Youth novel about gambling addiction: “Heroic Days”
Online gambling addiction is the topic of Martin Schäuble’s latest youth book “Heroic Days”. Twelve-year-old Nilo forgets to eat, do his homework, or even shower. He is completely immersed in his virtual world. In a quarrel, his single mother crashes his phone – and Nilo threatens her with a kitchen knife. A shocking moment, right at the beginning of the book, for the mother, for Nilo, and also for the readers.
The mother takes Nilo to a psychiatric facility, where he has to give up all digital devices. In the first night, Nilo observes a girl climbing out of the window of another psychiatric ward and escaping. He decides to follow her, out of the impulse to help her.
The experience of not being able to use tools from the video game makes the real forest initially a horror forest for Nilo. There are real dangers lurking, he has no flashlight, no directions, and he couldn’t even make an emergency call. As a young anti-hero, Nilo, along with two other children, experiences a kind of road trip, showing that the three of them are much less lost together than they might have thought.
The author describes the addiction to digital devices in a casual manner, without a didactic approach. The focus is on his young protagonists and how they come together, get to know each other, and trust each other. Short, straightforward sentences portray the sometimes fast-paced plot, with an unexcited yet empathetic language that characterizes Schäuble’s writing. These three young people will manage their difficult moments on their own, and this trust, this confidence, resonates in every line.
