In Real Life by Cory Doctorow and Jen Wang
Rating: 
Nothing is perfect, and as such, the reviews in this blog are chaotic. My main aim is to share my thoughts, joy and opinions on a book, not make a publication perfect review. This blog endorses authenticity, showing up and joy over perfection.
Gamer girl graphic novel? Couldn’t pass it up!
Anda loves spending time online where she can do whatever she wants, and be whomever she wants. And she can meet people from all over the world and make friends, it is overall a good thing.
But then in the game, she meets a “gold farmer”, an avatar in game that illegally collects valuable objects and sells them to players that afford the expense, with the kid behind it being Chinese and trying his best to provide for his family.
As Anda interacts with the gold farmer, this brings into questions a lot about what is right and wrong, and what the rules mean, since they are not as straightforward when real lives are involved.
This may be a book that does not sit well with people, but as I come from a “third world” country (I hate this designation and calling it “underdeveloped” is also not good) this resonated with me in how life can be easy to live by the rules (or break them in ways that sound just daring) but that don’t have any real impact in livelihood and how life pans out for you.
There is usually some discourse on social media about “you shouldn’t do this, go do this privileged thing that to a developed rich country sounds like a low class thing or a right everyone has everywhere”, and usually it is done in ways to say “well, I am better than you, how dare you break the rules that were imposed by capitalism”. and well, this books brings some of the reality of life for those not as privileged and what the impact of it is, and why hard choices are made.
It is still a very idealised approach and I get it, the discussions for this type of nuance can’t be had in a single graphic novel, but at least it tries to touch on it and ask some of the questions we love ignoring because it is nicer to feel better and morally higher than others that have less options or possibilities.
The artwork is really fun and fits well with the ideas behind the story, so that’s a good win for me too.