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Offside Counterattack M G Higgins Books

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Offside Counterattack M G Higgins Books

I get the feeling this book is geared to female, middle school age, reluctant readers. Since I am only one of those things, it just didn't appeal to me.
For starters, I hate novellas. I see a true art in crafting a short story since you only have a few pages to tell a captivating tale. But books that get published in the 100 page arena just seem lazy to me. The author wasn't driven or skilled enough to craft a deeper more complex story.
And this book rings true to that. It felt like watching a ABC Family sitcom. Short, rushed, and the drama was so overacted. The handling of the teacher/student romance topic was done at a very 12 year old level. All of Faith's thoughts and reactions were exactly like a pubescent girl. I'm sorry but having her have the occasional daydream about college doesn't make her seem any older than 12.
And the cover design drives me insane. I know "whitewashing" is one of the most prevalent things in YA cover art but this is just sad. Because it's like they really tried to find a slightly tan model to portray the very Indian main character. But still had to find the most white looking quasi-tan girl they could. Why do publishers think this will make a book more appealing? I'm brown and I read A LOT! I would like to see someone who looks like me on the cover of a book every once in a while.
All in all, Offside was a pretty big miss for me :(


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Offside Counterattack M G Higgins Books Reviews

(Source I received a digital copy of this book for free on a read-to-review basis. Thanks to Lerner Publishing Group and Netgalley.)
All Faith Patel wants to do is play Soccer (or football to us British peeps), but most of her time is spent looking after her younger sister and brothers, as her mum works nights as a nurse and her father is dead.

When her coach suggests she play midfield rather than defence, she jumps at the opportunity, but another girl on the team (Caitlyn) is jealous and starts suggesting that maybe the coach is being nice to Faith because they are having some kind of affair.

This is totally untrue, but the more Caitlyn keeps suggesting it, the more Faith wonders if maybe the coach does have more than professional feelings towards her, and starts to develop a bit of a crush. She then somehow convinces herself that what Caitlyn is saying is true – Faith and Coach Berg are in love, so she tries to make a pass at him!
What will become of Faith and Coach Berg?

This book was a quick read, and totally reminded me of the film ‘Bend it like Beckham’ – about the Indian girl who wanted to play football/soccer. ‘Bend it like Beckham’ wasn’t quite so cringe-worthy though.

I found Faith a little odd to be honest. If someone had suggested that I was having an affair with a teacher, I would have then avoided him like the plague, not developed a crush, and when she then started wearing lip gloss and mascara to football practise, I have to admit that I cringed a bit.
When she then started thinking about ‘being’ with him, and asking him about what cologne he was wearing, I just couldn’t believe it, it seemed so wrong, and when she actually tried to convince herself that they were in love, and tried to get him to kiss her, I actually had to close my eyes and hide!

What made this even worse was that to me it was obvious that the coach didn’t have feelings for her. I was a little shocked at how stupid the coach was portrayed to be when he accepted Faith’s help doing some counting of sports equipment though early on in the book. He allowed her to help him take inventory of equipment when they were alone together. I can’t imagine that in this day and age any male teacher would allow himself to be alone with a female pupil un-chaperoned, as any allegation of any sexual harassment of any type would most likely immediately end his career, even if proved to be false.

Overall; this book was short, made me cringe, and made me laugh (and not in a good way).
5 out of 10.
My Rating 2.5 out of 3 stars.

Disclaimers I received a temporary e-arc of this novel from the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for my honest review. I'm not receiving any compensation for reviewing this novel and the opinions expressed in this review are my own.

An Overview of the Novel Faith barely has time to follow her own dream of playing soccer. Her mom is busy working and that leaves Faith spending a lot of time baby-sitting. But she has soccer in her life and she's determined to do her best, even if she can't play club or feel like a part of the team.

Even worse is when Caitlyn starts feeling threatened by Faith. All Faith knows is she might have a chance to not feel like an outcast for the first time and she's going to take it.

My Overall Thoughts/Impressions Let me start out by saying that I don't think I was the target audience for this novel at all. I thought this was going to be a YA novel; it was a middle grade novel. That right there was probably a little bit of a let-down.

Secondly, I played soccer and so I had really high hopes for this novel. I love novels that are about girl soccer players. Once again that probably wasn't fair either.

Having said that, let me get into what I think of this novel. I thought that the novel had an intriguing premise, Faith seemed like an intriguing character, and I thought the novel had great potential.

I wanted to like this one so badly. Honestly, I did, but it just fell flat for me. It just felt like it ended right when the story was really getting started and I never felt really connected to any of the characters. Things just felt so rushed.

However, in all fairness that could be because this was an MG book. I'm not as familiar with this genre. I do feel that I still would have been slightly disappointed with this novel just because I loved soccer so much.

Another downfall for the novel was that it resembled the movie Bend it Like Beckham, but was a weaker version of it. This novel just lacked the depth and character development that I like.

However, it was an interesting read and I don't regret reading it. However, I couldn't in good faith recommend it which is why I had to give it 2.5 stars. But who knows if I had been a middle-grade reader I might have enjoyed it more.

I also had problems with Faith crushing on her coach. It just seemed weird to me. She was just so young and I really didn't like that dynamic.

So why 2.5 out of 5 stars? I didn't hate it, but I can't in good faith recommend it to others. This was Higgins' debut novel and I hope she writes a more compelling sophomore novel.

The Wrap-up For me this novel just struck out. However, if you like middle grade novels, you might like this one more than I did. I can't recommend this one to others, but I do hope that others who read this novel enjoy it more than I did. It had great potential, but just fell short.

Love,

Danica Page
I get the feeling this book is geared to female, middle school age, reluctant readers. Since I am only one of those things, it just didn't appeal to me.
For starters, I hate novellas. I see a true art in crafting a short story since you only have a few pages to tell a captivating tale. But books that get published in the 100 page arena just seem lazy to me. The author wasn't driven or skilled enough to craft a deeper more complex story.
And this book rings true to that. It felt like watching a ABC Family sitcom. Short, rushed, and the drama was so overacted. The handling of the teacher/student romance topic was done at a very 12 year old level. All of Faith's thoughts and reactions were exactly like a pubescent girl. I'm sorry but having her have the occasional daydream about college doesn't make her seem any older than 12.
And the cover design drives me insane. I know "whitewashing" is one of the most prevalent things in YA cover art but this is just sad. Because it's like they really tried to find a slightly tan model to portray the very Indian main character. But still had to find the most white looking quasi-tan girl they could. Why do publishers think this will make a book more appealing? I'm brown and I read A LOT! I would like to see someone who looks like me on the cover of a book every once in a while.
All in all, Offside was a pretty big miss for me (