Review: Reality is Broken: Why Games Make us Better and How They Can Change the World

Reality is Broken: Why Games Make us Better and How They Can Change the World by Jane McGonigal
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Really, I would give this book three and a half stars if I could. I appreciate it more now and in retrospect than when I was reading it and discussing it with a colleague and friend. As I was reading it, I appreciated the ideas of it, and I had a greater appreciation of gaming culture, one of the only nerd cultures that I do not engage with much personally. However, the book seemed to go on too long and be redundant, and I wished the editor had encouraged more edits. As an educator, I was more interested in the psychological benefits of gaming than I was in how gaming can benefit the business world, so I focused more on those chapters. I want to continue to think about how students' interest in gaming can be brought into my middle school and college classrooms. As I played Super Mario Brothers with friends on a rainy Saturday this weekend, I thought about my reactions to the video game experience and how it related to the research of this book, which shows that her ideas were thought provoking for me. Overall, I found it a worthwhile read.

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