Griffin Hurt, the narrator and main character, is an adolescent with a lot going on in his life. It is the 1990’s and Griffin lives in Manhattan and attends a private school. His father is an actor, his mother teaches dance and is going to graduate school in literature and his younger brother is a rebel. Besides classes, Griffin is on the school wrestling team, acts in a popular television series, is having an affair with a friend of his parents and suffers from unrequited love. Griffin Hurt is a busy teenager, so busy that he doesn’t have time to think about or analyze his behavior.

Playworld is a coming of age novel as well as an homage to New York. Adam Ross spends a lot of words describing streets, intersections and landmarks that Griffin passes on his way from place to place. If you are very familiar with New York, this will be entertaining, but if you’re like me and only know the tourist areas, you might want to skim some of these detailed descriptions. Despite the tour of New York, Playworld is engaging and interesting with a complex main character.