Game Changer

By: Neal Shusterman

Narrated by: Andrew Eiden, Jennifer Jill Araya

Length: 10 hrs and 3 mins

Publisher's summary

An explosive new novel by the author of the National Book Award-winning Challenger Deep and the New York Times best-selling Arc of a Scythe series, about the limited ways we see our world - and how a jolt out of the ordinary can upend the universe.

©2020 Neal Shusterman (P)2020 HarperCollins Publishers

Exactly the story i needed.

Hope, here for 70yo me in the guise of YA.
Hey. A good story is a good story, even if I’m not the intended audience.

😍😍😍

Neal Shusterman does it again. His writing 😍 I don't even know what to say. Important moral issues are easily weaved into the story, forcing the reader to think. Forcing me to look at these issues in a new light while being insanely entertaining.

Social commentary

Human and social commentary. Not what I consider political like other reviewers have said, but a recognition of how blind we can be even when we think we’re woke. Creative way of having a protagonist really walk in someone else’s shoes.

A thought provoking rollercoaster

Great story and very thought provoking. I went in blind just knowing I liked the authors other works and was pleasantly surprised by the ride. Having read the scythe series before coming into this one I was surprised that it deviated away from expectation but I was not disappointed. Strongly recommend and can’t wait till my kids are old enough to read it.

Typical Shusterman *mild spoiler?*

If you like Neal Shusterman, you will like this. If you’ve never read Shusterman, go read Scythe or Dry instead of this one.

I’ve read about half of his novels and novellas - this one falls somewhere near the middle for plot and more heavy handed than most as far as social commentary. It was definitely worth my time even though its not my favorite :)

Here’s the mild spoiler:

The back cover synopsis of this book is so vague it’s useless. It is a multiverse/dimension shifting story. I’m not sure why that couldn’t just be in the synopsis since it’s a very minor, early reveal but there you go. If I didnt like everything I’d already read by Shusterman there’s no way I would have picked this up. Even as it was, it stayed on my TBR list a long time because without more context I couldn’t decide what mood it would be right for.

The “sports” tag also put me off. Its a factor, but definitely not enough for me to call this a “sports” novel at all. It is much more focused on relationships and interpreting the nuances that informs lens through which we each see the world.

Amazing book

Great listen. I feel like Neal is a millennial at heart, this is a woke masterpiece full of twists and turns and jaw dropping revelations about the nature of our reality and the way people change with the world around us. I’m going to read this at least as many times as scythe(s). Love the Edwards

Game Changer is Right!

narrator's did a good job...
Loved each version of Ash, but I think when Ash became Ashley he would have done some exploring or had some quips at least...

Another Neil Shushterman fave!

Not like Scythe

If you wanna read this book because you loved this Authors ”scythe” books then this isn’t the book for you- it’s slow going, in interesting unoriginal and has a crappy ending. Don’t waste your time.

So good!!

I loved this book. It was complex and kept me hooked. I know there are several negative reviews - if you’re conservative with maybe not the highest tolerance for different races, sexual orientation, etc, you may not like it. Otherwise you will probably really enjoy it!

Commentary on what we can’t know.

By taking the main character through multiverses, Shusterman leads us to an understanding of what we cannot understand. A man cannot understand the life experiences of a woman unless he is one. Straights cannot understand the life perspectives of the non-cisgender, no matter how woke we strive to be. There are many lessons here, not subtle, that will keep the reader thinking long after the last chapter is read.