Level 13

June 1, 2019

Gr 4-7-In this follow-up to Slacker, Cameron Boxer still just wants to play video games, and he thinks he's found the way to do it. If he can establish himself as a popular livestreamer with 50,000 subscribers, he can maintain his lifestyle. There are just a few problems: he has to keep his grades up or his parents will stop him from gaming; he's still president of his school's wildly popular Positive Action Group (P.A.G.), and those responsibilities really cut into gaming time; and right now, his stream has only eight followers. Cam inadvertently kills two birds with one stone. When he tells the P.A.G. members that he's stepping aside because of failing grades, enthusiastic Daphne takes on presidential duties and many supportive P.A.G. members start slipping Cam completed homework assignments on the sly. The problem of livestream followers is solved when Elvis the beaver proves to be an avid fan of gaming, and when he appears in Cam's stream, the feed blows up. Of course, if the P.A.G. learns that he's gaming rather than studying, and if Daphne discovers that he's removing Elvis from his habitat, it's not just the livestream that will blow up in Cam's face. This fast-paced, funny novel features short chapters from a variety of perspectives. Korman's humor and gaming references are on point, and reluctant readers will race through the book. Some may find the ending somewhat anticlimactic, but others will enjoy the irony. All will find that the story makes more sense if they have already read Slacker. VERDICT Purchase where the previous title is popular.-Misti Tidman, Mansfield/Richland County Public Library, OH

Copyright 2019 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

March 15, 2019
Can Cam hit 50,000 subscribers on his game stream? Not with distractions like schoolwork.In Slacker (2016), Cam Boxer tried to perpetuate his video game "lifestyle" by starting a fake do-gooder club at school; then everyone joined the Positive Action Group. Now it's so successful (and the eighth-grader is such a hero) that he has no time to game. He and his best friends, Chuck and Pavel, devise a scheme to convince the student body that Cam is failing and needs to study instead of running the P.A.G. This works, and Cam's stream takes off, especially after Cam starts playing a rare, early-release copy of "Guardians of Geldorf." But then his classmates, worried about their hero, start offering homework help; a mysterious stalker comes to town; and Chuck's budding relationship with P.A.G. second-in-command Daphne threatens both the game streaming and the three boys' friendship. This sequel, narrated, as before, by the threesome and a few others by turns, is more of the same. Cam is no more likable, as he lies and cheats his way to unearned success. Nothing here is actually believable--a Zorro mask would not hide Cam's identity--and a twist about questionable content in the game's early release is profoundly unexciting. As before, the cast defaults to white, with diversity largely cued via naming convention.Fans of Korman's school stories and caper novels may find this fluff just fun enough. (Fiction. 7-11)

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May 1, 2019
Grades 4-7 As they did in Slacker (2016), unintended consequences again haunt video gamer Cam Boxer, whose online audience skyrockets after he acquires a suppressed version of Guardians of Geldorf at a library discard sale and a live, game-addicted beaver for a sidekick. Making time for the game not only requires hiding his obsession from his parents but also passing off the presidency of the wildly popular Positive Action Group (PAG), a community service club at school, with the fib that he's failing eighth grade. It's a ploy that brings an unexpected (but guiltily accepted) side benefit in the form of homework done by sympathetic paggers. Ultimately, his closest friends grow cheesed off, his health takes a serious turn for the worse, and all the deception comes home to roost in a big, public way when he's named class valedictorian. Korman uses multiple narrators to tell the tale, throws in plenty of comical antics, and pointedly ends Guardians of Geldorf not with a bang but an anticlimactic whimper. Oh well?the scene-stealing beaver alone is worth the price of admission.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)