Part of an early middle grade series about four friends who like to play video games, this fourth volume focuses on Jess, who has two moms. Track star Jess never thought she’d be a gamer; she’s gotten an interest in sports from her Mom. But she loves streaming games in the Gamer Girls club that she and friends Nat, Celia, and Lucy created—they have fun and help show that girls game, too.
The club has a problem though: they need a new game to stream so they can keep up people’s interest in their feed. Jess has a personal problem, too: what to get her moms for their 10th (legal) anniversary.
When Jess finds a still-sealed Dance Dance Rhythms video game from the 90s in the guest room, in a box marked “To Give Away,” she thinks she might have a solution to the first problem. But her friends aren’t interested in a retro game, and convince her to trade it in for cash to buy a hot new one. Unexpectedly, however, her Mom actually wanted to keep it (for reasons I’ll only share in the hidden spoiler area below). Can Jess and her friends find a way to get it back? And can Jess afford to tell her moms the truth?
There’s a twist that underscores the importance of remembering LGBTQ history, but it’s a spoiler, so I’ve written it in white on white below; click and drag over it if you want to know:
The game is one that Mom and Momma used to play together when they were first dating, and Mom wants to use this long-kept limited edition of it as an anniversary present. One of the songs on this special version of the game is by a woman singer and her now-wife, back before marriage equality, when they were still closeted. Once their relationship became known, later versions of the game removed that song. This made the limited-edition version extra meaningful to Jess’s Mom.
Jess and her moms are also Black, and the book also acknowledges that as an intersectional part of her identity, noting the Black women like Serena Williams whom she sees as role models, and mentioning both the “Black Talk” and “Lesbian Talk” that parents of those identities often give their children about existing as part of a marginalized group. The serious themes are handled lightly, however; Jess’s first-person narration is peppy and fun, making this an enjoyable and recommended tale of middle-school friendships and family.
One boy in Jess’s class is noted to have a same-sex crush, but this doesn’t play a big part in the story; Nat’s sister’s partner is nonbinary; and one other minor woman character is said to be queer.
