Slay (YA)

Seventeen year old Kiera is an awesome student, with an attentive boyfriend who cares about her and his heritage maybe even more, and she is a queen in the Virtual Reality Game, Slay. She is also one of only three African Americans at her school, where she is often asked to answer for everyone of her heritage, and is always having to act more like the rest of her classmates.  But everything changes when a boy, playing Slay is killed over game coin, and all of Slay's secrets come out including that Slay is only for people like her, African Americans.  Slay is the only place Kiera feels she can be herself and now people are saying the game is discriminating and racist.  Kiera has a huge secret, she made Slay, and now she is scared.
This is such a awesome story line, it is a place I could never go but I would hope if I ever got to have a conversation with Kiera she would entrust me with some codes to hand out at my discretion. I think we all can use a place where we can totally be ourselves without worry or hate.   It was nice to loose myself in this world for a while but there where times I wanted to just yell, "what are you thinking" to some of her friends for some of the questions or things they would say.  This isn't just a thinking book although it will make you do that, it has its fair share of action and a lot of it, as well as suspense, and twists that will take you right up to the end, oh yeah there is some cool tech stuff too.  This is a stay up late at night because you can't put the book down kind of book.  By the way, do you eat meat?