Game Changer

Local Description

Lucy Bailey's Review:

Ash, a straight, white, able-bodied cisgender young man, is used to taking hits on the field for his school football team – until he takes one that impacts his whole reality. It starts with one tiny, annoying but not terribly important shift, but with every game Ash finds himself thrown into a succession of parallel universes, until the small shifts in reality become significant shifts for society and his own identity.

As Ash experiences life from other perspectives, he questions the world he began in as well as the ones he is catapulted into. Will Ash be able to get back home or can control the shifts and make a better universe? And should he?

Neal Shusterman, author of the Scythe series, has written yet another absolutely compelling piece of speculative fiction. Game Changer asks big questions about discrimination, privilege and possibilities, which are perfectly pitched for teens, while still retaining its sense of humour. It's a book teenage-me would have devoured as I pondered the nature of the universe, the nature of society, and what exactly made me, me.

Description

An ambitious and magnetic novel from the New York Times bestselling Neal Shusterman, about a teenage American football player forced into a series of parallel lives.

As a star player on his high school American football team, Ash is used to taking some hard hits. But that one run in his last game must have knocked him a little loose, because suddenly his life doesn't look quite the way he remembers it.

As Ash bounces into worlds that are almost-but-not-really his own, he starts to question everything, including his own perceptions and place in his own reality. But can he even work out how to get back there?

Reviews

"A timely, speculative thought experiment in perspective, privilege, and identity." —Kirkus

"The conceit behind Shusterman’s latest is truly unique. While it exhibits the author’s usual storytelling aplomb, it also manages to delve into more serious and timely subject matter, such as racism, sexism, and homophobia. Despite these heavy topics, the story still moves at a lively pace and, thanks to a zany sci-fi twist, manages to pack in a few laughs as well." —Booklist

Author description

Neal Shusterman is a New York Times bestselling and award-winning author. He is the author of Challenger Deep, a National Book Award winner, Boston Globe–Horn Book Award Honor Book, and recipient of six starred reviews; Bruiser, which was a Cooperative Children's Book Center (CCBC) Choice, a YALSA Popular Paperbacks for Young Adults pick, and on twelve state lists; and the Unwind dystology (including Thunder Head and Scythe), among many other books. He lives in California with his family.