Another skating story, this one so much better than the last. In fact, so much better than the past handful of J Fic books I’ve read, I feel tempted to go back and re-assign a bunch of them two stars. But I’ve already offended one author this past week, don’t feel like doing that again now.
Kaitlin is a young figure skater, dreaming of going to the Olympics someday. But when she gets some unexpected low scores at a competition and looses her cool, pitching a fit and speaking her mind to the judges, she gets kicked out of her skating club and dumped by her coach. Due to rumors spreading about how badly she’d behaved, no other club in the area will take her in- except Fallton, the one everyone calls the “Fall Down Club.” Kaitlin is dismayed at first by the run-down venue, the odd coach (who used to be a skating sensation in a circus-like performance) and his insistence that she try something completely new for her program, learning a different style just weeks before the next competition. She struggles to put feeling into her skating performance. Lots of new things are happening now- she gets enrolled in a tango class to try and improve her skating, she gets a crush on a cute guy at the rink who has a reputation for causing trouble, and she’s making friends with girls who may not be the best skaters- so different from her last club, where everyone was very competitive. Biggest surprise of all, she’s discovering that maybe winning isn’t the most important thing about skating. Many of those around her now, don’t skate just to win. They have other reasons for being on the ice. And they’re far more loyal and kind than the skaters she knew before. She has to see those girls all over again at the competition though, and face down the name-calling and petty thievery dealt to them by the other club members. Can Kaitlin do something to turn the attitudes around about Falton Club? Can she somehow grasp what’s lacking in her technically-almost-perfect performances? And maybe most of all, can she navigate this new budding friendship with a “bad” boy who enjoys pranks and skipping class more than aiming to win. His casualness about it all might just do in her own chances.
There’s more to this story: family dynamics, getting caught lying to her parents, standing up for herself, learning about a ‘mean’ girl’s past (it made her a little more sympathetic), extending a gesture of friendship to kids who treat her badly . . . It felt true to life, not only the concerns a kid her age would have (middle school), her insecurities and bravery and faltering at doing the right thing sometimes, but also the details about skating (as far as I know). I found out from the afterward that the author herself was a figure skater, and she actually re-did the jumps and spins featured in the book while writing about them, to get the descriptions right. I appreciated that accuracy!
Borrowed from the public library.
