Read Game Craft

I have already read and loved Emery Lord's other books and The Names They Gave Us was no different. It delicately balanced the lighthearted moments of a summer camp book with gut-punching, emotional moments. All of the characters had deep and carefully created backstories, inner lives, and motivations. That can be very difficult to balance when dealing with an ensemble novel like this one, but Lord handles it masterfully. When you have a larger number of characters, it can get to a point where the characters don't feel as fully fleshed out and are more like decorative pieces, but this is not the case in Names .  Some of my favorite parts of the story were the times when our main group of counselors would spend their evenings off and build a campfire. This was their time to unwind and vent about their days. I really enjoyed these parts because they served as wonderful and natural spaces for character development. They were also some of the funniest and most heartwarming sc