Kat and Meg Conquer the World

Gr 9 Up—Kat spends all of her spare time immersed in her favorite online game, Legends of the Stone, and when she isn't playing, she is watching videos posted by LumberLegs, a LOtS player with millions of followers. The game serves as a distraction for her when she and her family move from Ottawa to Edmonton, Alberta, and she finds herself starting over in high school again. On Kat's first day of classes, she ends up partnered with Meg for a science project. Meg is also a fan of LumberLegs' videos, although she doesn't play the game. It is this fascination with the game and LumberLegs himself that allows the girls to interact, find a topic for their project, and resolve their deeper issues. The story is told in a dual narrative identified by their names, which can be helpful because their voices are very similar. Kat has panic attacks and can hardly bring herself to speak to anyone, while Meg has ADHD and a stepfather who abandoned her. Meg's decision to have sex for the first time with her boyfriend as a way to fix their relationship backfires, doing harm not only to that relationship but also the one with Kat. Kat has a slowly developing friendship with an online gamer named Sythlight, with whom at first she can't even bring herself to "VoiceChat." Some of the details on the Canadian setting feel overdone and exaggerated.