In Real Life

Cory Doctorow

Oct 2014 · Sold by First Second

About this ebook

Anda loves Coarsegold Online, the massively-multiplayer role playing game that she spends most of her free time on. It's a place where she can be a leader, a fighter, a hero. It's a place where she can meet people from all over the world, and make friends. Gaming is, for Anda, entirely a good thing.
But things become a lot more complicated when Anda befriends a gold farmer -- a poor Chinese kid whose avatar in the game illegally collects valuable objects and then sells them to players from developed countries with money to burn. This behavior is strictly against the rules in Coarsegold, but Anda soon comes to realize that questions of right and wrong are a lot less straightforward when a real person's real livelihood is at stake.
From acclaimed teen author Cory Doctorow and rising star cartoonist Jen Wang, In Real Life is a sensitive, thoughtful look at adolescence, gaming, poverty, and culture-clash.

This title has common Core connections.

At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Ratings and reviews

That's a little dumb. This book doesn't seem to have a grasp of reality. The art is great, but if I were Anda, I would have reported that Chinese kid and wouldn't care what would happen to them. It's against the rules, it's retarded to help them break the law.

this book was short but very interesting! it's nothing like what I originally thought but so much better. With how realistic the plot is I only became more submerged in it. 100% Recommend.

I read the book in an hour, which is unheard of for me, since I tend to read pretty slow. The art was beautiful. The story felt unique. While it can be difficult to read comic books / graphic novels I didn't have any problem with this one. The plot was simple but it still managed to surprise and impress me. All the characters even when you wanted to dislike them in the moment you understood where they were coming from and then they later would make up for it. Each character had a part to play in the plot. This book helped me to understand that there are things that we take advantage of that others in other countries don't have. Even though I already knew that this was the first real book to have incorporated it into its plot.

About the author

Cory Doctorow is a co-editor of Boing Boing and a columnist for multiple publications including the Guardian, Locus, and Publishers Weekly. He was named one of the Web's twenty-five influencers by Forbes magazine and a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum. His award-winning novel Little Brother was a New York Times bestseller, and his recent novels include Information Doesn't Want to Be Free (McSweeney's). He lives in London with his wife and daughter. In Real Life is his first graphic novel.

Jen Wang is an cartoonist and illustrator currently living in Los Angeles. Her works have appeared in the Adventure Time comics and LA Magazine. Her graphic novel Koko Be Good was published by First Second. In Real Life is her second book.