While better written and more psychologically complex than most sports fiction, this compelling offering still follows a standard sports plot: the main character feels threatened by a new, outstanding player on his team. Joe Brickman, a senior at a suburban high school, is captain of his mediocre soccer team and its best player. When Antonio, a Brazilian pro, transfers to Joe’s high school and takes up with Kris, the girl Joe likes but hasn’t pursued, Joe’s life takes a nose-dive. The team starts winning but Antonio gets all the praise, while Kris acts silly and snobbish due to her new relationship. Meanwhile, other students including Joe’s closest friend are dealing on a daily basis with vicious bullying, mainly from football players. As narrator, Joe sounds modest but in fact he’s unusually physically fit, good with people, and likable, although almost unbelievably tactless when dealing with Kris. He’s so clearly courageous that his modesty appears exaggerated, saying things like, “The best way to face danger is to meet it head-on,” as he goes to confront the school’s most dangerous bully. Soccer fans will enjoy the sports action, while other readers will find the setting convincing and the story engaging. It’s too bad that the females are so weak: Kris is passive and gullible; Joe’s mother deserted her husband and son years earlier; and Joe’s father’s new girlfriend carelessly betrays a confidence. While it lacks the brilliance and humor of Klass’s You Don’t Know Me (2001), overall this is a solid school and sports story that will find a ready audience. (Fiction. 12+)
Pub Date: Oct. 30, 2002
ISBN: 0-374-39963-8
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Frances Foster/Farrar, Straus & Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2002
Sports’ biggest social movement moment of the decade gets a special homage.
Louisiana high school football star Russell Boudreaux chooses to take a stand.
NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick captured the world’s attention by kneeling during the national anthem to bring attention to police brutality against Black Americans. His courageous actions, which resulted in his expulsion from professional football, galvanized a generation of Black athletes to use athletic platforms to spotlight social injustice. This novel draws on this context to weave a tale about two up-and-coming Black high school football players trying to make the most of their final season and escape the harsh realities of their hometown lives. Russell is the Jackson High Jaguars’ formidable tight end, unstoppable when paired with his best friend and game-changing quarterback, Marion. Yet, when White players from well-off rival Westmond incite a fight during a game using racial epithets, Marion must deal with the unjust consequences of biased policing that not only land him off the team, but possibly in jail. Even worse, one of the officers involved was reassigned following the unprosecuted police murder of a Black boy in nearby Shreveport. For Gabby, Russell’s love interest and self-proclaimed intersectional feminist, this requires a courageous stand—but facing up to injustice brings unforeseen consequences; readers must navigate the complex ethics that inform a principled activist stance. Debut author Buford delivers a novel that bridges the mighty dreams of Last Chance Uwith the trenchant social critique of The Hate U Give.
Sports’ biggest social movement moment of the decade gets a special homage. (Fiction. 12-18)Pub Date: Sept. 14, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-335-40251-6
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Inkyard Press
Review Posted Online: July 7, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
A thrilling, high-tech page-turner with deep roots.
A teen navigates different worlds: real and virtual, colonized and Indigenous.
In the near-future real world, Bugz’s family has clout in the community—her mom is their first modern-day woman chief, her father’s a highly admired man, and her older brother is handsome and accomplished. Socially awkward Bugz, by contrast, feels more successful in the virtual gaming world of the Floraverse, where she has amassed tremendous power. Yes, her ’Versona has a slimmed-down figure—but Bugz harnesses her passion for the natural world and her Anishinaabe heritage to build seemingly unbeatable defenses, especially her devoted, lovingly crafted Thunderbird and snake/panther Mishi-pizhiw. Cheered on by legions of fans, she battles against Clan:LESS, a group of angry, misogynistic male gamers. One of them, Feng, ends up leaving China under a cloud of government suspicion and moving to her reservation to live with his aunt, the new doctor; they are Muslim Uighurs who have their own history of forced reeducation and cultural erasure. Feng and Bugz experience mutual attraction—and mistrust—and their relationship in and out of the Floraverse develops hesitantly under a shadow of suspected betrayal. Kinew (Anishinaabe) has crafted a story that balances heart-pounding action scenes with textured family and community relationships, all seamlessly undergirded by storytelling that conveys an Indigenous community’s past—and the vibrant future that follows from young people’s active, creative engagement with their culture.
A thrilling, high-tech page-turner with deep roots. (glossary, resources) (Science fiction. 14-18)Pub Date: Sept. 14, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-7352-6900-2
Page Count: 296
Publisher: Penguin Teen
Review Posted Online: June 23, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
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