The Happiest Days of Our Lives

by Wil Wheaton

First published 2007

Wil Wheaton opens his collection with tales from his childhood in the 1970s, when arcade games and Star Wars figures shaped his world. He moves through his teenage years in the 1980s, navigating high school while obsessing over Dungeons & Dragons campaigns and bulletin board systems. Now a father himself, Wheaton faces the challenge of passing his passions to his children without forcing them. He teaches his stepkids about twenty-sided dice and the joy of building characters from scratch. He watches them discover video games and wonders if they will love what he loves. These personal stories reveal a man caught between nostalgia for his own geeky coming of age and hope that his children will find their own paths through the same landscapes of imagination and play.

Genres: family-life, coming-of-age, autobiography, memoir

Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking

Tropes: found-family, passing-the-torch

Period: 1970s, 1980s

136 pages · Paperback · Monolith Press

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