![\"Knockout](\"https:\/\/staffpicks.eglibrary.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/Knockout-Games.jpg\")
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After reading and enjoying Surf Mules<\/a> and Ghetto Cowboy<\/a>, I was looking forward to seeing how Neri would handle this topic . Once I downloaded the ARC and started reading it, though, I second-guessed my decision. \u00a0Some of the depictions of violence literally made me sick to my stomach. \u00a0When I got to the very first knockout, I had to put the book (well, Kindle) down and just read something else because I was so utterly disturbed. \u00a0I was talking to a friend about it and saying that I didn’t know if I could handle reading this story, but he reminded me that this is an important story to have available to teens and that pushing myself beyond my comfort zone to finish this story would make me better able to recommend it to those who needed it. \u00a0After all, this isn’t a fantasy or science fiction story with gratuitous violence; this is a contemporary, realistic story about an actual problem in urban neighborhoods. \u00a0Real teens are “playing” the knockout game, and Neri’s story can help people — whether players or outsiders — better understand the factors that lead people to play and the faulty logic many players use to justify their participation.\u00a0 People who don’t actually read the story might fear that Neri glorifies the game, but anyone who reads the whole book will understand that, though he humanizes the players and explains the motivations they might have in playing this deadly game, he makes it clear that their cop-outs and excuses do NOT justify their destructive actions.\u00a0 So glad I made myself go back and finish this one.\u00a0 Hopefully, the timely publication of this book will succeed in educating and deterring would-be players.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" After reading and enjoying Surf Mules and Ghetto Cowboy, I was looking forward to seeing how Neri would handle this topic . Once I downloaded the ARC and started reading it, though, I second-guessed my decision. \u00a0Some of the depictions of violence literally made me sick to my stomach. \u00a0When I got to the very … Continue reading Knockout Games by G. Neri<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,6,8,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2801","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-all-posts","category-books-for-young-adults","category-fiction","category-reviewed-by-chrissie"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/staffpicks.eglibrary.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2801","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/staffpicks.eglibrary.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/staffpicks.eglibrary.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staffpicks.eglibrary.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staffpicks.eglibrary.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2801"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/staffpicks.eglibrary.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2801\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/staffpicks.eglibrary.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2801"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staffpicks.eglibrary.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2801"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staffpicks.eglibrary.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2801"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}