First of all, there’s a lot of bait and switch advertising here. You think you’re getting a book about a woman who competes in roller derby because of the title, the cover, and the blurb but the sport is merely used as a superficial backdrop. You might possibly even believe it’s about the dynamics of organ transplant donor/recipient relationships but no again, just a flimsy gimmick that’s often wildly inaccurate and crazy in its depictions.

Instead, this book is mostly a long winded navel gazing, mansplain of what two women are going through as they get to the point where their romantic relationship either deepens into a commitment or they break up. The writer manages to backhandedly bash all of the women characters as well as utilize the “bury the gays” trope symbolically in a seemingly never ending, pretentious drone that is 280 pages long. Hokey dream imagery, mean spirited dialogue (could not even tell the mc’s apart), and tons of boring therapy sessions, just a negative tone towards women in general.

In my eyes, the biggest cardinal sin in a book is when there’s untruth in a story. I’m not talking about an unreliable narrator. I’m saying when an author purposely tells a story that is not true to its characters and narrative in order to push an agenda or bias. It almost made me cry I was so angry as a woman who loves women, as a healthcare professional, and as someone who was fortunate enough to have a brother who gifted her a kidney. These women characters did not deserve this crap treatment. Absolutely NO on this one.

I hate to say this but this was pretty disappointing to me. I saw the cover for this book and I was really excited to read this. I remember when I first really found out about roller derby, when I was a young adult, I was ready to move to Austin TX and get on a team. Of course the little fact that I couldn’t skate quickly ended that dream. But I still love that derby is about a bunch of women, from all different backgrounds and jobs, coming together to be a bunch of badasses. It’s fun and exhilarating to watch and I was hoping this book would be too. That was not the case at all. In fact derby itself was not very important to the book, it was almost used more metaphorically. While I am putting the sports tag on this, its sports with a very small s. This is a drama book.

I do want to make clear that Larry can write. His writing was well done. The problem I had was his story choices. Part of it was my fault; I did not go into this expecting such a depressing story. This is basically the story of someone’s life falling apart and that was not what I was looking for. I would give Larry 4 stars for his writing but only 2 stars for my actual enjoyment of the book. I had dinner with my father tonight and he asked why I had such a grumpy look on my face. I told him it’s this depressing book I’m reading and gave him the summary, he wasn’t impressed either. And to be honest I’m left almost wondering what was the point of the whole book? Whatever it was it didn’t work for me.

I’m really disappointed to say I can't recommend this book. It was well written but that is the only reason I rated this as high as I did. Maybe it was a little too cerebral for me. I think I just wanted more derby and to be honest I don’t really like reading books were nothing good or happy happens. That’s just my personal preference so your mileage may vary.

Edit to add: There was some issues with the formatting on my Kindle ARC copy that I hope gets fixed for the release.

Great read. The author wrote a story that was interesting and moved at a pace that kept me engaged. The characters were easy to invest in.

This is a superbly told story about a semi-professional roller derby skater, her girlfriend, their relationship and a kidney. In the two months leading up to the championship roller derby bout everything starts changing for Nina and Rachel. Nina’s focus is on the derby. She eats, sleeps and lives for the practices. Rachel, who has been living with her for nearly a year, isn’t really sleeping and takes the step of finding a therapist. When Nina’s father goes into renal failure, difficult decisions need to be made and they will affect everyone involved.

Essentially, this is a novel about relationships: Nina and Rachel’s relationship with each other, their relationship to the sport, their relationships with their respective parents (and each other’s) and Rachel’s relationship with her therapist. It portrays realistic people with flawed behaviour. Written in first person from both Nina and Rachel’s points of view, the story is given so much more depth with the addition of therapist’s notes and journal entries.

I loved the portrayal of how subtly complicated relationships can be. The words that are unspoken but linger in the back of one’s mind, the way one can change behaviour or act differently to accommodate for one’s partner and how one never really knows what one’s partner is thinking unless it is actually said out loud. The ethical dilemma of whether or not to donate a kidney was thought-provoking and had me spinning round in circles so I can only imagine how difficult it must be for someone to have to make that decision.

I didn’t really know what roller derby was before this novel so I did a little research but I needn’t have. The sport, it’s history and how it works, is well-explained and really interesting. I hadn’t realised that it is a full contact sport organised and played by women. It’s definitely something I’d like to see live.

I was engaged throughout and while it is about two women in a relationship, it is not a romance.

Book received from Netgalley and Sunbury Press, Inc for an honest review.