Barnes & NobleSLAY by Brittney Morris

Excellent Page Turner

SLAY is a book written by Brittney Morris. It is a fiction book about a 17 year old girl that has created an online world for Black gamers. Her name is Kiera Johnson and she is one of the four Black kids at her high school. Two of the other Black people are her younger sister, Steph, and her boyfriend Malcolm. No one knows that she is the creator of SLAY. When someone that plays her game is murdered over a conflict, her game ends up on the news. Kiera has a fairly normal life, except for the fact that she is a minority at her school. She has to deal with being considered different all the time. This is why she created her own game called SLAY to escape to a world full of people just like her. The game is only for Black people, others aren’t allowed, and the players of the game duel each other with cards that are based off of Black culture. Since she is the creator, she is considered the queen of the game, and her avatar is named Emerald. People also enjoy watching other players duel. Two players, Presto and Zama, duel and Emerald gets to announce the match and watch from a throne in the clouds. She ends up having to leave early because her family calls her for dinner, but her best friend, Cicada, tells her later that Zama ends up winning. A few days later, Cicada also tells her about the murder of a person that played SLAY. The boy was murdered by another SLAYer over coins in the game. It gets on the news and Kiera ends up feeling responsible. The murder becomes a top news story, and reporters call her game racist. Since she is Black, Wyatt, a guy who runs the school newspaper, wants to ask her about the murder. She does not want to answer his questions and he is rude to her. Her sister also finds out that Kiera is the creator of SLAY, and is really excited about it because she SLAYs too! Meanwhile a new player in SLAY, with the username of Dred, starts to troll Kiera and wants to avenge the death of the boy. He wants to duel Emerald, and says that if he wins, he gets to take over SLAY, but if she wins then he will leave SLAY and never come back. Kiera suspects that Dred is Wyatt. Kiera is very nervous for the match, but ends up beating Dred. Dred hacks into Kiera's webcam and takes a picture of her and posts it online. Malcolm texts Kiera and says that he can see her, and she realizes that Dred was Malcolm! Malcolm tweets that he wants to get revenge for the boy, and so Kiera calls the police and has Malcolm sent to jail for the threat. Since the picture is everywhere, Kiera tells her parents about her game and they are really supportive. In a wonderful turn of events, her parents surprise her and she gets to travel to Paris to meet Cicada for the first time in real life. You should read this book because it will educate you about other cultures, it lets you learn about cyber bullying, and it is a very enjoyable page turner. Since the book is from the point of view of a Black girl, and the whole book is about what it is like to be Black and Black culture, you learn a lot about them and how they do things differently and the same. You learn about cyber bullying when Kiera is bullied by Dred, and it also shows how she handled the bullying. Also, be aware that when you pick the book up you might not be able to set it down until you read the last page. In conclusion, SLAY is about a Black girl who created an online place for other people like her to go. When a boy that SLAYed is murdered, a guy joins the game to try to avenge him. The guy threatens Kiera and she later discovers that the guy is actually her boyfriend. This book is informative, and overall an awesome book!