maddy, her attitude about her grandmother, the move, and the situation felt very selfish and whiny. I suppose after a break up she had a legitimate gripe to be had, seeing as her mother did not tell her much about the break up in the first place. Maddy’s description of the people going to her school are, “Aberzombies” those that dress up in the same sort of clothing as one another. What’s interesting to me is that while on the one hand she notes that she’s being judged for her own looks, she in turn is judging others, something that she comes to terms with when the Manga club comes into play. Her attitude towards her mother seemed a bit harsh, fighting with her a lot and causing strain between them. The loathing she starts off with slowly dissolves as she is able to be more herself on line, actually flirting and she observes something very true.
A man in a beige tunic winked at me. A woman in chain mail waved hello. I stopped realizing that all of the characters on-screen were being controlled by real-life people, logged on from their own computers in their own homes. I watched in amazement for a moment as the various elves, halfling, and humans bustled about town, going about their business as if this were their everyday existence.
Who were these people? Where did they come from? And what possessed them to take on a character and play this game? Were they board? Lonely? Did they seek adventure? New friends? Or were they just trying to escape real life for a few hours?
Maddy’s notice of the world around her, this observation was what finally got me into the character. That she did see the gaming community as it was. True there are still some judgments going on, but more or less the world that is in game allows people to act in ways they can’t in real life at times. The plus from this is that Maddy starts viewing people with less worry about fitting in and more about being herself, after some helpful hints from her teacher. By the end I liked Maddy well enough; she was a nice person, a decent girl and seemed like any average sixteen year old girl.
As for her love interest Chad, to be honest I preferred his SirLeo character over him. I hope that was the author’s intent, trying to pull him out of being well, a whipping boy to Billy. Chad Murray, described as model gorgeous, almost too perfect at points. He’s interesting in that he admits to being a wimp and wants to break out of it. It’s in his SirLeo form that we see the better side of him. He’s witty, into drama, and seems pretty casual, not arrogant about his looks or his personality. Like Maddy his family is broken up, but for different reasons. Chad isn’t your classic prince charming but he does serve for an interesting opposite to Maddy’s attitude. Since the story comes from Maddy’s view point we can’t really see what Chad’s thinking. The things that are clear though are that he likes her and he’s a decent person who wants to do the right thing but feels loyalty to his old friends.
Billy’s another case; he feels a bit one dimensional, one of those sort of villains you see in teen movies. Billy’s main issue with Maddy seems to be her Grandmother’s comment. Because of this she becomes his target, since he was made to look un-cool. For the most part he’s there as a jerk, throwing tantrums to showcase his stupidity and mean spiritedness. By the time he pulls off his last act before the curtain I was rather shocked at his display of insensitivity and cruelty. The fact that he can get others, Lucy and Chelsea, to follow him in his actions at least speaks of some power. But we never get to see that, which would have made for an interesting showdown if Billy and Maddy could have shown some different actions. Either Billy being nice to her Grandmother (maybe he started her on that collection of unicorns, or liked them) or showing a different side to him other than being a jerk. Billy’s actions kind of fell flat for me through most of the book up until the ending where he goes all out to cause Maddy pain.
As for the supporting cast, there were some interesting characters and developments. Black Raven, the goth girl who liked vampire manga (interesting that she liked Chibi Vampire which I thought was a nice move for the author since it showed that even someone that was gothic liked romantic stories), becomes a friend to Maddy after showing up during the first meeting. Matt, the boy that looked like Buddy Holly, turns out to be one of the people that Maddy trusts, and Ms Reilly her teacher who actually seemed to be a bit of an Otaku herself. Each of these characters plays a small but important part in the story.
Black Raven becomes the first girlfriend Maddy makes after having trouble with her friends from Boston. She acts as a comfort to her and also helps her gain confidence to talk to Chad in the middle of the story. Though not fully developed Blackie does give a friendly vibe and an understanding ear. She’s a welcome character in her own charming way. Miss Reilly and Matt are far more developed as far as characters go. Dealing with her own issues of bullying and making friends from being an “Army Brat” Ms. Reilly is the “Cool teacher” that acts as if she’s from an afterschool special but is actually invested in her students. She’s warm, caring and direct with her comments to Maddy. It’s a nice change of pace to see a teacher that actually knows about Anime/Manga and Games, rather than your typical older woman who needs to learn about how teens act. She’s more of an older sister to Maddy, but at the same time she keeps her personal and professional attitude in check at the right time.
Matt by far is my favorite supporting character. Sarcastic and introspective, Matt acts as Maddy’s first acquaintance and as we learn quickly becomes the object of her worry towards the middle half of the book. He’s seen by Maddy as someone she can trust, and one that get’s Maddy to look outside of Manga to western comics as well. He’s also the person that get’s her to realize that there’s other fans of manga at the school. What I liked about this character is that we get to know more about his personality and that he’s not your stereotypical hipster. A key factor about this character creates tension for Maddy near the end regarding her finding out about SirLeo since, although he has no idea that he does it, and it’s not till near the end that it is resolved. The fun thing about Matt though is that, while he is there for some comedic purposes, there’s no one that laughs at him and the laughs that he creates are more along the lines of chuckles then giant laughs.
Maddy’s family deserves their own section in this review. Her Mother, Father, sister Emily, and Grandmother play a role in shaping the story as it goes. Her Mother comes off as tired, unsure, and I wish there was more development with them, but considering the story is short, only 23 chapters with more focus on Maddy and her father, there really wasn’t a whole lot to go on here with her Mother. From what I can tell her mother is a good person, a loving Mother but has a hard time dealing with her ex-husband and is tired a lot of the time working two jobs to help support her two daughters. Maddy’s Grandmother is more developed but not a character I enjoy. She seems a bit selfish and very stereotypical of the “Old Lady that doesn’t get things” mold which I didn’t like at all. I have a elderly grandmother I live with, and even she gets the idea that you don’t were clothing such as what Maddy’s Grandmother shoved her in. The Grandmother did get better for a while, and then there was the incident with her “Babies” -which are her glass unicorns -that made me sort of motion her off to the side in my head.
Emily, Maddy’s eight year old sister, starts off as a brat, but readers will soon realize that she’s not really as bratty as she claims to be. Dealing with her family’s breaking apart, and her sister’s whiney attitude puts this girl in a bad mood. Like all sisters they fight, and like all sisters they make up. What makes Emily stick in my mind is that, while she is selfish she also seems to care about things, wanting, like her mother, for her father and sister to come play and do things with her. It’s only later that Maddy sees this, and it’s thanks to Emily that Maddy learns about her father’s computer addiction.
Rock-star-Bob, aka: Maddy’s dad. What can I say about this guy? Maddy sums it up with the word that he can be a bastard. He can be a good father, but at times he comes off as selfish and very computer addicted. Maddy starts off feeling closer to her father but soon comes to realize that the closeness she feels isn’t really all there when he goes off to be with his friends online rather than hanging out with her. Bob’s actions make Maddy see how she’s been acting towards her mother and help them repair their relationship. Eventually Maddy confronts her father, which is an important moment for her in the book, but the cheap shot is that we don’t know if her father learned his lesson.
Things I liked, and Things I did not like: Points in the story that I enjoyed were the fact that the author did do research into Manga, listing actual names of publications, and naming characters from ones that can be found stateside, and also trying to at least explain a bit about the concepts. Another thing I did like was that there was at least some work in knowing how the in chat works, and the way the actions are shown on-screen in an MMORPG. We also get to see the dangers of breaking the rules of levels, where new players can go, some lingo that gamers use, which was actually nice to see. I also liked the mention of the series Dramacon and it’s author, Svetlana Chmakova. It’s nice to see recognition for original English-language Manga and its writers.
There were problems that made me cringe a little. While there was talk of the game in the story we didn’t see a lot of it outside of a few scenes of online messaging between SirLeo and Allora. The story focused more on Anime and Manga, name dropping as it went along. While that’s great it would have been nice to have seen why she liked the shows, (although I must admit I was a bit surprised to have Ms. Reilly refer to Voltron as “kind of an anime Transformers”-um what? in the story), and maybe a list of where you can purchase the anime and manga that were named in the book.
Another thing, and I’m repeating this here, was the way Maddy created her graphic novel. There was no talk on how she did it other than saying she did it in a sketch book. I know for fact that you need certain types of papers, ink, paint and other items to draw and create a manuscript to submit for any contest or even to create manga. So that annoyed me because it made making a manga easy but it’s not.
Over all : Over all I enjoyed this story, I plan on reading a few other books by this author. We’ll see how she holds up over the long run. A quick pace makes the story go by fast and keeps you reading to the end. Some problems with under developed characters in supporting cast and antagonist, this is mostly due to first person point of view. Lead character can hold your attention, though she may annoy some people with attitude. Romance plays a part in this, and more of focus on over all basic online gaming, plus is that readers get some information on certain manga. Would have liked a list of the manga/anime mentioned and who publishes it.
Rating: Enjoyed it - Very good book, one that I would read again when the mood strikes me.
Title:Gamer Girl
Author:Mari Mancusi
Publisher:Speak, an Imprint of Penguin
Publish Date:November 2008
I will admit outright, I enjoy reading Manga, I work on dojinshi (fan made comics) with a friend, and I do own a whole two (or maybe three) book shelves full of Japanese comics. So saying that I was rather pleased when I looked at the back blurb of the book and saw it was about a young woman who was fan of Manga I knew I had to pick it up. It’s rare to see a story written about a fan of anime, manga, comics or games that also happens to be a girl as well. Doing a look over Amazon and online it’s not that easy to find stories where the lead is female and into anything that has to do with video gaming, anime, or manga, even though this is a large following with females. I’m pondering why this might be, and wonder if there’s some worry with writers that see anime, manga, games as competition. If this is so maybe it’s time for the YA community to embrace females and males that are geeky in this way. They may be surprised to find people that read comics don’t just read them for the pretty pictures. This book came to me courtesy of my younger sister while we were looking at Borders books.
Summary from Good Reads: After Maddy's parents divorce, she's stuck starting over at a new high school. Friendless and nicknamed Freak Girl, Manga-loving artist Maddy finds refuge in the interactive online game Fields of Fantasy. In that virtual world, she reinvents herself as Allora, a gorgeous elfin alter ego, and meets a true friend in Sir Leo. Maddy can't hide behind Allora forever, especially as a real-life crush begins edging in on her budding virtual romance. But would anyone pick the real Maddy, gamer girl and Manga freak, over the fantasy?
This fresh, geeky/cool novel includes online chats and exciting gaming, and features Maddy's Mangastyle artwork.
Summary thoughts: So I went into reading this with a curious and open mind, not sure of what I would find here. At first I have to admit I didn’t enjoy Maddy’s personality. She was angry at her mother about leaving her father, and admittedly her mother doesn’t help matters by not explaining to her child why they are divorcing, but that doesn’t excuse all the temper tantrums she seems to have later after things are going better for her. We’re treated also to a rather, not so unusual, view of suburban teenagers in small quiet America vs. big city teens. The one thing that I should say here is that this has a very familiar feeling to me, having lived in such a place. Smaller towns do tend to have less diversification, and in some cases many teens follow a mold to fit in with the populace there.
Maddy’s Grandmother does not help her. While she is a caring woman, there are quirks to her that remind me of some of my older relatives. She set’s Maddy up in an outfit that, for the life of me I swear made me physically cringe inside when I read the discription, causes a huge stir with the “school Royalty” Lucy, Chelsea, Billy and Chad. Interestingly, if not for the actions of the Grandmother there probably wouldn’t be as much teasing for this girl as there was. In short, after a rude introduction via Billy who teases her about her shirt (and most likely would have dropped it at a later time), Maddy’s Grandmother recognizes him as a boy that she baby sat. Her reaction upon seeing little Billy all grown up is to:
- a. Rush over and hug him.
- b.Remind him of the fact that he wet the bed when he was younger.
Upon her sixteenth Birthday Maddy receives a gift from her father, a game called Fields of Fantasy which is pretty much an allusion to a mix of World of War Craft, and quite possibly Gaia’s MMO. Maddy soon learns that the game may have played a large role in her parents’ divorce as she notices her father choosing to go off with his online friends rather than hang out with her. It’s during this time that she meets a player by the name of SirLeo who saves her in-game avatar, Allora, a drop-dead-gorgeous elf mage, and helps her level up. During this time Maddy feels surer about herself via her online persona and this helps her gain some confidence in school. SirLeo also becomes her budding love interest, along with the crush on Chad, although she sometimes feels a bit sad about the fact that he may live far away from her. She also wonders if he likes her for her personality or if he’s into her due to Allora.
Maddy’s growing up in the story is interesting as it takes place over several months of time, and actually shows her changing opinion on some of the students. However this is not shown to her mother, and although Maddy admits her anger and guilt about saying mean things to her mother, she still says them, which does give her some flaws. Her interaction with the cast of characters grows too, as she learns to open up to people. The first one being her teacher Miss Reilly, a young English teacher that really does have an interest in manga and anime, who helps her create a manga club that, to the surprise of Maddy, draws attention from all over the school and not just people like herself.
During the course of the story Maddy gets into trouble for fighting with Billy and is given a detention. It is during this time that we learn more about Chad and his liking of Maddy’s artwork. He points out a Manga graphic novel contest for Maddy to enter and eventually comes to join the Manga club bringing along drama students that also are interested in it. All these events plus actions happening with her father and mother come to a head in the final chapters where I actually felt dread. I give the author credit in creating that feeling in me and causing me to recall similar feelings for events in my past.
All and all the plot eventually resolves itself, and I was pleased at the ending and the way Maddy reacted to things.
Plot: So is the plot clichéd, in a way yes. The whole story reads like something you may see in a Manga itself, which is probably what the author, Ms Mancusi, was trying to go for. The story starts out a bit typical. Girl with some problems gets shipped away from home and life that she is used to only to find that she has been enrolled in a school that is the exact opposite of what she is used to. As per the norm, she gets off the wrong impression with the school royalty; however I was a bit delighted to see as to how that was different then your typical story. Maddy’s Grandmother is the main cause, and not Maddy herself. Being dressed in her Grandmother’s clothing, since the woman would not let her go to school without changing, and she attracts the attention of one Billy Henderson. In doing so this gets her Grandmother to notice and give Billy a hug, which results in Billy calling her a Freak for how she is dressed that day.
The plot weaves along well, and isn’t as simple as it may appear. Maddy’s torment resonated with me due to similar experiences when I moved away from my home, and I was pleased to see a take on a teacher that wasn’t your typical after school teacher. It was interesting to see how the pieces of the divorcee came about, and we can see what Maddy can’t at times about her father. It’s both ironic and rather heart breaking when we see her Maddy’s father give her a gift allowing them to have something in common, only to have the father choose to go off with his friends and later ignore his younger daughter, when it suits his need to be online.
We also get to see some basic concepts of an online world, and I give the writer credit for at least getting a lot of the basic idea of how a MMO works. The game becomes an easy way to deal with life for Maddy, and she starts to spend more time online with a boy named SirLeo. What’s interesting and again I give the author credit, she addresses the dangers but at the same time she shows that there are nice people online as well. The internet can be scary but it can be friendly too.
The only point that I found a bit off putting in the plot was the contest itself that Maddy entered. True I’m sure that it’s based on the Rising Stars of Manga competition that was held by Tokyo pop, but it just came off a bit hard to buy that a 15 year old could win such a contest. Then again there are artist in Japan that are younger then Maddy is that are working on Mangas. The ending did surprise me some I must admit, though I was not surprised by one act, the other shocked me and sickened me some. As a writer and sometimes artist the pain that Maddy went through near the end of the book really hit me. Ms Mancusi managed to show that Billy and his friends were not just your usual bullies and the school acted in the right way about this crime that they commit. Does the book end happily, yes, but there is something nice in the fact that Maddy didn’t magically get a perfect ending. She was going to go and do something being fully prepared for rejection and her friends pull through in the end. Which was a plus for me, and as I said this is a lighter read then some other novels one can pick up.
The Set up : Is it believable? Kinda. On the one hand Maddy’s family having to move in with her grandmother is believable. It’s easy to see her mother choosing to do so, but selling all her husband’s items seemed a bit extreme to me. Also the idea that her Grandmother would force her into such an awful outfit seemed to be a bit odd, but I went with it since it’s something that I do know people would do.
Meeting the Haters and dealing with them is a realistic aspect of life that I’ve had the unfortunate privilege of dealing with personally, so that much I can say comes off as realistic. The parts that seem the most unbelievable are near the end, not the climax, but rather the very ending of the book. Firstly, the contest itself that Maddy enters, while I know that the Tokyo Pop Rising Star’s of Manga was a big deal when it came out I don’t know how well it’s holding up now as I haven’t heard much about it.
Something felt off to me seeing her, Maddy, create the Manga in question. One of the first things you’re told to do when creating any sort of graphic novel is to create the script, edit it, then create the actual manga. The fact that she made no copies, there was no talk of forms, what the rules were, etc., it made me wonder exactly just how much about contests Ms. Mancusi read up on before deciding on this. I think this is about the only part of the whole story I find a bit difficult to believe. The fact that she meets Chad on the same game isn’t such a surprise as there are a lot of servers, and only some can be accessed by players at different times. It doesn’t surprise me a bit that people that Maddy has made acquaintances of happen to be on the same server as she is.
Characters: This is where I know that some people will disagree with me, but I happen to like the Characters and the supporting cast. Let me take them character by character and explain why, starting with the main three: Maddy, Billy, and Chad.
At first I have to admit I disliked Maddy, her attitude about her grandmother, the move, and the situation felt very selfish and whiny. I suppose after a break up she had a legitimate gripe to be had, seeing as her mother did not tell her much about the break up in the first place. Maddy’s description of the people going to her school are, “Aberzombies” those that dress up in the same sort of clothing as one another. What’s interesting to me is that while on the one hand she notes that she’s being judged for her own looks, she in turn is judging others, something that she comes to terms with when the Manga club comes into play. Her attitude towards her mother seemed a bit harsh, fighting with her a lot and causing strain between them. The loathing she starts off with slowly dissolves as she is able to be more herself on line, actually flirting and she observes something very true.
A man in a beige tunic winked at me. A woman in chain mail waved hello. I stopped realizing that all of the characters on-screen were being controlled by real-life people, logged on from their own computers in their own homes. I watched in amazement for a moment as the various elves, halfling, and humans bustled about town, going about their business as if this were their everyday existence.
Who were these people? Where did they come from? And what possessed them to take on a character and play this game? Were they board? Lonely? Did they seek adventure? New friends? Or were they just trying to escape real life for a few hours?
Maddy’s notice of the world around her, this observation was what finally got me into the character. That she did see the gaming community as it was. True there are still some judgments going on, but more or less the world that is in game allows people to act in ways they can’t in real life at times. The plus from this is that Maddy starts viewing people with less worry about fitting in and more about being herself, after some helpful hints from her teacher. By the end I liked Maddy well enough; she was a nice person, a decent girl and seemed like any average sixteen year old girl.
As for her love interest Chad, to be honest I preferred his SirLeo character over him. I hope that was the author’s intent, trying to pull him out of being well, a whipping boy to Billy. Chad Murray, described as model gorgeous, almost too perfect at points. He’s interesting in that he admits to being a wimp and wants to break out of it. It’s in his SirLeo form that we see the better side of him. He’s witty, into drama, and seems pretty casual, not arrogant about his looks or his personality. Like Maddy his family is broken up, but for different reasons. Chad isn’t your classic prince charming but he does serve for an interesting opposite to Maddy’s attitude. Since the story comes from Maddy’s view point we can’t really see what Chad’s thinking. The things that are clear though are that he likes her and he’s a decent person who wants to do the right thing but feels loyalty to his old friends.
Billy’s another case; he feels a bit one dimensional, one of those sort of villains you see in teen movies. Billy’s main issue with Maddy seems to be her Grandmother’s comment. Because of this she becomes his target, since he was made to look un-cool. For the most part he’s there as a jerk, throwing tantrums to showcase his stupidity and mean spiritedness. By the time he pulls off his last act before the curtain I was rather shocked at his display of insensitivity and cruelty. The fact that he can get others, Lucy and Chelsea, to follow him in his actions at least speaks of some power. But we never get to see that, which would have made for an interesting showdown if Billy and Maddy could have shown some different actions. Either Billy being nice to her Grandmother (maybe he started her on that collection of unicorns, or liked them) or showing a different side to him other than being a jerk. Billy’s actions kind of fell flat for me through most of the book up until the ending where he goes all out to cause Maddy pain.
As for the supporting cast, there were some interesting characters and developments. Black Raven, the goth girl who liked vampire manga (interesting that she liked Chibi Vampire which I thought was a nice move for the author since it showed that even someone that was gothic liked romantic stories), becomes a friend to Maddy after showing up during the first meeting. Matt, the boy that looked like Buddy Holly, turns out to be one of the people that Maddy trusts, and Ms Reilly her teacher who actually seemed to be a bit of an Otaku herself. Each of these characters plays a small but important part in the story.
Black Raven becomes the first girlfriend Maddy makes after having trouble with her friends from Boston. She acts as a comfort to her and also helps her gain confidence to talk to Chad in the middle of the story. Though not fully developed Blackie does give a friendly vibe and an understanding ear. She’s a welcome character in her own charming way. Miss Reilly and Matt are far more developed as far as characters go. Dealing with her own issues of bullying and making friends from being an “Army Brat” Ms. Reilly is the “Cool teacher” that acts as if she’s from an afterschool special but is actually invested in her students. She’s warm, caring and direct with her comments to Maddy. It’s a nice change of pace to see a teacher that actually knows about Anime/Manga and Games, rather than your typical older woman who needs to learn about how teens act. She’s more of an older sister to Maddy, but at the same time she keeps her personal and professional attitude in check at the right time.
Matt by far is my favorite supporting character. Sarcastic and introspective, Matt acts as Maddy’s first acquaintance and as we learn quickly becomes the object of her worry towards the middle half of the book. He’s seen by Maddy as someone she can trust, and one that get’s Maddy to look outside of Manga to western comics as well. He’s also the person that get’s her to realize that there’s other fans of manga at the school. What I liked about this character is that we get to know more about his personality and that he’s not your stereotypical hipster. A key factor about this character creates tension for Maddy near the end regarding her finding out about SirLeo since, although he has no idea that he does it, and it’s not till near the end that it is resolved. The fun thing about Matt though is that, while he is there for some comedic purposes, there’s no one that laughs at him and the laughs that he creates are more along the lines of chuckles then giant laughs.
Maddy’s family deserves their own section in this review. Her Mother, Father, sister Emily, and Grandmother play a role in shaping the story as it goes. Her Mother comes off as tired, unsure, and I wish there was more development with them, but considering the story is short, only 23 chapters with more focus on Maddy and her father, there really wasn’t a whole lot to go on here with her Mother. From what I can tell her mother is a good person, a loving Mother but has a hard time dealing with her ex-husband and is tired a lot of the time working two jobs to help support her two daughters. Maddy’s Grandmother is more developed but not a character I enjoy. She seems a bit selfish and very stereotypical of the “Old Lady that doesn’t get things” mold which I didn’t like at all. I have a elderly grandmother I live with, and even she gets the idea that you don’t were clothing such as what Maddy’s Grandmother shoved her in. The Grandmother did get better for a while, and then there was the incident with her “Babies” -which are her glass unicorns -that made me sort of motion her off to the side in my head.
Emily, Maddy’s eight year old sister, starts off as a brat, but readers will soon realize that she’s not really as bratty as she claims to be. Dealing with her family’s breaking apart, and her sister’s whiney attitude puts this girl in a bad mood. Like all sisters they fight, and like all sisters they make up. What makes Emily stick in my mind is that, while she is selfish she also seems to care about things, wanting, like her mother, for her father and sister to come play and do things with her. It’s only later that Maddy sees this, and it’s thanks to Emily that Maddy learns about her father’s computer addiction.
Rock-star-Bob, aka: Maddy’s dad. What can I say about this guy? Maddy sums it up with the word that he can be a bastard. He can be a good father, but at times he comes off as selfish and very computer addicted. Maddy starts off feeling closer to her father but soon comes to realize that the closeness she feels isn’t really all there when he goes off to be with his friends online rather than hanging out with her. Bob’s actions make Maddy see how she’s been acting towards her mother and help them repair their relationship. Eventually Maddy confronts her father, which is an important moment for her in the book, but the cheap shot is that we don’t know if her father learned his lesson.
Things I liked, and Things I did not like: Points in the story that I enjoyed were the fact that the author did do research into Manga, listing actual names of publications, and naming characters from ones that can be found stateside, and also trying to at least explain a bit about the concepts. Another thing I did like was that there was at least some work in knowing how the in chat works, and the way the actions are shown on-screen in an MMORPG. We also get to see the dangers of breaking the rules of levels, where new players can go, some lingo that gamers use, which was actually nice to see. I also liked the mention of the series Dramacon and it’s author, Svetlana Chmakova. It’s nice to see recognition for original English-language Manga and its writers.
There were problems that made me cringe a little. While there was talk of the game in the story we didn’t see a lot of it outside of a few scenes of online messaging between SirLeo and Allora. The story focused more on Anime and Manga, name dropping as it went along. While that’s great it would have been nice to have seen why she liked the shows, (although I must admit I was a bit surprised to have Ms. Reilly refer to Voltron as “kind of an anime Transformers”-um what? in the story), and maybe a list of where you can purchase the anime and manga that were named in the book.
Another thing, and I’m repeating this here, was the way Maddy created her graphic novel. There was no talk on how she did it other than saying she did it in a sketch book. I know for fact that you need certain types of papers, ink, paint and other items to draw and create a manuscript to submit for any contest or even to create manga. So that annoyed me because it made making a manga easy but it’s not.
Over all : Over all I enjoyed this story, I plan on reading a few other books by this author. We’ll see how she holds up over the long run. A quick pace makes the story go by fast and keeps you reading to the end. Some problems with under developed characters in supporting cast and antagonist, this is mostly due to first person point of view. Lead character can hold your attention, though she may annoy some people with attitude. Romance plays a part in this, and more of focus on over all basic online gaming, plus is that readers get some information on certain manga. Would have liked a list of the manga/anime mentioned and who publishes it.
Rating: Enjoyed it - Very good book, one that I would read again when the mood strikes me.