Anda loves Coarsegold Online. The massively multiplayer role-playing game is a place where she can be a leader, a fighter, and a hero. But things become a lot more complicated when Anda befriends a gold farmer—a poor Chinese kid whose job is to collect valuable objects and sell them to other players for real money. This behavior is strictly against the rules in Coarsegold, but Anda soon comes to realize that questions of right and wrong are a lot less straightforward when a real person's real livelihood is at stake. In Real Life is a sensitive, thoughtful look at adolescence, gaming, poverty, and culture clash.
