Title: The Game Changer

Author: Neal Shusterman

Genre: Sci-fi

Release year: 2021

Ash is a normal teenage boy. He is a star player in his high school American football team which means, he gets hit in the head pretty often. But one of the hits changes everything and suddenly his life doesn’t look quite the way he remembers it. As he bounces into parallel words that are almost-but-not-really his own, he starts to question everything, including his own perceptions and place in his own reality and he knows that he has to work out how to get back there.

I have already read some of Neal Shusterman’s books and I really like the unpredictability of his stories. Even after all his novels I have read, I still couldn’t guess the following events of the story. He has quite an idiomatic writing style. Even though he doesn’t write in a too simple way and his novels aren’t particularly short, I usually read all of them unexpectedly fast. However, his books aren’t for everyone. This one is the kind ”you will either love it or hate it”.

There isn’t so much action in the book because the author focuses more on the characters and their development. He opens some very current society problems of today’s time, like racism, sexism or homophobia.

I think the main character is a very believable teenager. He is the kind of the adolescent that cares about the situation or problem, but doesn’t really understand the problem he cares about, which seemed realistic to me. I liked his development probably the most from all of the characters. The author wanted to point out the ignorance of the people. At the beginning Ash is the representation of ignorance and it was interesting to read his thoughts and how they developed with each world he got into.

Another specific thing about Shusterman’s writing is that his books end either in a good or a bad way. There are events that affect the characters and story in both ways and the overall status of the end is up to the reader’s judgement.

I recommend this book to everyone who likes the idea of parallel worlds, stories focused on character´s development, deep thoughts and for those, who often ask the question ‘What if…?’ And the ones, who have already read some of the author’s books and liked them should definitely give it a chance as well.