The derby team is struggling because their main jammer Jade is recovering from an injury. And the skating rink has fallen into serious disrepair, gone bankrupt and may be shut down for good. Where will the girls practice skating? Can they do something to save Galactic Skate? Bad things seem to be happening there, they start to really believe the place is haunted and they must appease the ghost (of a skater from Grandma’s day who died after an accident in a rough bout). Once again, the over-the-top grandmother chracter (and all her fellow “geezers” who came out of the retirement home to skate again!) felt way more believable than the girls’ interactions with teachers, or with Dorothy’s unreliable mother. Those scenes just always felt off to me.
There was a lot going on in this story. Failed attempts at fundraisers and a dance competition with the cheerleaders. New recruits to the derby team- quintuplet sisters. A geezer bout. A seance. An odd mystery cleared up about the past. I was a bit confused why the book title featured Jade, when it seemed she was barely in the story at all (I thought it would be from her viewpoint but nope). And the illustrated gameplay panels seemed to be lacking something- I was often confused what was happening. Felt like that needed more clarity, or more illustrations completing the scenes.
Eh. I really wanted to like this one. Some parts of the story are great- exactly describing how I feel when skating. Other parts were just unbelievable- and I get that wacky, surreal things happen in a kid’s book just for effect, but there was plenty here that just didn’t make sense in any way. I feel bad to say it, but this book felt poorly written (or badly edited). Disappointingly, there aren’t any more in the series. The author’s website lists eight more intriguing-sounding titles, but it appears that nothing past book 2 has been published. I was totally willing to try a few more.
Borrowed from the public library.
