Falling the Right Way

 

Published:  July 1st, 2013

Falling Hard (Roller Girls # 1)

By: Megan Sparks

Capstone Press

ISBN-13:  9781623700232

 

When Annie moves from London to a small town in the Midwest, she struggles to fit in. She gets off to a bad start when she makes an enemy of her school's queen bee, Kelsey. But she discovers a new passion, the exciting sport of roller derby, and makes friends with the cool and quirky girls on her team, the Liberty Belles. She also meets Jesse, the friendly boy who works at the roller rink, and Tyler, a cute, all-American sports star.

 

Review

 

     Annie is the new girl in a small, Midwestern town and not only is she dealing with going from big city to small town, but England to America.  When her parents separated, Annie decided to go back to her Dad's hometown with him and help him open the café that has been his dream for quite some time now.  Struggling to find her own place in a new and strange life, Annie is drawn to both cheerleading (as a substitute for gymnastics) and roller derby.  Making friends with her next door neighbor Lexie, a sarcastic and individualistic artist, and Jesse, the boy who works at the roller rink, definitely keeps things interesting.  When she's forced to choose between cheer and derby, can Annie make the right decision?  Most importantly, can she decide to do what will make herself happy even in the face of the rules of high school popularity?

     I requested this from NetGalley on a whim, and mostly because after seeing the movie Whip It in 2009, I always wanted to know more about roller derby as a sport.  I thought it sounded interesting for the fish out of water aspect as well and I am a sucker for characters who move from one country to another!  It ended up being younger than I expected, but I'm glad because it lent a real sweetness to the book as a whole that might not have been there if the characters had been near the end of high school, rather than the start.  Annie was a really strong, interesting girl who loved her parents and didn't do stupid, clichéd 'teenager' stuff.  I liked the fact that she knew what she wanted, who she was and refused to cave into the cheerleaders' bullying and shallow opinions about her friends, etc.  Lexie's artwork was described great and the friendship Annie has with Lexie was very realistic for small town outcasts. 

     I feel like Jesse (outcast love interest) and Tyler (jock love interest) were both kind of underdeveloped and like the cheerleaders were very one-dimensional.  I feel like the conflict pretty much disappeared once Annie went for the second tryout for cheerleading and the other cheerleaders stopped picking on her really out of the blue.  The relationship of Annie with both her parents, especially in relation to the separation and the guilt over choosing her Dad to live with was well written.  I liked how invested both parents were in her life, where in YA lit a lot of times parents are non-existent, crappy, or just plain weird/stereotypical.  Sparks avoided that and made me really like Annie's Dad especially.  Overall, I really enjoyed this book and found it to be a light, fluffy and fun read that is something I'd recommend for younger teens in middle school or early high school.  Very cute! :)

 

VERDICT:  4/5  Stars

 

*I received an Advanced Reading E-book Copy from the publisher, via NetGalley.  No money or favors were exchanged for this review.  This book was published on July 1st, 2013.*



Can I Have a Shaman Panda?

Expected Publication:  July 11th, 2013
The Theory of Everything
By: Kari Luna
Philomel
ISBN-13:  9780399256264

Sophie Sophia is obsessed with music from the late eighties. She also has an eccentric physicist father who sometimes vanishes for days and sees things other people don’t see. But when he disappears for good and Sophie’s mom moves them from Brooklyn, New York, to Havencrest, Illinois, for a fresh start, things take a turn for the weird. Sophie starts seeing things, like marching band pandas, just like her dad.

Guided by Walt, her shaman panda, and her new (human) friend named Finny, Sophie is determined to find her father and figure out her visions, once and for all. So she travels back to where it began—New York City and NYU’s physics department. As she discovers more about her dad’s research on M-theory and her father himself, Sophie opens her eyes to the world’s infinite possibilities—and her heart to love.

Review

 

     Sophie Sophia sees some pretty wonderful things: shaman pandas in marching bands, lunch ladies singing 'Rock 'n Roll High School' complete with dance moves and famous rockers that give advice.  But these things don't exist in quite the same time/place as Sophie, so sometimes they cause her to do stuff that makes other people think she's crazy (like crowd-diving onto the popular girls at her new schools).  These are the kinds of things Sophie's scientist Dad used to do and the reason that she and her Mom left him, moving away from his episodes.  Now her Mom is getting scared that Sophie might have inherited a mental illness from her Dad.  When she is guided by her shaman panda Walt to seek out her Dad in New York, to try and get some answers, things might never be the same again.  With her friend Finny along for the ride and her Dad's book to give her some clues Sophie just might transform her own life, even if she can't save her Dad from himself.

     This whole book is built on a premise of whether or not the episodes are mental illness or Sophie and her Dad are slipping into alternate universes.  It's a really intriguing concept for a YA novel to try to navigate, especially when there isn't any other paranormal/sci-fi aspect involved and it's just straight contemporary fiction!  Sophie is an interesting girl, with unique fashion sense, a love of mix-tapes (anything analog, nothing digital with the Walkman to back it up!), and how-to lists for every event in life you could imagine.  But I feel like I spent the whole book thinking about how cool she was and not really connecting to her until the ending.  It's like when you meet up with some hipsters in a coffee shop and think they're interesting, but have no clue who they really are as a person.  I did like that she was only fourteen and did act her age for the most part with the romance including a cute boy and a first kiss, instead of the prevalent epidemic of 'virginity loss' making an appearance as in many YA contemps.

     I liked the souvenirs as proof that Sophie really wasn't imagining the episodes, but at the same time they were things so generic that it still left you wondering as a reader.  One of my favorite things about this book was Sophie's relationship with her best friend Finny, who is one of the first people she meets in her new town.  He is understanding, has an awesome sense of style, loves the same stuff as Sophie and goes with her on the quest to find her Dad.  Not to mention he helps her fix things with her cute, almost-boyfriend Drew after an episode almost ruins them.  I want a Finny of my own!  But the best thing for me in this book was shaman panda Walt.  He is wise, hilarious, a great musician and truly wants to guide Sophie the best way possible.  Plus hugging a panda after having an existential discussion with them just makes me want to find a portal into this book so I can do it too.  I did feel like it overreached sometimes, and it definitely wasn't a perfect read.  I felt too disconnected at the end to say that I truly loved it.  Plus Sophie's still unresolved situation with her Dad at the end and her disappointing 'choice' in regards to the inter-universe travelling was disappointing.  It was like when you ditch your imaginary friend because you're too old for them! :(  All in all though, I did enjoy it and would recommend it to people really longing for something different, that don't mind baby-hipster main characters.  Oh and props to Luna for the reference to Noah and the Whale! :)

 

VERDICT:  3.75/5  Stars

 

*I received this book as part of Around the World ARC Tours, run by the lovely Princess Bookie. No favors or money were exchanged for this review. This book's expected publication is July 11th, 2013.*