Game Changer

Game Changer by Tommy Greenwald

In my life, I very rarely have any sort of anything to do with anything with sports. But you know, I still pick up books involving sports and the very complicated relationships people have with sports.

The book also tells the story of Teddy through poetry, hospital reports, social media posts, and kind of interviews.

I would also recommend reading the book again after finishing it, there's just stuff right at the beginning that start to click a lot faster upon a second read through.

An amazon summary, "Thirteen-year-old Teddy Youngblood is in a coma fighting for his life after an unspecified football injury at training camp. His family and friends flock to his bedside to support his recovery—and to discuss the events leading up to the tragic accident. Was this an inevitable result of playing a violent sport, or was something more sinister happening on the field that day? Told in an innovative, multimedia format combining dialogue, texts, newspaper articles, transcripts, an online forum, and Teddy’s inner thoughts, Game Changer explores the joyous thrills and terrifying risks of America’s most popular sport." AMAZON LINK OF JUSTICE

Teddy experiences a very serious injury while at football summer camp; he collapses on the field and is rushed off to the hospital. He's in critical condition and in a coma.

The story is told by Teddy's visitors including his doctor, his parents, and his sister at first. There's also a group text from the captain of the varsity team...but it has an odd undertone to it.

I'm not going to say anything else about the plot, because it's a slow reveal. I also really enjoy this style of story telling as well, and I'm always delighted when I stumble across another book like this.

Since the story is told from many different perspectives and voices, I think a lot of them were very unique and well written. I think each character had their own viewpoint clearly established, and they all clearly had their own unique relationship with Teddy. I think the Grandma was my favorite, for kind of all the wrong reasons.

However, I don't think the story really captured enough of the obsession of the sport in terms of the game play especially. I think it captured the intensity of the culture around the sport, but I think it could have done a bit better of actually discussing the game. I did like that Teddy had the occasional note here and there which kind of went into the game a little bit, but I think it would have been plausible for a lot more football references to be made. ...even if they would have gone over my head... but if you're going to write a book about football, it should involve a little more football...right?

I still liked the characters, plot development, seeing a different aspect of culture that I'm not normally exposed to, but it was a bit odd to me how little football was involved.

Happy reading!