Price: $12.99 - $8.49
(as of Aug 02, 2024 21:10:22 UTC – Details)
A Publishers Weekly Best Book of 2019!
“Gripping and timely.” —People
“The YA debut we’re most excited for this year.” —Entertainment Weekly
“A book that knocks you off your feet while dropping the kind of knowledge that’ll keep you down for the count. Prepare to BE slain.” —Nic Stone, New York Times bestselling author of Dear Martin and Odd One Out
Ready Player One meets The Hate U Give in this dynamite debut novel that follows a fierce teen game developer as she battles a real-life troll intent on ruining the Black Panther–inspired video game she created and the safe community it represents for Black gamers.
By day, seventeen-year-old Kiera Johnson is an honors student, a math tutor, and one of the only Black kids at Jefferson Academy. But at home, she joins hundreds of thousands of Black gamers who duel worldwide as Nubian personas in the secret multiplayer online role-playing card game, SLAY. No one knows Kiera is the game developer, not her friends, her family, not even her boyfriend, Malcolm, who believes video games are partially responsible for the “downfall of the Black man.”
But when a teen in Kansas City is murdered over a dispute in the SLAY world, news of the game reaches mainstream media, and SLAY is labeled a racist, exclusionist, violent hub for thugs and criminals. Even worse, an anonymous troll infiltrates the game, threatening to sue Kiera for “anti-white discrimination.”
Driven to save the only world in which she can be herself, Kiera must preserve her secret identity and harness what it means to be unapologetically Black in a world intimidated by Blackness. But can she protect her game without losing herself in the process?
Publisher : Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers; Reprint edition (September 1, 2020)
Language : English
Paperback : 352 pages
ISBN-10 : 1534445439
ISBN-13 : 978-1534445437
Reading age : 12 years and up
Lexile measure : 930L
Grade level : 7 – 9
Item Weight : 10.4 ounces
Dimensions : 5.5 x 1 x 8.25 inches
Customers say
Customers find the storyline engaging and wonderful. They also describe the book as a quick read that is thought-provoking. Readers praise the writing quality as poignant, empowering, and affirming. They appreciate the well-developed characters and relatable references to black culture. They find the book well-paced and help with comprehension.
AI-generated from the text of customer reviews
