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geekwayne's review against another edition
2.0
'Trish Trash #1: Rollergirl of Mars' by Jessica Abel has a lot of story elements thrown at the reader. There are also some confusing things that are not explained.
Patricia Nupindju lives on Mars with her aunt and uncle. She helps them on their settlement, but she loves roller derby. When she hears there are try-outs, she wants to join, but she is only 7 1/2 and the minimum age is nine. She skips school to try out and makes the team, sort of. Along the way, she has a fight with her best friend, has to break the news to her aunt and uncle, and finds an unusual inhabitant on the family farm.
I realize it's only issue one, and I really prefer if my stories don't spoon feed me everything, but there were things here that just didn't make sense. She's 7 1/2? Is that in martian years? Because she looks like a teenager (or older). She seems good at skating, but how did that happen? Where does she practice? It seems like she's just magically better than everyone around her. When she and her best friend fight, I just don't care, because he is barely in the story. Add to that the problem I had with the slangy language that narrated the book, and I just didn't care for it.
I received a review copy of this graphic novel from Super Genius, Papercutz, and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you for allowing me to review this graphic novel.
Patricia Nupindju lives on Mars with her aunt and uncle. She helps them on their settlement, but she loves roller derby. When she hears there are try-outs, she wants to join, but she is only 7 1/2 and the minimum age is nine. She skips school to try out and makes the team, sort of. Along the way, she has a fight with her best friend, has to break the news to her aunt and uncle, and finds an unusual inhabitant on the family farm.
I realize it's only issue one, and I really prefer if my stories don't spoon feed me everything, but there were things here that just didn't make sense. She's 7 1/2? Is that in martian years? Because she looks like a teenager (or older). She seems good at skating, but how did that happen? Where does she practice? It seems like she's just magically better than everyone around her. When she and her best friend fight, I just don't care, because he is barely in the story. Add to that the problem I had with the slangy language that narrated the book, and I just didn't care for it.
I received a review copy of this graphic novel from Super Genius, Papercutz, and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you for allowing me to review this graphic novel.
theangrystackrat's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
emotional
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
rkiladitis's review against another edition
3.0
About 200 years from now, Trish “Trash” Nupindju lives with her aunt and uncle on a Mars-based moisture farm. Mars is colonized, but settlers live and work under brutal conditions and live in abject poverty. Trish cuts school one day try out for the Novas, a hover derby team – think roller derby, but a little more off the ground – because she wants to become a star and leave this red rock already. She finds herself on the wrong side of hover diva Hanna Barbarian, but she lands a spot as team intern. Life’s starting to look up, until Trish discovers a weak and injured Martian, whom she takes in.
Rollergirl of Mars is the first in a new science fiction trilogy by Harvey Award-winning author Jessica Abel. It’s a promising beginning, but I’ve got a few questions; the biggest one being, does living on Mars age humans differently? Trish is supposed to be 7 1/2 years old, but looks and acts like a teenager. I hope this gets fleshed out in future issues. I love the idea of hover derby (I’ve mentioned being a frustrated derby girl when I’ve reviewed derby books here in the past), and the match in the first issue has energy that readers will enjoy. We’ve got a diva conflict setting up, and some family drama on the horizon, so there are quite a few elements set up here to move future narratives forward. I love the diversity reflected here, too. Give this to your Roller Girl readers who are ready for some more realistic, gritty art and storytelling, and talk this up with your teens. There’s a great Trish Trash section on Jessica Abel’s author page, too.
Rollergirl of Mars is the first in a new science fiction trilogy by Harvey Award-winning author Jessica Abel. It’s a promising beginning, but I’ve got a few questions; the biggest one being, does living on Mars age humans differently? Trish is supposed to be 7 1/2 years old, but looks and acts like a teenager. I hope this gets fleshed out in future issues. I love the idea of hover derby (I’ve mentioned being a frustrated derby girl when I’ve reviewed derby books here in the past), and the match in the first issue has energy that readers will enjoy. We’ve got a diva conflict setting up, and some family drama on the horizon, so there are quite a few elements set up here to move future narratives forward. I love the diversity reflected here, too. Give this to your Roller Girl readers who are ready for some more realistic, gritty art and storytelling, and talk this up with your teens. There’s a great Trish Trash section on Jessica Abel’s author page, too.
saidtheraina's review against another edition
4.0
I loved getting a taste of this world.
Humans have established civilization on Mars. Our protagonist helps their aunt and uncle run the family farm, and we meet Trix as they deal with a malfunctioning machine. They're also into Mars' version of Roller Derby (hovering, no wheels). Trix gets a position helping out the local team.
Within this context, we get just the very beginning of a mysterious plot. Trix encounters another type of being, which is clearly going to lead to other things in future volumes.
Honestly, I want more/longer/a more complete arc. But that's a personal problem.
Good stuff!
Humans have established civilization on Mars. Our protagonist helps their aunt and uncle run the family farm, and we meet Trix as they deal with a malfunctioning machine. They're also into Mars' version of Roller Derby (hovering, no wheels). Trix gets a position helping out the local team.
Within this context, we get just the very beginning of a mysterious plot. Trix encounters another type of being, which is clearly going to lead to other things in future volumes.
Honestly, I want more/longer/a more complete arc. But that's a personal problem.
Good stuff!
helpfulsnowman's review against another edition
2.0
I really like Jessica Abel's stuff. I thought Out On The Wire was great, one of my favorite reads last year. But this one didn't take me to as interesting a place. Which is weird when one considers that the place Out On The Wire went was podcast studios and Trish Trash is about a roller derby on MARS.
I was once quite enamored of roller derby. Before my city had a team, I went about an hour away to watch Denver's team more than a few times. When I visited Oregon we made the trip to see a roller derby bout. But now I think I've gotten a bit bored with it.
Roller derby is an interesting sport and fun to watch. It's also one of the few sports where the women's league is the dominant league. I don't think there's a problem with roller derby. I'm just not a sports person, spectator or player. I own one sports uniform, which is a t-shirt for a rec volleyball team (we were un-undefeated last season. That's fancy for "we lost EVERY game") and two hockey jerseys, which are both for fictional, podcast-based teams.
However, if I were to make suggestions to spice up the sport of roller derby?
+Mechanical Track: Imagine a track that was like a moving walkway. Sometimes it goes one way, sometimes the other.
+Penalty Tank: This is like a penalty box, but it's a dunk tank. And before the player can come out, another player has to throw a ball and trigger the mechanism to drop the penalized player in the tank.
+Mascots: Roller derby mascot game is weak. There are some, but this should be a bigger part of the spectacle.
+The Hat-dicap: This is a hat full of cards with different handicaps that can be placed on skaters. Things like having an arm tied behind a back, skating backwards, whatever. Whatever works for the skaters. These could be deployed to keep things interesting during the bout.
+Fan Games: You know how at baseball they do that thing where the fan has to run out and put the base in, then run home? I'm thinking fans have to shotgun a beer, skate around the track, shotgun a second beer, then around the track again. Something like that would be fun.
+Jetpacks: no explanation needed.
By the way, these all apply to all sports, far as I'm concerned.
I was once quite enamored of roller derby. Before my city had a team, I went about an hour away to watch Denver's team more than a few times. When I visited Oregon we made the trip to see a roller derby bout. But now I think I've gotten a bit bored with it.
Roller derby is an interesting sport and fun to watch. It's also one of the few sports where the women's league is the dominant league. I don't think there's a problem with roller derby. I'm just not a sports person, spectator or player. I own one sports uniform, which is a t-shirt for a rec volleyball team (we were un-undefeated last season. That's fancy for "we lost EVERY game") and two hockey jerseys, which are both for fictional, podcast-based teams.
However, if I were to make suggestions to spice up the sport of roller derby?
+Mechanical Track: Imagine a track that was like a moving walkway. Sometimes it goes one way, sometimes the other.
+Penalty Tank: This is like a penalty box, but it's a dunk tank. And before the player can come out, another player has to throw a ball and trigger the mechanism to drop the penalized player in the tank.
+Mascots: Roller derby mascot game is weak. There are some, but this should be a bigger part of the spectacle.
+The Hat-dicap: This is a hat full of cards with different handicaps that can be placed on skaters. Things like having an arm tied behind a back, skating backwards, whatever. Whatever works for the skaters. These could be deployed to keep things interesting during the bout.
+Fan Games: You know how at baseball they do that thing where the fan has to run out and put the base in, then run home? I'm thinking fans have to shotgun a beer, skate around the track, shotgun a second beer, then around the track again. Something like that would be fun.
+Jetpacks: no explanation needed.
By the way, these all apply to all sports, far as I'm concerned.
amiraqualls's review against another edition
adventurous
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
ecote525's review against another edition
3.0
a little over 3 stars. intriguing start to a sci-fi series; like how roller derby was adapted to the future and has become the #1 pro sport in the universe. very interested in where the next volume goes.
mschlat's review against another edition
2.0
I've been a big fan of Jessica Abel in the past. I loved her comics journalism in [b:Artbabe|195687|Artbabe (Missive Device)|Jessica Abel|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1343689001s/195687.jpg|189256], and her series [b:La Perdida|761719|La Perdida|Jessica Abel|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1348035788s/761719.jpg|156428] was a fascinating exploration of what it meant to be a United States citizen living in Mexico. But this volume did almost nothing for me. It's a short introduction to a science fiction coming-of-age story centered around roller derby, settling Mars, and corporate exploitation. The science fiction confused me at times (there appears to be force field and levitation technology, but it doesn't appear to have changed much of civilization), the roller derby storyline appears to have a villain about as obvious as you would find in a roller derby match, and the evils of a big corporation seem, well, pretty much standard evil. Abel's art with facial expressions is wonderful (there's a sequence where our heroine's aunt looks perfectly wary and weary), but I found some of the wider shots confusing. Not planning on reading any more of this.
jcarvajal23's review against another edition
3.0
Fun and interesting take on roller derby in the future.