SLAY, Brittney Morris
SLAY, Brittney Morris
2 Rating(s)
List: $24.99 | Sale: $17.50
Club: $12.49

SLAY

Author: Brittney Morris, Michael Boatman, Alexandra Grey, Dominic Hoffman, Sisi Aisha Johnson

Narrator: Kiersey Clemons

Unabridged: 8 hr 27 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 09/24/2019


Synopsis

A Publishers Weekly Best Book of 2019!
“Gripping and timely.” —People
“The YA debut we’re most excited for this year.” —Entertainment Weekly
“A book that knocks you off your feet while dropping the kind of knowledge that’ll keep you down for the count. Prepare to BE slain.” —Nic Stone, New York Times bestselling author of Dear Martin and Odd One Out

Ready Player One meets The Hate U Give in this dynamite debut novel that follows a fierce teen game developer as she battles a real-life troll intent on ruining the Black Panther–inspired video game she created and the safe community it represents for Black gamers.

By day, seventeen-year-old Kiera Johnson is an honors student, a math tutor, and one of the only Black kids at Jefferson Academy. But at home, she joins hundreds of thousands of Black gamers who duel worldwide as Nubian personas in the secret multiplayer online role-playing card game, SLAY. No one knows Kiera is the game developer, not her friends, her family, not even her boyfriend, Malcolm, who believes video games are partially responsible for the “downfall of the Black man.”

But when a teen in Kansas City is murdered over a dispute in the SLAY world, news of the game reaches mainstream media, and SLAY is labeled a racist, exclusionist, violent hub for thugs and criminals. Even worse, an anonymous troll infiltrates the game, threatening to sue Kiera for “anti-white discrimination.”

Driven to save the only world in which she can be herself, Kiera must preserve her secret identity and harness what it means to be unapologetically Black in a world intimidated by Blackness. But can she protect her game without losing herself in the process?

About Brittney Morris

Brittney Morris is the author of SLAY, The Cost of Knowing, The Jump, and This Book Might Be About Zinnia and has written video game narrative for Insomniac Games’s Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 for PlayStation 5, Unknown Worlds’s Subnautica: Below Zero, and Soma Games’s The Lost Legends of Redwall. She is the founder and former president of the Boston University Creative Writing Club. She holds a BA in economics. You can find her online at AuthorBrittneyMorris.com and on X (previously known as Twitter) or Instagram @BrittneyMMorris.

About Michael Boatman

Michael Boatman spends his days and nights pretending to be other people. For a living. He’s acted in television shows such as The Good WifeChina BeachSpin CityARLI$$Anger ManagementInstant Mom; films such as Hamburger HillThe Glass ShieldBad Parents; and Broadway plays. MichaelBoatman.us, Twitter.com/MichaelBoatman


Reviews

I mean, I think it's pretty cool.......more

Goodreads review by Hailey

4.5*......more

This was fantastic! Holding off on giving it a full five star rating, because I'm still in the processing stage, but I can definitely see myself moving it up to a five because it was THAT GOOD. This book does an amazing job at covering important issues and incorporating well layered characters. The......more

Goodreads review by emma

HELLO, EVERYONE. I HAVE MAJOR NEWS. Did you know that we can have fascinating, creative, action-packed young adult narratives...AND complex discussion of social issues with deep nuance? IN ONE BOOK?! I did not know this. And then I read this book and now I know and I never want to go back. This has all o......more

Goodreads review by Lala

reading vlog [URL not allowed]......more


Quotes

"Narrator Kiersey Clemons portrays high school honor student Kiera, who is the secret developer of SLAY, a popular online role-playing game aimed at celebrating black culture. When a gamer is killed in the real world due to an in-game conflict, SLAY is slammed by the media as racist. Clemons's portrayal of Kiera is youthful and emotional as she struggles with her real-world relationships, and gains ferocity as Kiera stands up for her creation and protects the community she's carved out for black gamers. A few chapters explore the perspectives of other characters, and several narrators are brought in to fully embody the diversity of the gamers who find so much meaning in a world that is unapologetically black."