For as long as I can remember, books have been my source of happiness. As a kid I used to run straight to my room after school and dive back into my latest book. At the time, my favorite stories were The Magic Tree House series by Mary Pope Osborne and Junie B. Jones by Barbara Park. I loved the characters like they were my best friends, and I would even tell my mom about how amazing the stories were.
Flash forward ten years later, and I’m the same person. Even though I haven’t had as much time to read for fun, over winter break I managed to catch up on some reading. And the book I came across on Amazon, The Gender Game, is definitely one of the most unique and exciting books I have ever read.
I’ll admit; I was hesitant to read this book at first. When I saw it being advertised on Amazon for “Fans of The Hunger Games and Divergent” I assumed it would just be a copy of those plotlines. Don’t get me wrong, I was a huge Hunger Games fan when the books came out — but I wasn’t sure I wanted to read a series just like them. Nevertheless, I knew I shouldn’t jump to conclusions so quickly and decided to ask for it for Christmas. It arrived a few days later and I began reading it the second I took it out of the box.
And, ladies and gentlemen, I kid you not — I fell in love with the story.
To give you a glimpse into the storyline, The Gender Game is a story by Bella Forrest that takes place in a dystopian society where people are divided by a river into two lands: Matrus, where women rule, and Patrus, where men rule. Prior to the story, the two sides get along fairly well. However, once the main protagonist, 19-year-old Violet Bates becomes involved in the government, tensions rise and a war is proposed.
But it wasn’t really the plot of the story that drew me in.
Violet Bates isn’t your typical female character. When she’s introduced, the reader learns she has extreme anger issues due to her failing to protect her younger brother, Timothy, eight years before. Violet lets it be known right from the start that all she wants in life is to be reunited with her brother. She doesn’t care if she’s poor, unemployed, or disliked by anyone: she only wishes to be with Tim.
Throughout the story, Violet reminds both herself and the reader that she’ll do whatever she has to do to find him again, and it’s her sheer determination that caused me to respect her. Many YA novels these days revolve around a romantic love story but in the case of The Gender Game, the most prominent love is the sibling affection Violet feels for Tim. I feel like familial love is extremely powerful, yet is underrated in novels — so reading this book was a nice change.
Another aspect about Violet that’s admirable is her courage and strength. In the story she’s asked to complete several nearly impossible tasks that are overall ridiculous, but instead of backing down from them and taking the easy way out, Violet sticks to them and completes the challenges even when they nearly cost her her life. In other words, she does what she says she will — a trait that not everyone has.
Overall, I think this book has a strong message about the power of women. In your typical story, the woman is saved by the strong man. In this story, however, Violet is the strong woman who saves not just others around her, but herself as well. Along with this, Violet is very young and therefore many readers can relate to her and how difficult it would be to endure the challenges she faces. By overcoming all of these obstacles, Violet proves that people can achieve anything, if they push themselves and don’t lose hope. I think this message fits well with Mount Holyoke students, because our motto is “never fear / change” and this can be applied to Violet’s attitude towards her life as well.
Make sure to read The Gender Game if you can; I can promise you that you’ll enjoy Violet’s character as much as I do if you decide to read the series! Here’s an Amazon link to the first book, and the sequels as well!
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