Don’t Read the Comments – Eric Smith

Diya Sharma, or better known as D1V online, is an absolute goddess when it comes to playing ‘Reclaim the Sun’, this year’s hottest and most popular online game. But even though everyone knows her through her gaming group, the #AngstArmada, and she leads her group to claim victory after victory in the virtual universe, they would be completely surprised if they knew who she actually was. Even though Diya’s super popular online, little do her fans and followers know that she and her single mother are struggling to pay their bills in their apartment. Now, it’s up to Diya to win prizes from her gaming community and get money to help her mother out. Meanwhile, Aaron Jericho is interested in just gaming. Much to his mother’s dismay, he has no interest in becoming a doctor like her, and instead spends his free time writing game ideas for a gaming company. Fortunately, he can also dive deep into the world of Reclaim the Sun, and doesn’t know much about the other players he’s with until he meets D1V on a surprising encounter on the same planet as her.

___

I wanted to reflect on this book for a lot of reasons, one of them being that the book and Eric Smith did a very good job explaining important, explanation needed topics like internet harassment, cyberbullying, racism and sexism stereotypes, and also gatekeeping and maintaining bearable proportions and balance in the gaming/gamers community. All of these topics need more shoutouts and hype, and I think that Eric Smith did a phenomenal job at telling the reader about all of these topics, and how they’re very bad for communities and people in general

Now, I can’t even begin to try and explain everything I feel about this book in one go, so let me just categorize them. By the way, this book is one of the rare books that makes it onto my list of Books I Love More Than Vanilla Starbucks Frappuccino’s.

The Characters and the reaction to the Plot:

Divya is a wonderfully altruistic character who, despite carrying the weight of being a very popular streamer on Glitch, she has the selflessness to help her mother in paying the bills using the money that she earns from gaming competitions. To be honest, I found it super amazing that not only does this High School student play and enjoy it, but she also values the comfort and camaraderie of her teammates. I was super impressed that she also earned money from those gaming competitions, and was eager to find out how she was such a good gamer. At the same time, I felt remorse and sympathetic feelings for her because of the man she’d rather not refer to as her father. He took everything from Divya and her mother to build a better life for himself and his mistress. Meanwhile, her mother is working her butt off with 2 jobs and finishing classes at a local college. Basically, Divya is a bit of an internet sensation gamer, but she secretly is desperate for anything she can earn so she can help her struggling mother.

Bekah, or Rebekah is Divya’s best friend who also games, and is a part of Divya’s gaming squad, the AngstArmada, which is just amazing, plus Bekah was an important, very imperative part of Divya’s popularity and success, and she’s a supportive best friend, which is just amazing. But that goes haywire when trolls from Reclaim the Sun begin to understand who Divya is, and start threatening Bekah with physical abuse and mental blackmail, and she drops from gaming with Divya temporarily.

Aaron is one of the only fans who got to know Divya personally. He’s one person that she could count on to be supportive, and he would stand by her as a ‘friend’. It’s just that both Divya and Aaron wish that they became friends from real life instead of meeting coincidentally on a barren planet in RtS.

Aaron is constantly dodging desk-duty at his mom’s medical practice to work on a new game he is creating, with the help of his friends. He is grateful, though a bit perplexed, that his father has been so supportive and willing to cover for him, while on the other hand his mom won’t really support him that one. Perhaps if he had received any form of payment or contractual agreement from the “friend” he was working with, she would be a bit more open.

This book is an internet focused, nerdy blessing. I honestly feel that the gamers are feeling seen now, because there are gamers, nerd-culture references that people won’t get unless they stream, pizza and arcades and Pac-Man, and really sweet friendships that just about melted my heart. Along with that, it packs in a lot of important conversations; particularly feature the harassment, cruelty and doxxing that girl gamers are subjected to. Divya is an Indian (or brown), so she gets an added layer of horribleness thrown her way. The book also tackles the balance of privilege (from race to your parents’ money to gender), and I think it did it so well. Actually diving into a story that is cutesome internet love AND deals with the harsher parts of reality was just fantastic.

I’ve seen people who keep saying that books like these will be outdated quickly and honestly- give these books a break. We read books that were written in the 1800s, and were once believed that they wouldn’t gain any popularity (hello, any Classics fans in here??), and we still read the beautiful works of literature, reflecting on how the writing style that was wRITTEN IN THE 1800S. How can something so beautiful be read by so many others before us? It’s the popularity of the BOOKS. Let Young Adult novels be the thing that this era is known for.

By the way, in case you’re starting to think that I game, I don’t. But I am still somehow COMPLETELY connected to these kinds of books. The joy of hanging out online, trying to influence people to read underrated (and general) books that I love, and others love, it fuels me to do more!

The characters were just so easy to love in this book. Both Aaron and Divya are brown, and fiercely loyal to those close around them – Aaron was so gentle and uwu-soft to his little sister, while Divya would absolutely FIGHT anyone who would come close and try to hurt Bekah. They were just too kind and I loved them so sooo much.

By the way, I found the ending kind of unsolved, and I saw Aaron and Divya just as friends, rather than feeling their spark of their budding romance, which kind of upset me because I am SUCH a romantic, and I expected a little bit more development in their relationship. Anyways, that’s all! I hope you enjoyed the review, and definitely continue to read more (don’t let my review of the book stop you from reading it though <3).