Playing Tyler
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
When is a game not a game?
Tyler MacCandless can’t focus, even when he takes his medication. He can’t focus on school, on his future, on a book, on much of anything other than taking care of his older brother, Brandon, who’s in rehab for heroin abuse… again.
Tyler’s dad is dead and his mom has mentally checked out. The only person he can really count on is his Civilian Air Patrol Mentor, Rick. The one thing in life it seems he doesn’t suck at is playing video games and, well, thats probably not going to get him into college.
Just when it seems like his future is on a collision course with a life sentence at McDonald’s, Rick asks him to test a video game. If his score’s high enough, it could earn him a place in flight school and win him the future he was certain that he could never have. And when he falls in love with the game’s designer, the legendary gamer Ani, Tyler thinks his life might finally be turning around.
That is, until Brandon goes MIA from rehab and Tyler and Ani discover that the game is more than it seems. Now Tyler will have to figure out what’s really going on in time to save his brother… and prevent his own future from going down in flames.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Video games, drug abuse, and the business of war combine in Costa's of-the-moment debut novel. Seventeen-year-old Tyler McCandless is an exceptionally talented gamer, but he doesn't fit the stereotype. He has ADHD, which can make social interactions tricky, but he's also ripped and loves flying planes even more than gaming. Those two skills earn Tyler the attention of Rick Anderson, an businessman/mentor who hires him to test an experimental flight simulator designed by 16-year-old gamer/prodigy Ani Bagdorian. Tyler and Ani fall for each other, which complicates matters when they realize that the simulator is more than a game, as readers will guess early on. Costa updates War Games for the 21st century, asking teens to consider the ethics of private contractors, drone warfare, and collateral damage. Tyler and Ani's rapid romance sits somewhat uneasily with the buildup of the story's action, but Costa adeptly gets inside the heads of two idealistic but conflicted teenagers trying to balance the personal, familial, and national responsibilities that have been dumped on them. Ages 14 up.
