Genius: The Game

Genius: The Game by Leopoldo Gout

Rex, Cai, and Tunde are three of the most brilliant kids in the world. Which is why they number among the 200 youth who attend The Game, a competition pitting these young geniuses against each other for an unknown prize. Running the Game is the young CEO Kiran Biswas, who seems to have some mysteries of his own. They know this is an oppotunity of a lifetime, not just to compete, but to accomplish their own goals. Rex is determined to find his missing brother, Tunde has to work for a corrupt general to keep his family safe, and Cai (under her blog handle, Painted Wolf) needs to learn more about what's going on behind the scenes of the game, and her father's business. As the competition heats up, these three teens discover they're in more trouble than they know.

When I picked up this book, I was afraid that it was going to be more Hunger Games style kids-killing-kids sort of deal, and I was pleasantly surprised to find out it wasn't. They are competing in engineering and coding and all sorts of awesome, geeky stuff. It had sort of a Ready Player One feel for me, but it's also young adult, so it's a lot cleaner. The book was also very visually interesting with a lot of diagrams and just a cool layout.

Each chapter would trade off between the three main characters telling their own story. I thought all three were likable and interesting characters. Tunde was my favorite, and I think the author did a great job of writing in his voice. Tunde is from Nigeria and his way of speaking is shown without being over the top, and sometimes he throws in a pidgin language which I thought was cool too. It was also nice to see these characters who were very genuine with each other. The story is exciting enough and I'm glad there's not a lot of angst-ridden teenagers running around too.

I was kept interested the whole time reading, and was excited and frustrated to learn that this is the first book in a series. Excited because I am ready for more, and frustrated because it doesn't come out until next year.

Genius is a new book to our library, and it can be found in the Young Adult section.