365 Days of Books

Heir Apparent is set in a future where some citizens are trying to limit the access that parents allow their children to video games. Giannine has a gift certificate for a gaming arcade and is determined to use it. She makes her way through a blockade of protestors who carry signs with sayings like "Magic = Satanism" and who yell Bible verses. Inside she engages in a game called "Heir Apparent" where the goal is to become crowned as king in two game "days". While Giannine is immersed in the virtual reality game, linked by brain and body to the hardware of the game, the protestors attack the arcade and damage the machinery.

Mr. Rasmussen sends a projection of himself into the game to warn Giannine that the machines are damaged and she cannot exit the system. He also lets her know that there is danger of an overload the longer she stays in the game and she MUST try to win...for her life.

Giannine makes mistakes and dies over and over again. When she starts seeing the characters as real people is it a symptom of the coming overload of the system or something else altogether.

Woven into the game, Giannine sees reflections of her relationship with her emotionally distant father.

I picked this book up at a Scholastic Book Fair and apparently a large portion of the Middle School was intrigued by the title and blurb on this book.

A lot of fun.