*Summary and Spoilers*
Main Characters:
Sam Masur (Mazer): Video game programmer/designer
Sadie Green: Video game programmer/ designer
Marx: Sam’s roommate and producer/ manager of Unfair Games
Dov: Video game programmer/ creator, Sadie’s professor
Why you should read or listen:
Gabrielle Zevin wrote a beautiful, emotional book that deals with issues such as depression, post-partum depression, abuse, gun violence, and other issues. It takes you back to different points of time and touches on the issues in the world at those moments. While I am not a gamer myself, I was able to understand how people can use games to escape the world.
But if you don't have time or need a refresher, continue reading!
Quick & Dirty Summary:
*Contains Spoilers*
Sam and Sadie are childhood friends who reconnect and make video games with Sam’s roommate, Marx. They create a video game company, Unfair Games, that becomes very successful. Sadie and Marx fall in love, but while Sadie is pregnant with their child, Marx is shot and dies. Sadie and Sam spend many years apart but reconnect at the end. The book leaves you hanging with the possibility that they might work together on video games again.
Complete Summary:
Sam Masur and Sadie Green meet in a California hospital. Sam is recovering from a bad car accident that killed his mother and Sadie is visiting her sister, Alice, who has cancer. Sam and Sadie bond over the game, Mario, and end up playing for a long time. Sam’s grandparents inform Sadie that Sam hasn’t spoken since the accident and ask her to come back to play games with him and help him recover. Sadie continues to visit Sam until Sam figures out that Sadie is spending time with him for service hours. He doesn’t want to be a charity or community service project, so he asks her to stop visiting and speaking to him.
Many years later, Sadie is a student at MIT and Sam is a student at Harvard. Sam sees Sadie in a Boston subway station and calls out to her. After they catch up, Sadie gives Sam a disc of the latest video game she is creating for class. Sam and his roommate, Marx, play the game and enjoy it. Sam asks Sadie if she will create a video game with him. Marx offers to be a producer and provide space and money. With the help of Sadie’s old professor/ boyfriend, Dov, they create Ichigo. The video game is a huge success and they sell it for a lot of money.
Sam goes on tour to promote Ichigo and becomes the face of the game. This frustrates Sadie because the public perceives that Sam created the majority of the game and he gets all the credit. In reality, Sadie is the main game programmer. Sam convinces Sadie to work with him on a second Ichigo game, but it is not as good or successful as the first.
Sam, Sadie, and Marx create Unfair Games, a gaming company. Marx wants to move Unfair Games to California with his girlfriend, Zoe. At the time, Sadie is in an abusive relationship with Dov for a second time and Sam is in need of a foot amputation. Marx convinces Sadie to move to California because Sam will be able to recover from surgery in the warm California weather. He convinces Sam to move to California to help free Sadie from the abusive relationship.
Unfair Games moves to Venice, California and starts to expand. They hire new employees including Ant and Simon who develop the successful game, Counterpart High. Sam and Sadie create Both Sides which is not a huge success but sparks an idea for a spin-off game, Mapleworld. Sam once again becomes the face of the game. He is seen as Mayor Mazer from Mapleworld and gets all of the acolytes for the success of the game, while Sadie is pushed in the background. Sam uses his role as Mayor Mazer in the game to allow the people of Mapleworld to do things they cannot do in real life at this time such as, have same-sex marriages.
Sadie and Marx start seeing each other but keep it a secret from Sam because Sadie is unsure how he will react. Sam figures it out and confronts them about it. He is mad that they kept it from him and struggles to find his place in their friendship now that they are a couple. Sam and Sadie continue to drift apart and cannot agree on games to make together, so Sadie makes the game, Master of Revels, on her own.
While Sadie created the game, Sam offers to help promote it since he is more well known in the media. While the two of them are doing a photoshoot to promote Master of Revels, two gun-men show up at Unfair Games in California. They want to shoot Mazer for allowing same-sex marriage in Mapleworld. Since, Sam (Mazer) isn’t there, Marx goes down to talk to them. He shows them the office to prove that Mazer isn’t there but Ant comes to see if Marx is ok. One of the gun-men confuses him for Mazer and shoots. Marx jumps in front of Ant. Both of them are hit by bullets and then the gun-man shoots himself.
Marx and Ant are taken to the hospital. Ant makes a full recovery. Marx is in a coma for months and eventually dies. This send Sadie, who is pregnant with Marx’s child, into a depression. Sam gets Unfair Games back up and running and tries to convince Sadie to come back to the office. Sadie has a baby girl, Naomi, and stays home in her own online worlds.
Sam creates the game, Pioneers, which is reminiscent of Oregon Trail and games him and Sadie played as children. Sadie plays Pioneers and losses herself in an online relationship with a virtual doctor and an online friendship. She eventually realizes that both characters were being played by Sam as a chance to reach out and help her. Unfortunately, Sadie sees it as him lying to her and forcing himself back into her life.
Sadie moves back to Boston to teach Dov’s seminar at MIT while he is on sabbatical. Ant visits Sadie and delivers a guest lecture. Ant informs her that Sam’s grandfather, who raised him, passed away. Sadie calls Sam and leaves a message. When he doesn’t return her call, she decides to attend the memorial service for Sam’s grandfather.
The ending
Sadie and Sam meet up in New York for a business pitch. A company wants them to help produce another Ichigo game. Sam and Sadie play the demo of the new game and reflect on their lives and the years spent a part. Sadie thanks Sam for creating Pioneers and admitted that it helped her through her depression. They discuss that although they were never romantically a couple that their relationship was more important.
In the airport on their way home, Sam walks Sadie to her terminal. He encourages her to keep creating games and hopes one day she will write a game with him again. The book ends as it started, with Sadie giving Sam a game that she created and asking him to play it and let her know what he thinks.
Comments