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A review by laura_cs
The Breakaways by Cathy G. Johnson
3.0
This book is very well done, with wonderful illustrations, powerful lessons, and plenty to relate to whether it's friend drama, boy drama, middle school drama, growing up drama. Lots of drama.
To say that these girls are not the best at soccer is a huge understatement. The MC, Faith, doesn't even know the rules but couldn't say no to the popular older girl doing the recruiting. Their goalie is afraid of the ball, but rocks out in the music room. These girls are all a big huge mess, but, by the end of it their a huge mess together, bonding and having fun in ways that don't involve soccer.
While I did like the great amount of diversity represented in this book, the story, and the look into the lives of each of the girls, there's some things that I felt distracted from the story or made it hard to keep up. One page is entirely in Spanish that my high school and college Spanish classes combined were useless with no translation within. (Great for native Spanish speakers, though, due to the rarity, and comics/graphic novels are a wonderful way for learning English as a second language). I wished that the Latina, Spanish speaking character in question, V, was able to stay through the whole story, because--especially with her one spotlight page being entirely in Spanish--I felt like I didn't get to know her at all.
Nadia, a hijab wearing girl, was also awesome but bringing her in halfway through the story seemed more like checking off a list and also lost a lot of time to develop her character for the audience, not to mention even less time to form a real bond with the rest of the team.
Also, the story within the story--Faith's dream/art world--was okay and did serve a purpose, but, again, felt like it distracted from the main story and hindered getting to know the characters better.
A last thing to mention is that finding books with girls in sports is hard to come by, especially books that focus on girls playing sports and not as an aside 'Oh, she does gymnastics/ballet/cheer/softball/track/soccer/etc.' thing. None of these girls--except Nadia--really, actually cared about the game or actively wanted to improve. As a girl who played soccer from kindergarten through senior year of high school, I would have loved a graphic novel about a bunch of soccer playing and loving girls when I was in middle school because they were so hard to come by. So as a grown woman I appreciate the diversity, the friendships, the strong female characters in this story... but would have appreciated a little more love for the Beautiful Game from the characters.
In short, this is a good story with good lessons and cute art and a wonderful array of female characters, and I know a lot of late-elementary/early middle school girls will love this graphic novel.
To say that these girls are not the best at soccer is a huge understatement. The MC, Faith, doesn't even know the rules but couldn't say no to the popular older girl doing the recruiting. Their goalie is afraid of the ball, but rocks out in the music room. These girls are all a big huge mess, but, by the end of it their a huge mess together, bonding and having fun in ways that don't involve soccer.
While I did like the great amount of diversity represented in this book, the story, and the look into the lives of each of the girls, there's some things that I felt distracted from the story or made it hard to keep up. One page is entirely in Spanish that my high school and college Spanish classes combined were useless with no translation within. (Great for native Spanish speakers, though, due to the rarity, and comics/graphic novels are a wonderful way for learning English as a second language). I wished that the Latina, Spanish speaking character in question, V, was able to stay through the whole story, because--especially with her one spotlight page being entirely in Spanish--I felt like I didn't get to know her at all.
Nadia, a hijab wearing girl, was also awesome but bringing her in halfway through the story seemed more like checking off a list and also lost a lot of time to develop her character for the audience, not to mention even less time to form a real bond with the rest of the team.
Also, the story within the story--Faith's dream/art world--was okay and did serve a purpose, but, again, felt like it distracted from the main story and hindered getting to know the characters better.
A last thing to mention is that finding books with girls in sports is hard to come by, especially books that focus on girls playing sports and not as an aside 'Oh, she does gymnastics/ballet/cheer/softball/track/soccer/etc.' thing. None of these girls--except Nadia--really, actually cared about the game or actively wanted to improve. As a girl who played soccer from kindergarten through senior year of high school, I would have loved a graphic novel about a bunch of soccer playing and loving girls when I was in middle school because they were so hard to come by. So as a grown woman I appreciate the diversity, the friendships, the strong female characters in this story... but would have appreciated a little more love for the Beautiful Game from the characters.
In short, this is a good story with good lessons and cute art and a wonderful array of female characters, and I know a lot of late-elementary/early middle school girls will love this graphic novel.