The Other Normals (review)

After nerdy Perry fills out a test wrong and is bumped from his normal school-related summer commitment, his divorced parents decide he should go to summer camp with "normal" kids because he's not "socially progressing." When he meets a ferrule (the race of his avatar in the game Creatures and Caverns, which he plays obsessively) in the woods by the camp, he's whisked away to the parallel World of the Other Normals (on which, it turns out, the game is based), where he's told that he must help rescue their kidnapped princess. Every person on Earth has a "correspondent" in the World of the Other Normals to whom they are linked, and if Perry kisses the princess' correspondent, a girl named Anna who attends the dread summer camp, it will somehow enable the princess' freedom. Perry is epically awkward, especially around girls, and Vizzini captures his oblivious incompetence and misguided attempts at rectifying it with snappy banter, while the quest action is enjoyably filled with the bizarre creatures, barely surmountable obstacles, and complementary teamwork. Ultimately, though, the book smacks of anti-gaming didacticism, disapproving of the pastime and pathologizing Perry's play (it's portrayed as an addiction Perry must get past to live his life), which may turn off its most likely fan base; the humiliating awkwardness gets emphasized to a painful degree, undercutting the humor. Archer's Geek Fantasy Novel (BCCB 4/11) and Pratchett's Only You Can Save Mankind offer more positive, psychologically nuanced portrayals of games-turned-reality, but Vizzini's take on the subject is imaginative enough to interest their fans.