A few pages in and , "To provide that boy with the life he has, I've had to eat much bitterness. He must learn to do the same." What starts off as seemingly average autobiography set with video game loving cliches and the sad reality of how lots of Asian parents aren't as lenient with their children in America changes into creepy story about finding yourself.
The balance between reality and listening to believable stories as a friend dips back and forth, ending with a ghost reference you should have seen coming.
Review Start
Story Mode
Warning***** Spoilers
You start off with Dennis Ouyang being the lovable video game playing loser college drop out. You get a look into his childhood seeing how he became a gamer. He saw Super Mario arcade machine in a
7-Eleven and from then on he dreamed in pixels. Which is a cute quote the put on the inside part of the cover. You see how Dennis childhood gets a little traumatized and see him failing his way out of school due to the death of his father. He heads to Med School after some either supernatural or mental health problems surface in a attempt to make up for his father dying from liver cancer. He loses old friends and makes new ones on the way, some not as helpful as he may believe.The book is laden with great characters not unlike you'd randomly come upon on in good RPG. A friend of Dennis before going to Med school yells, "You"ll always be my Luigi!" that's just video game humor I can eat up. All of Dennis' crew has a nice little back story or some believable dialogue. Don't get me wrong the book is self-centred on Dennis, but sometimes other characters shine.
Hello four angels, things get weird fast in this book. Four angels appear and first you think Dennis has simply gone insane, which is a fun road to go down.
Visuals Mode
The art style is simple and straightforward, it looks like a high school kid drew it, but its' the right feel for the story. Colored in what appears to be water colors the simple indie comic book graphic novel eases you into the story. I'm sure, the artist can do more or can show off more, but for this just did simple stuff. There aren't many great visual, but the style makes it feel relaxed to read.It's not in all one color the images I have up are just from a memory sequence in the story which the artist has chosen to depict as blue.
Writing Mode
The author Gene Luen Yang defenitly can pull you in with dialogue and a strange story. I felt entertained all the way through. He comes up with a beilvavlbe story and tacks on some weird stuff that could have been saved for a different story. Level Up is apt title, but it's deeper meaning later on is really Grow Up. That's what happens in this tale Dennis grow up bitterly and somewhat crazy which is always a good read.
High Score!!!!!!!!! you read the article!!!!!!!!!
Please try again and purchase the book available at Amazon for $10.79
Demo -read the first 11 pages
