Kat and Meg Conquer the World

September 1, 2017
Two girls form an unlikely friendship due to their love of a popular MMORPG. White teen Kat and her family have relocated from Ontario to Alberta to be closer to her ailing grandfather. But Kat has more to deal with than the regular new-girl awkwardness--she has panic disorder. Socializing is difficult, but Kat finds a haven in Legends of the Stone, a popular game not unlike World of Warcraft. In LotS, she can safely build her own underwater castle and interact with strangers without fear. Enter Meg: a black teen with ADHD who becomes Kat's science-project partner. Meg is the opposite of Kat; she's boisterous, impulsive, and extroverted. Luckily, Meg is a huge fan of LotS too, and though she watches the action rather than taking part, she's enamored with a famous YouTube streamer called LumberLegs, cementing the girls' bond. Over the months before their deadline, the girls learn each other's struggles and act as mutual support as they face myriad challenges: Meg feels abandoned by her stepfather and worries she's unlovable, while Kat grapples with her intense fear of putting herself out in the world. In a sea of romances and adventure stories, Kat and Meg's relationship adds a much-needed portrait of the importance of female friendship in an overstimulating, modern world. A heartwarming, realistically drawn story of friendship for fans of Rainbow Rowell's Fangirl. (Fiction. 13-18)

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September 11, 2017
Two tenth-grade girls become partners for a yearlong science fair project in Priemaza’s engaging debut, set in Edmonton, Alberta. Each struggles with a condition that impedes her social relations: Kat’s severe anxiety keeps her isolated in her new school, and Meg’s ADHD makes sustaining relationships difficult. When the girls discover a shared love of LumberLegs, a gorgeous internet sensation whose millions of subscribers watch him play the video game Legends of the Stone, a friendship develops and they decide to base their project on testing the effects of sugar on reaction times in the game. Writing in alternating first-person narratives, Priemaza captures the protagonists’ distinctive voices: Kat’s counting-based breathing exercises (“Seven crowds... eight socialization...”) and Meg’s hyperactive interactions that generally end with the question “Why do I always end up alone?” Snippets of game chat convey the freedom from social angst the girls find in their online avatars, while compelling supporting characters including Kat’s grandfather and Meg’s stepfather offer affecting subplots. Genuine friendship leads to acts of great courage in this entertaining and heartwarming story. Ages 13–up. Agent: Lauren Abramo, Dystel, Goderich & Bourret.

October 1, 2017

Gr 9 Up-Kat spends all of her spare time immersed in her favorite online game, Legends of the Stone, and when she isn't playing, she is watching videos posted by LumberLegs, a LOtS player with millions of followers. The game serves as a distraction for her when she and her family move from Ottawa to Edmonton, Alberta, and she finds herself starting over in high school again. On Kat's first day of classes, she ends up partnered with Meg for a science project. Meg is also a fan of LumberLegs' videos, although she doesn't play the game. It is this fascination with the game and LumberLegs himself that allows the girls to interact, find a topic for their project, and resolve their deeper issues. The story is told in a dual narrative identified by their names, which can be helpful because their voices are very similar. Kat has panic attacks and can hardly bring herself to speak to anyone, while Meg has ADHD and a stepfather who abandoned her. Meg's decision to have sex for the first time with her boyfriend as a way to fix their relationship backfires, doing harm not only to that relationship but also the one with Kat. Kat has a slowly developing friendship with an online gamer named Sythlight, with whom at first she can't even bring herself to "VoiceChat." Some of the details on the Canadian setting feel overdone and exaggerated. VERDICT This is a novel with mature situations that will fit into collections with contemporary teen fiction.-Betsy Fraser, Calgary Public Library, Canada

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October 15, 2017
Grades 7-11 No one expects off-the-wall Meg and painfully quiet Kat to ace the ninth-grade science fair as partners. That's what makes it so epic, thinks Meg. The girl with ADHD and the girl with panic attackslike the hobbits setting across Mordor to Mount Doom, no one will see us coming. But that's exactly what the two intend to do, as long as Meg can focus long enough and Kat can keep from micromanaging her to death. The two form a friendship that's awesomely fun to watch unfold as they use their favorite video game as science project fodder. In order to ace the assignment, Meg and Kat must each confront who they think they are versus who they want, deep down, to be. And it's their respective vulnerability that just might lead each other to the win. Gamer gals, devotees of Rainbow Rowell's Fangirl (2013), and members of John and Hank Green's nerdfighters will find this debut novel by Priemaza satisfying in its depiction of an unlikely IRL bond between two flawed, funny, bright young women.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)