Book Review :: Game Changer, by Neal Shusterman

Game Changer by Neal Shusterman
ISBN: 1406398632
Published by Walker Books
on 2021-02-11
Pages: 400
Source: HarperCollins NZ, Walker Books AUS
Find at Walker Books AUS
Goodreads

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

Last updated on 19 March 2023

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My thoughts on Game Changer

Neal Shusterman does it again with another great book. It’s like he has these fleeting strange thoughts that suddenly he must create an entire book out of.

If that’s your tactic, Neal, please continue. Don’t let us stop you.

Much like Scythe and Dry, Game Changer takes something every ordinary – a stop sign – and spins it into something grand, with questions about life, the norm, the cosmic meaning of it all. There’s an element of fantasy to this book, which I loved, and while it was certainly a strange tale, I found myself drawn into the world that Shusterman has created.

We follow Ash as he takes a hit on the football field and starts noticing things that he was sure were like that before. A stop sign is suddenly different, who is friends are, what the world is like … Each knock brings something different. And then he finds out why.

I won’t say more than that for fear of spoiling it, but it is another mind-blowing tale from Shusterman and I’m in awe of the magic he can create.

While the characters in Game Changer weren’t quite as captivating as those in some of Shusterman’s other stories, the story itself was insane. In the greatest way. It’s an ever-changing look at society, and all it’s horrific flaws, and greatest joys at the same time. It’s a struggle to read, it’s a pleasure to read. And while there were some things I was a little iffy about, on the whole, it was a mind-blowing book.

If you’re a Neal Shusterman fan, chances are you’ve already picked this book up or it’s on the TBR list already.

If you’ve already read it, tell me in the comments: what did you think?

Did you think Neal did a good job at portraying some of the struggles of the world?

What did you think about Ash as a character? Let me know!