Games/ Contests/ Puzzles

[Dramapuppy]

I'm interested in books centering directly around games, contests, or puzzles. Any age target, children-adult. Ex. The Hunger Games, The Running Man, The Puzzling World of Winston Breen.

Thanks!

[Pamela]

Squashed by Joan Bauer, YA Squashed
It's about a girl in a giant pumpkin-growing contest.

[Joseph]

Here's a couple:
*****Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
****Escape from Mr. Lemoncello's Library by Chris Grabenstein
****Games Creatures Play by Charlaine Harris
***The Game of Triumphs and The Master of Misrule by Laura Powell

[Lark]

Battle Royale - the book Hunger Games was pretty much based off of. A little darker and more gory.

The Westing Game - YA, but still a good book.

Ender's Game - on the rare chance you haven't read this book, the main character goes through a lot of military-esque games.

Heir Apparent by Vivian Velde - pretty fun YA where a girl gets trapped in a virtual game.

Heroes Die - older adult fantasy. great action where main character has to continue fighting his way through a game to save someone

The Games by Ted Kosmatka. Slightly futurisitc sci-fi where countries pit genetically engineered monsters against each other.

[Tesh]

The Great Chocolate Cake Bake-Off - a boy competes in a baking competition

[Liralen]

Panic -- YA, last one standing wins a bunch of money
For Real -- YA, around-the-world reality TV contest

[Joseph]

Lark wrote: "Heir Apparent by Vivian Velde - pretty fun YA where a girl gets trapped in a virtual game..."

Heir Apparent is a book in a loose trilogy about virtual reality gaming. The other two are User Unfriendly and Deadly Pink.

In User Unfriendly, a group of kids are playing a Rasmussem Corporation game that goes wrong. In Heir Apparent, one of those kids—a secondary character in User Unfriendly—plays a different Rasmussem game. Guess what. Things go wrong again.

The books can be read in either order.

[Railyn]

The Prize Of Peril. If you liked Running Man, you'll like this.

[Michele]

Masquerade by Kit Williams is visual puzzles. If you are open to non-fiction, Word Freak: Heartbreak, Triumph, Genius, and Obsession in the World of Competitive SCRABBLE Players is pretty interesting. There are quite a few books involving spelling bees (just search for that in the title). O The Red Rose Tree isn't quite about puzzles, but it's close in that the girls have to find seven different reds to complete a quilt. House of Stairs is a neat dystopian story: several teens wake up in a strange place that's all staircases and have to puzzle out what's going on.

[Dramapuppy]

Thanks, everyone! These look really good.

[Ficie]

I can think of The Game, Interstellar Pig, The Mysterious Benedict Society (it's not all about a game, but games and puzzle have a pretty big role in the plot).

[Michele]

Ha!! I have to read Interstellar Pig just for the title. The fact that it's by an author I like is a bonus :)

[Lobstergirl, au gratin]

The Great Perpetual Learning Machine: Being a Stupendous Collection of Ideas, Games, Experiments, Activities, and Recommendations for Further Exploration, with Tons of Illustrations

[Gillian]

The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater
Epic by Conor Kostick

[Kenza]

The Inheritance Games recent quadrology

[Pony]

The Game of Sunken Places

[RabbitMilitia]

The Queen's Gambit

[Madiha]

Caraval trilogy
Confessions About Colton

[Shawna]

The Jump

[Kris]

Some lists on Goodreads:

- Books About Video Games and Virtual Reality
- LitRPG: the books set in virtual reality online MMORPG games
- Books That Revolve Around a Dangerous Contest
- Scavenger Hunt
- #MGCarousel - Books About Games
- Mysteries that integrate puzzles/riddles/clues