Mashable writer's debut YA novel about esports gets snazzy cover and juicy excerpt

When not churning out killer TV, film, and game reviews for this website every day, Mashable's Senior Entertainment Reporter Alexis Nedd wrote a book.

Don't Hate the Player is Nedd's (feels weird not to call her Alexis) debut novel via Bloomsbury, about the high-stakes world of competitive esports and two players from opposing teams who fall in love. Sounds like a book we'd extremely read, and a movie we will extremely watch.

"I played a lot of multiplayer games in high school and even back then, the friendships and dramas that came up through our avatars on the screen were so interesting to me," Nedd told Mashable. "I wanted to write a book that was a love letter to that part of being online, where someone you talk to every night while slaying dragons could be someone you pass by at school and never even notice. I loved writing these two nerds dancing around their dorky little feelings. Sometimes it felt like I was in the game chat hanging out with them instead of actually writing them — is that weird? I don’t know, it’s my first novel. Everything’s weird."

a cover for a book we are definitely going to read Credit: bloomsbury

We happen to have an exclusive excerpt below, and here's what the author had to say about it:

Don’t Hate The Player is the awkward, fight-cute, gamer love story I’ve always wanted to read. Our hero Emilia is a Puerto Rican know-it-all whose secret obsession with the fictional game Guardians League Online is a glitch in her otherwise perfect life. Of course the thing about being a know-it-all, keeping secrets, or thinking anyone can be perfect is that none of that is sustainable. Like at all. Very soon, Emilia’s going to meet the one person who could blow up her entire life, but before we can meet him: Meet Emilia.

Don't Hate the Player arrives on shelves June 1, 2021.