Welcome to Colsten Can’t Wait, which is my verison of Waiting On Wednesday! Every week, my cat and I pick out an upcoming book we’re looking forward to and highlight it! This week, we picked out SLAY.
Synopsis:
By day, seventeen-year-old Kiera Johnson is an honors student, a math tutor, and one of the only black kids at Jefferson Academy. But at home, she joins hundreds of thousands of black gamers who duel worldwide as Nubian personas in the secret multiplayer online role-playing card game, SLAY. No one knows Kiera is the game developer, not her friends, her family, not even her boyfriend, Malcolm, who believes video games are partially responsible for the “downfall of the black man.” But when a teen in Kansas City is murdered over a dispute in the SLAY world, news of the game reaches mainstream media, and SLAY is labeled a racist, exclusionist, violent hub for thugs and criminals. Even worse, an anonymous troll infiltrates the game, threatening to sue Kiera for “anti-white discrimination.” Driven to save the only world in which she can be herself, Kiera must preserve her secret identity and harness what it means to be unapologetically black in a world intimidated by blackness. But can she protect her game without losing herself in the process?
This cover is so incredible. It features a Black girl who looks like a teen and I love the glitches as the side. It’s kind of subtle, but it really works to show that this is a book about video games. This book sounds incredible too. I’m don’t play a bunch of video games and I don’t really delve into that world. But, a book about them sounds fascinating. Kiera also sounds like an amazing character. She developed a super popular game by herself and nobody even knows she did it. I can’t wait to see more about the game and the community she has built. I can’t wait to see racist jerks (insert stronger word of your choice here) be put in their place. This book sounds like it’s going to be amazing. I can’t wait to read it and I can’t wait to see what everybody thinks of it!
SLAY comes out September 24, 2019! You can add it on Goodreads and pre-order a copy of your own!
Thank you for reading!
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