A social engineering fantasy, where chapter one has a minor character with mangled pronouns, chapter two has two girls living with a pair of mothers – and one of the lasses has a serious girl crush, and chapter three has two lads, one lusting for the other. What connects them all is a gaming and fantasy lifestyle, mostly inspired by the theme park that is their town's major employer. When some bonkers geographical deus ex machina of a beginning shakes the place's power supply and online gadgets, the four independently find themselves able to order what is just defined as a very rare pin badge – and to receive it within hours, on a Sunday morning. But this won't unlock the richest weapon in the game, or show affinity to a princess and her swan, as one franchise has it – these are for something much more serious...

All told there isn't too much wrong with this, apart from the real heavy-handed approach of the author. The first pages were proof of this being the style, when it was definitely said-without-being-said our lead for that chapter was a poc. It clearly has no intentions of representing pretty much any country's demographic, but may actually coincide with the skewed interest for such pins – whose legitimacy or otherwise is defined to great length early on. No, for every off-putting-to-adult-readers aspect of this, such as nested sms conversations, there is the frisson gained for the right reader, such as the 'in' to the whole theme park/franchise/game world. This has the nerd appeal – but also the huge delay in the guys actually working out what the pins might be doing. From me it obviously gets a star mark down as is the default with pronoun-mangling, and its blatant build to further titles in the series is also a downer, but the right reader will get something fairly strong from these pages. Two and a half stars.

Themes / Representation:
- LGBTQIA+ Characters
- Non Binary MC
- BIPOC Main Characters
- Enamel Pins
- Superpowers
- Theme Park
- Friendship
- Family

Four young teens receive mysterious enamel pins that give them superpowers. They seem to be connected to the local theme park, and to each other - can they solve the mystery and uncover the secrets of the park?

As a lover, collector and designer of enamel pins, of course I had to pick this up! I thought the story was good and definitely more directed towards a middle grade audience. I adored the illustrations throughout and loved seeing from each characters POV.
The representation was great to see and I’m excited to recommend this to readers looking for more diversity in middle grade.
The story itself was okay. I expected to fly through it a bit quicker but this could be because I’m not in the target age range. This story seems to be inspired by Disney (or another large children’s fantasy company) and there is discussion about Official and “Fantasy” aka Fan Made pins. As a collector of both, this was interesting to read but I can’t imagine non-collectors would find it very interesting.
I think this could be a significant downfall for this book in general. It relies on the audience to be somewhat apart of / aware of the pin scene to keep them engaged. However because of this, I think collectors might also seek out this story to read.
The story ended on a big cliffhanger, so it’ll be interesting to see what happens in the following books. I’m not sure if I’ll continue in the series but I definitely encourage anyone who likes the sound of this story to give it a go.

7 Exciting New Books for Young Readers by MN Authors
Locally crafted literary adventures that transport you from the U of M to the Superior Hiking Trail and beyond.
https://racketmn.com/7-exciting-new-books-for-young-readers-by-mn-authors

I thought this was a cool concept overall, but there were elements of the book that I didn’t particularly enjoy.

Firstly, Becca was a serious brat and way too clingy to Sophie. I get that they’re twins but having someone not allow you to feel like an individual while also having the parents back them up was very frustrating to read about.

I’m not a fan of the cliffhanger that ended the story, but that’s just my preference in general. I wish the issue with Angie’s dad and Latrice would’ve been solved. I also don’t understand the conversation at the end. Without spoiling, the fact that one person in a relationship was going against the other was very weird.

Despite all that, having pins that give you great powers is pretty cool as someone who myself loves pins. I also like that though they all shared this thing together, they still had their individual storylines as they tried to navigate their own issues.

I NEED THE SEQUEL NOW!!!

This was so good! Super inclusive, wholesome, exciting, fun and I just flew through it. But that cliffhanger, I cannot wait to read the sequel!

I immediately fell in love with the cover. I wasn’t so sure about the story starting with an “evil” stepmother, that felt so outdated but don’t let that stop you from reading more because this book does something so good and unexpected with that further into the story!!

So Angela is the girl with the new stepmother. They moved into her house. Her dad met her at Funtastic Plains where they both work. This amusement park and some of its characters, play a huge role in this book. Angela loves those characters, drawing and creating comics and collecting pins. Angela hasn’t made any friends at her new school yet and is lonely.

This book has 4 POVs and it never gets confusing.

The second POV is Sophie. She has a twin sister Becca, who wants to do everything together. But Sophie wants to do some things separately and maybe even have her own friends but she’s afraid to bring it up.

The third POV is Angela’s best friend from her old neighborhood, Skylar (they/them). Skylar loves drawing. Their dad lost his job because of an expansion of Funtastic Plains. They have a busy and tired mom, two crazy little brothers and their ailing grandmother lives with them too. They help where they can but they do mess some things up.

POV 4 is Travis. He lives with his grandpa and runs track but is that really what he wants to do? What he truly loves is playing his favorite game with his best friend Rhyan.

An explosion happens and soon after they all obtain a mysterious free pin that gives them certain powers. The pins bring them together and they become good friends. And their new powers help them get control over their lives. But where did these pins come from? When they try to find that out, they stumble upon a much bigger mystery!!

Thank you NetGalley for providing me with this arc in exchange for my honest review.

This was a beautifully done children’s novel, it had everything that I was hoping for when requesting this. I enjoyed the magical girl elements to it and loved that it was enamel pins. It was written perfectly and I enjoyed what I read. Briana Lawrence has a great style for this type of book.