3.5 stars.
Six young people, all skilled players at the incredibly popular multiplayer online battle arena game Ancestral, decide to band together as Team Phoenix so they can complete in the Regional Championship.

The world of esports is tough, super competitive, and Team Phoenix must work incredibly hard honing their individual characters’ skills in the game, but must also learn to work well as a team so they can take their good but not great ranking as Team Phoenix and move it into the upper echelon.

Working with positive and inspiring coach Devon, a former professional player and winner of a championship years earlier, Liss, Jin-Soo, Jae-Jin, Zio, Ray and Lucas form an incredibly tight bond, working through mental blocks and learning to support each other both in the game and outside it, which gives the book many of its best moments.

Colette Bennett's characters are wonderful, with Liss and Jin-Soo especially sympathetic, as Liss must confront her grief over her younger brother's death some years earlier, and Jin-Soo must balance what she wants out of life versus her Korean family's demands that she follow a much more rigid path. The two are the heart of the team for me, and their support for each other, and for the others, made my heart warm.

Bennett writes action well, and the scenes in the game are exciting, especially during the final match between Team Phoenix and a dodgy competing team.

I did find the prose a little awkward in other parts, but still enjoyed this fast moving story of friendship and gaming.

Thank you to Netgalley and to Rebellion for this ARC in exchange for my review.

I received a free copy of this ARC in exchange for an honest review

This middle-grade e-sports read started off surprising throwing you right into the story and the action from an unexpected point. We follow the feeling of powerlessness utilized by teamwork in an online multiplayer that soon turns grim, the worldbuilding is carefully constructed and you are quick to grasp what is happening even if the plot is a bit out of your zone.

This had a little more emphasis on the gaming world than I was expecting, but it was balanced out by an interesting group of characters. Surprisingly funny and well-written.

I'm quite older than the age target but i thoroughly enjoyed this story. Good plot, strong characters.
Recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher for this arc, all opinions are mine

I was surprised by how well this went down with the grandchildren, they all liked it from the youngest girl to the oldest boy. They seemed to know a lot more about the gaming world than I did ( and had to explain a few things) . That said , the only complain was that it got them too excited as a bedtime story so I had to FaceTime it during the day and read at home at the weekends. It's not often a book goes down so well with the whole group.

I really enjoyed this young adult novel, it was a fun concept and I really enjoyed getting to read this. Colette Bennett has a fun writing style that keeps the reader interested in what was going on. I enjoyed the plot of what I enjoyed from other books of this type. It reminded me a lot of the early X-Men and was really fun. I enjoyed getting to know the characters and hope there is more in this series.

"The dot next to her friend’s username glowed green. Lissa hadn’t told a soul—mostly because she didn’t
understand what, exactly, she was feeling in the first place—but lately she had been thinking about hellodearone a lot. It was strange. She had so little to go on to think about them at all."