Editorial Reviews for Nominees
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Editorial Reviews for Nominees
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Score: 95/100 (9.5 out of 10)
Are you into pro wrestling, social media scandals, and high school drama? Playing with #Fire is an immensely compelling novel by Micky O'Brady! In a lot of ways, Playing with #Fire seems tailor-made for us! It features interesting characters, good drama, commentary on social media and cyberbullying, and pro wrestling! What's there not to like?! Playing with #Fire follows Everly, a former social media influencer and streamer on a platform called TeeVee (which is a bit like Twitch). TRIGGER WARNING: this book includes subjects like eating disorders, self-harm, and self-termination. Everly is a recent survivor of a suicide attempt that was provoked by her cyber-life and obsession with social media. Everly—who was already self-conscious due to rarely receiving positive attention and approval from her parents—became even more self-conscious and fixated with her public image online because of her growing following and presumed fame there. Online, she goes by the handle @MatrixGirl. She becomes “addicted to” and dependent on the opinions and approval of others. In the aftermath of a successful charity campaign she ran online, one of her most loyal followers/donors/simps, @Moonsaulting_Spaceman, begins writing her increasingly disturbing private messages, demanding that she call him, pressuring her to send him nudes, and insisting that she be with him. When she rejects his creepy advances, as many of us would, @Moonsaulting_Spaceman takes his retribution by doxing and releasing information about her, specifically the way that she looks in real life. Everly, who suffers from an eating disorder and possibly body dysphoria, is apparently overweight. When her image and identity become public, she receives all sorts of nasty, disgusting comments and messages, particularly regarding her size and weight (body shaming) including #SavetheWhales and #BeverlyBacon. @Moonsaulting_Spaceman also starts a malicious rumor that Everly is a “slut” and that she has STDs. With her public image seemingly destroyed and the walls seemingly closing in, Everly makes a regretable decision to end herself. Miraculously, she emerges from this tragic situation with her life. However, her social media, the Internet, and even her smartphone are taken away from her as a precaution. She is essentially banned from accessing the technology that she both relied on and that drove her to suicide. While it's wonderful that Everly survived, could you imagine being her? Could you imagine having all of your connections to the outside world taken away from you? Could you imagine going cold-turkey with social media and the Internet in this day and age? Everly is given no other choice but to strictly focus on her schooling. Her estranged father, whom Everly refers to as “the sperm donor,” only seems concerned with her grades. It's the only thing that seems to garner her positive attention from him. Speaking of her father, he insists on her being sent away to a boarding school, which she and her mother are opposed to. This becomes a minor plot point, but one that persists. Everly's favorite teacher is Mr. Langen, her health teacher, who also seems to act as her surrogate guardian and academic advisor. Mr. Langen gives Everly a few options for her final school project, but really encourages her to do her school project on pro wrestling (of all things). Everly is initially put off by this, seeing pro wrestling as nerdy, fake, and weird. However, with few other options and seeing it as an opportunity to get some exercise (supporting her apparent bulimia), Everly goes along with it. And surprise, surprise! The pro wrestling school is run by Mr. Ben Langen, the so-called “Bullet Ben,” himself! And this is when the book really starts to become exciting and interesting. Mr. Langen assigns Everly to be trained by a masked wrestler, a young luchador with the ring-name “Fire”--thus giving the book its name. As you might expect from the title (and general knowledge of how books go), Everly bonds with Fire. They connect on an emotional and intimate level. Fire is actually able to get a rise out of Everly in a way that no one else seems to be able to, even getting her to eat and laugh. They also talk about different figures and concepts in wrestling. For example, Ricochet, Ric Flair, Kenny Omega, the Great Muta, and recent Outstanding Creator Awards winner Becky Lynch are mentioned! They discuss things like the sanctity of a luchador's mask & identity, giving and taking “receipts” (a way of lettting another wrestler know they've made an error) and moves like the Walls of Jericho (Boston crab) and moonsault. We actually wish that there was more wrestling and wrestling talk. It seems like a huge missed opportunity that the author and the narrative gets away from wrestling and starts focusing on other, less interesting stuff. Anyway, Everly and Fire become quite a couple and dynamic duo. WARNING: MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD Everly eventually discovers Fire's true identity, an often-bullied boy at her school named Calan Adler who is picked on for the scars on his face, particularly by Ford (the handsomest guy in school) and Adler (the school quarterback). It turns out that Calan survived a car crash which came very close to taking his life on the same day that Everly tried to take hers. The crash left Calan scarred. However, just as it seems like Calan and Everly are at their closest point, the wheels immediately come off over a misunderstanding and the shocking revelation that Calan is the owner of the @Moonsaulting_Spaceman username. That kinda makes sense because it was well-established that Calan was fixated on wanting to perform the moonsault, a relatively challenging wrestling move which involves backflipping from the top turnbuckle. Obviously, the revelation of Calan/Fire's username causes Everly to push him out of her life. That is until Mr. Langen, now dating her mom, reminds Everly that she is supposed to finish her pro wrestling project as a part of her grade or risk being sent off to boarding school by her dad. Oh, and by the way, Everly has a best friend named Hazel who is also involved throughout the story... Oh, and by the way, Fire had a wrestling partner named Ronan who he had a falling out with, which kinda becomes important later... Anyway... the final wrestling match between Everly and Fire is interesting, albeit a bit clunky with a very convoluted, over-the-top explanation for what the heck actually happened with Everly's cyberbullying situation. We do get one extremely funny line during this finale: “...the crowd goes nuts. One, they’re sitting here for a wrestling match, which is better than algebra or whatever...” There's also the fact that Everly faces all of her worst fears all at once: Calan/Fire/@Moonsaulting_Spaceman, cameras, streaming on TeeVee, and public scrutiny. This book has a lot going for it. It's also very rough around the edges. It often seems like themes, characters, story elements, and plot threads are caked on top of each other. The constant hashtags can also be annoying and a bit ridiculous after a while. We get that Everly was obsessed with social media and hashtags, but it's just... SO. DANG. MUCH. The hashtags just don't seem to stop. It almost becomes comical, like Everly becomes a caricature of a hashtag-obsessed person rather than a real person. However, the main thing that seems to hold this book back from being absolutely extraordinary is the marathon in the middle. The middle of this book is so bogged down, convoluted, and slow. It really drags. And that goes along with the idea of things seeming “caked” or tacked on. It's like so many different things were just needlessly crammed into the middle of this book. Instead of focusing on Everly improving as a pro wrestler and learning more pro wrestling things (which would've been interesting), attention gets paid to Ford, Arlo, Hazel, Everly's parents, and the relationship between Mr. Langen and Everly's mom. We're not saying that other characters can't have some shine and have their own things going on, but the dialogue and focus seems to linger on these people who really don't warrant it. Anyway, that doesn't change the fact that this is a really interesting and overall good book. It might be one of those stories that might've been better in concept than in execution, but it was solid nonetheless. Apparently, the author is a former pediatrician, a 2nd degree black belt in judo and a brown belt in Krav Maga. What a resume! Well, award-winning author is very likely to be added to that. Check out this book on Amazon!
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