While this book combines two of the things I dislike the most, video games and YouTubers, these are two things that most middle grade readers find absolutely fascinating! The thought that there is someone who is famous for posting videos of himself playing videogames is all but nonsensical to me, but the average twelve year old could probably name a half dozen channels where this occurs. Is this book War and Peace? No. Will middle grade readers love it? Yes.




This book is brilliantly formatted. I've read a lot of graphic novels, and they tend to be very small, with microscopic print. While readers will struggle on with this because there are pictures (and color in this one, to boot), it's great that this is a slightly larger format so the print isn't quite as small. The pictures are clear and well drawn and the blue-oriented color palette is a nice foil for the aliens and fits the science fiction theme nicely.



It also doesn't have that odd smell that many graphic novels have. If more graphic novels were formatted like this, I would probably buy more of them.




Eevee is absolutely adorable, and the fact that she is able to talk to her owners is very intriguing. I rather wish that Ali-A were portrayed as a younger person, but since readers do like to "read up", seeing him as a young man will not be problematic. Clare could be more involved, but her skills do save the day on occasion.




I can see this being a great treat for a young reader who spends more time on the computer than reading, or who wants a bit of respite from reading longer novels about video games such as Anderson's Insert Coin to Continue, Schrieber's Game Over, Pete Watson, Brown's Josh Baxter Levels Up or Chang's Tournament Trouble.