Gamer Girl by Mari Mancusi

Title: Gamer Girl

Author: Mari Mancusi

Star Rating: ✦✦✧✧✧

Genre: Gaming, YA Fiction, Preteen

Summary

Maddy Starr has everything Mary Sue needs to succeed in her cliche love story. She’s got the average looks, the snobbishness, the immaturity, and best of all, the one thing that sets her apart from the rest: her ability to draw.

Clearly, she is the main character of this story, but I was beginning to think that her sister was a better fit. Hey, Emily was a brat, but at least she had a personality! If you want to read a book about the bullied girl getting with a popular guy, then this book is for you! Also, please be cautioned by the bad jokes, the weird plot devices, and the depressing setting.

Characterization

MADDY STARR is the main character of the story. The first major scene of the book is when her Grandmother forces her into a unicorn sweater and makes her go to school in it.

This is her first impression since it’s her first day of school at her new school, and it’s essentially her Grandmother’s fault that she blows it.

Examples: The sweater is mocked by the popular group who she nicknames ‘The Haters.’ She spends the day worrying over her messed-up first impression and trying to get home and change.

Overall, my first impression of the main character is a typical high school girl who is a bit hung up on appearances.

My Thoughts:

While the book is rated as a Young Adult book, I found it in the kids’ section of my local library. There wasn’t anything too mature about it and it’s overall for preteens. The book itself was a little cliched and you could almost immediately connect the dots between SirLeo’s true identity.

However, it portrayed divorce more differently than I had read in other books. It was more realistic. Not all divorces are some big dramatic thing, sometimes the couple just doesn’t work out anymore. In addition, it touches more on how: while a divorce is better for the couple because their relationship isn’t healthy anymore, it can drastically affect the children.

In addition, Maddy’s whole vibe as a geeky gamer girl is very cliche as well as her small crush on Chad Murray because he’s nicer than the rest of the popular kids. Her father himself is a guy who keeps disappointing her throughout the book and even bails on her to play Fields of Fantasy… What a bad dad!