by Gabrielle Zevin

Alfred A. Knopf, 2022. 401 pages. Fiction

As children, Sam and Sadie bonded over their Love of video games, but they lost contact after a fight. Six years later, the two run into each other as college students, where they rekindle their friendship by spending the summer creating a video game together based on Shakespeare's The Tempest. Along with Sam's roommate Marx, the three form a gaming company and become a powerhouse in the gaming community. But long-held resentments and life disappointments threaten to break up the trio at every turn. It's the intimacy of the gaming world that keeps them together through it all.

Many reviews call this book Zevin's love letter to the world of gaming, and gaming references definitely abound. As a non-gamer myself, I didn't find the gaming references to be off-putting or derailing, although I was more drawn to the complex characters and relationships Zevin created. Sam, Sadie, and Marx lead messy "real" lives, with themes of injury, trauma, abuse, sexism, and loss (as well as gaming) found throughout the book. One can see how these people are drawn together by the appeal of the ability to live alternate lives in the virtual world. Although on the surface this is a book about gaming, it's really a book about creating art, about relationships, about love, and about the twists and turns life can take.

The Impossible Fortress

by Jason Rekulak

Simon & Schuster, 2017. 285 pages. Fiction

In 1987, three teenage boys—Billy, Alf, and Clark—are bent on stealing copies of Playboy from the local convenience store. But when their plans go awry, they determine that the best way into the convenience store isn't by break-in, but by seducing the owner's daughter, Mary, in order to get the store's security code. It becomes Billy's mission to befriend Mary and get the information by any means necessary. But Mary isn't your average teenage girl. She's a computer-loving expert coder, already strides ahead of Billy in ability, with a wry sense of humor and a hidden, big heart. What starts as a game to win Mary's affection leaves Billy with a gut-wrenching choice: deceive the girl who may well be his first love or break a promise to his best friends.

by Kayle Rae Whitaker

Random House, 2017, 384 pages. Fiction

Best friends and artistic partners since the first week of college, where they bonded over their working-class roots and obvious talent, Mel and Sharon spend their twenties ensconced in a gritty Brooklyn studio. Working, drinking, laughing. Drawing: Mel, to understand her tumultuous past, and Sharon, to lose herself altogether. Now, after a decade of striving, the two are finally celebrating the release of their first full-length feature. The toast of the indie film scene, they stand at the cusp of making it big. But with their success come doubt and destruction, cracks in their relationship threatening the delicate balance of their partnership.

by Kevin Wilson

Ecco, 2022. 246 pages. Fiction

Sixteen-year-old Frankie Budge is determined to make it through yet another summer in Coalfield, Tennessee, when she meets Zeke, a talented artist who has just moved into town and who is as awkward as Frankie is. Romantic and creative sparks begin to fly, and when the two jointly make an unsigned poster, shot through with an enigmatic phrase, it becomes unforgettable to anyone who sees it: "The edge is a shantytown filled with gold seekers. We are fugitives, and the law is skinny with hunger for us." The posters begin appearing everywhere, and people wonder who is behind them and start to panic. Soon the mystery has dangerous repercussions that spread far beyond the town.

Twenty years later, Frances Eleanor Budge gets a call that threatens to upend her carefully built life: a journalist named Mazzy Brower is writing a story about the Coalfield Panic of 1996. Frances must decide if she's finally ready to come clean about what really happened that summer.

MB