As is always the case, there were a few standouts: my favorites were Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah’s essay on grief and Disco Elysium, Jamil Jan Kochai’s essay on seeing himself in Call of Duty, and Eleanor Henderson’s essay on being the mother of two indoorsy gamer kids. Unfortunately I found pretty much everything else intensely forgettable. There are essays that are so specific as to become universal, and then there are these, which are lovely and well-written personal stories that did not really affect me.