Stories I’ve Consumed This Week

As I promised in my last post, I’m planning to keep y’all up to date on what I’ve been reading. So, here we go (beware of spoilers!):

As expected for the week before I start classes again, I’m mostly filling my time with fiction and fantasy. Much as I love history and anthropology and archaeology, I am taking a break from it for once in my life to enjoy some lighter fare. With that in mind, I took a trip to my local library and went from there.

Don’t Hate the Player, by Alexis Nedd

Rooted in the worlds of e-sports, online gaming, student government, and college applications, this was the kind of book that I would have loved to read in high school. Honestly, the vibe is very Becky-Albertalli-but-hetero, which roughly translates to Jennifer-E.-Smith. Which is a compliment in every way.

The book’s plot is both simple and very much not. Our two main characters have known each other since fourth grade, but don’t talk anymore. Both are heavily involved in eSports (in this case, a sort of league-of-legends-stand-in). One (the guy, of course) is open about it, and is generally an invisible nerd in real life. The other is living a double life—she’s a top student who’s in the running for student government and well on her way to a field hockey scholarship or three. No one knows that she plays video games at all—let alone that she holds a position on one of the top teams in the game, period. Which is all fine and good until the two of them run into each other at a huge tournament, with a million dollars of prize money on the line—and he recognizes her.

Don’t Hate the Player also reminded me a lot of Slay, which I read last year—another book about a girl living a double life that has to do with video games. Similarly, this book has a little bit of everything. Double life, understanding best friends, hardcore competitive type-A main character, friends-to-rivals-to-lovers, and extreme nerd girl shit? Yes, I was immediately all over this. Obviously, there’s a bit of a rom-com vibe, which is to be expected and also excellent. But it goes deeper than that—the author is well aware of the dangers of being a woman who exists online in “male-designated” spaces like e-Sports. Women routinely get harassed or even doxxed. Sexism and racism are rampant in the online world. And yeah, people play professionally and still aren’t taken seriously in “the real world.” Add onto that the very real challenges of sleep deprivation and burnout, and you have some unexpectedly legitimate social commentary in the middle of a fun rom-com video game adventure.

I enjoyed Don’t Hate the Player just as much as I expected to—which is to say, a lot. For all my video-game-playing nerd girls looking for a fun jaunt of a book, don’t hesitate to pick this one up.

Better Together, by Christine Riccio

This book was… something? The premise is fun— The Parent Trap, but with some Freaky Friday vibes, plus stand-up comedy and ballet, with a dash of queer energy to go with it. On paper, that’s a lot of things that I genuinely like, even if it’s a bit contrived. But something about this book was just not it for me.

I’ve long held some probably-not-very-popular opinions about Riccio’s writing since her first book, Again but Better. Maybe it’s that my first exposure to her was through YouTube (polandbananasBOOKS), and I’m having trouble separating her online presence from her writing? But my issue with Again But Better was mostly that her main character was so clearly a stand-in for herself that it kept pulling me out of the book. Similarly here, my issue with Better Together was either that every sentence sounded exactly like the author’s speaking intonations and idiosyncrasies, or sounded like she was trying really, really hard not to sound like herself, and nothing in between. Which, when you have one character who’s an extreme type-A person from New York, and the other who’s extremely type-B and from LA, the book is told in alternating first-person, and I can’t tell their narrations apart… I just don’t buy it.

The characters themselves were endearing, though sometimes in a loveable-asshole kind of way. That said, I felt like only one of them got the character development she deserved. The story just felt a little unbalanced—one sister is trying to gain traction for her stand-up comedy career, having thoroughly bombed her last performance. The other sister has just had her lifelong dream of being a professional dancer taken away from her due to a career-ending injury. These struggles are not even remotely the same. I also think my issues on the topic of character might be worsened in that the character who is more similar to the author– sister #1, who’s into stand-up and lives in LA– had the more developed, more realistic story, whereas the character with whom I identified– type-A crushed-dreams dancer sister– seemed to get short shrift. Eh, whatever.

I didn’t totally hate the book, and I’m not trying to bash it here. The shared universe and characters with Again But Better were cute. The relationship between the sisters was well-written. The romantic interests were great, and very compelling if bordering on a little-too-perfect (which is acceptable, in a rom-com). That said, this book didn’t really do it for me.

Critical Role (Campaign 3)

source: CR Youtube

I did mention, I’ve been consuming stories that aren’t books! Those of you who know me IRL know that I play a lot of Dungeons and Dragons. I also (when I have the time) keep up with a 4-hours-per-week web show in which a bunch of self-proclaimed nerdy-ass voice actors all play DnD together.

I can talk a lot about how DnD has made me a better writer, and also about how watching people play professionally has changed the game for me, both as a player and a DM. But that’s a post for another day. For now, I’ll just chat about CR:C3.

Campaign 3 is not a standalone, the way it was advertised. I know that that fact alone has driven away some of my friends and fellow viewers. Frankly, it’s ten weeks or so in and I’m still not sure what the plot is or where it’s going. But I’m still watching… so, why?

The characters, and the brilliant folks who portray them. I mean:

A goth grandma who looks like she’s 30 and sometimes haunts things for fun like a wholesome Scooby-Doo villain.

A fey being who just doesn’t fully understand the concepts of human morality but thinks that stealing is fun and also that her fragile humanoid friends could use some backup.

A bard who makes terrible decisions but is generally trying to make his life work.

And uh, a robot and an old dude (or two).

I’ve been pretty vocal about how I believe all stories come from character, not necessarily from setting or from external circumstance (actually, come to think of it, that explains a lot of my feelings towards Better Together—it was a circumstance story where things happen to people, rather than a character story where people do things). Critical Role is a great example of how good character building and the ability to change a plot as it plays out make for some of the best storytelling out there. I don’t know where the plot’s headed yet, but I’m willing to be patient because I’m invested in the characters and I don’t mind a slow setup as long as it pays off. Which, I mean, maybe I’ll be eating my words about this in a month and I’ll have stopped watching too, but… I’ve got faith in this crew. So we’ll see.

In less exciting but still fun news, I’m actively rewatching The Vampire Diaries (because it’s great, and I will accept no judgment on this front), and Elite (because I’m studying for a language proficiency exam and screw it, I wanted something fun). I’ve also been reading and translating a lot of Borges and Quiroga, but that’s more for actual studying purposes than anything else.

Next up on my list of things to read is: The Blazing World, by Margaret Cavendish.

It’s… proto-sci-fi? Originally published in 1666, before sci-fi as a genre had been invented? And written by a woman, who was annoyed at being left out of the philosophical theory conversations that her husband was having with his university friends, so she decided to craft her own, but with romance and speculation about the future state of the world? I have no idea what to expect from this except lots of run-on sentences and general insanity but I’m looking forward to it. I wouldn’t be surprised if it merits its own post next week.

What have you all been reading? Do you have any recommendations for my next library trip? Please let me know, I always enjoy hearing from y’all in the comments.

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