Guy in Real Life

Ever since sophomore metalhead Lesh Tungsten collided with geeky 17-year-old outsider Svetlana Allegheny on the street, he can’t get her out of his head. When she begins to join him at lunch to thwart a classmate’s lecherous advances, focusing on anything but her becomes nearly impossible. Meanwhile, Lesh is being drawn into a multiplayer online RPG, but the avatar Lesh most enjoys playing as a buxom elf he names Svvetlana—doesn’t exactly distract him from her real-life counterpart, who is struggling to keep her Dungeons & Dragons–style gaming club afloat. Brezenoff (Brooklyn, Burning) successfully immerses readers in the characters’ progression from awkward acquaintances to adorably besotted teens. In addition to alternating between their perspectives, he also spends time within both the digital and analog RPGs, exploring sexism and gender stereotypes, while highlighting the way that both types of games are often driven by a novelistic kind of storytelling (even if some gamers skip past those scenes). An idiosyncratic romance that offers plenty of cultural food for thought. Ages 14–up. Agent: Edward Necarsulmer IV, Dunow, Carlson & Lerner. (June)