Full Review

Sam is a Malaysian-Australian teen who is obsessed with computer games, and dreams of becoming an indie game creator. She’s been developing her game, Vinculum, for years, and all she needs is to get it in front of some talent scouts – so she NEEDS the golden ticket to a high profile workshop in the last limited release Negatory bundle. But so does the annoying Jay, another Malaysian-Australian teen… and they’ve both grabbed it at the same time. They make a deal. A series of computer game duels – five games, winner gets the ticket.

I enjoyed this book. It’s a debut novel, and sometimes the strings show. I skimmed through most of the technical game detail, and it felt like there was a bit too much of it in the beginning, making the start a bit slow. But I began to like the characters. I really enjoyed the insight into a Malaysian-Australian family and the responsibility that Sam feels to live up to community expectations: she has a full scholarship to complete a prestigious computer science degree, but wants to design games instead. How can she follow her dreams AND fulfil her family’s hopes? I absolutely bawled like a baby at one particular point in the novel, so Yong was good at pulling on my heart strings. I also loved learning about escape rooms (Yong’s day job is escape room creating).

A very promising Aussie YA coming of age romance.

Title: Two Can Play That Game

Author: Leanne Yong

Cover: Illustration by Lucy Wang; design by Mika Tabata

First published: Allen & Unwin, 2023

Length: 384 pages

ISBN: 9781761063374

Awards: shortlisted for the CBCA Book of the Year 2024, Older Readers category

Genre: romance; contemporary realistic fiction

Representation: major characters are Malaysian-Australian; a minor but still significant autistic character

Suitability: years 7-12. This is a sweet PG romance, no spice.

Fyi: anxiety and disappointment, reported bullying

Themes: coming of age, individual dreams vs family expectations, the creative process

Literary features/tropes: first person narration

NSW syllabus: good wide reading choice for all high school ages. Meets the Australian Curriculum’s ‘Asia and Australia’s Engagement with Asia’ Cross-Curriculum Priority.

If you like this, try: other sweet YA romance novels, e.g. Love and Other Great Expectations by Becky Dean. Other novels about computer games, e.g. Ready Player One by Ernest Cline or Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin. Other coming of age books set in tight knit ethnic communities, e.g. Looking for Alibrandi by Melina Marchetta or other books about the creative process, e.g. One Song by A. J. Betts.

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Image used on this blog under the “Fair dealing for criticism or review” provision of the Commonwealth Copyright Act, 1968.