Gridiron Girl by Tamara Girardi

This was such a sweet and enjoyable sports read about a high school girl pursuing her dream to play varsity football. I loved how empowering this story was, and how the romance played a smaller part than the love for the game, and how nothing stood in the way of that.

As the youngest sister of three former quarter backs, football has always been in Julia Medina’s heart and blood, but she’d kept her dream hidden and played volleyball instead. But dreams have a way to make themselves heard and eventually Julia decides to stop running from it and try out for the QB position, despite the controversy it creates amongst the football team, their parents, her former volleyball teammates and not to mention her boyfriend, who also is trying out for the QB position this year…

It was so refreshing that Julia was such a though and headstrong character that didn’t let anything stand in her way and that the romance part wasn’t the most important in the story, as is often the case in many YA book. It was so empowering to see how she held strong in her beliefs even though she knew she risked losing her boyfriend and best friend, and her volleyball scholarship.

I also really loved the family dynamics and Julia’s supportive brothers and abuelita, as well as her supportive team mates Square and D. (One of my favorite scenes from the book was the one where Square was standing in as girlfriend for Julia’s former best friend, giving “girly advice”, it was so adorable!)

What I didn’t enjoy as much though was the selfish way Julia acted when it came to both her boyfriend Owen and her best friend Ally. Going behind their backs and not telling them that she was quitting volleyball to play football (and even compete with Owen for the QB position), and then being upset when they didn’t immediately support her was a really bad move. And when she on top of that almost cheated on Owen, didn’t sit well with me. (Don’t want to go into that specific issue more, to avoid spoilers, but just let me say that it wasn’t great what Julia did.)

But all in all, this was a sweet and uplifting story about chasing your dreams no matter what anyone tells you, with some great friendships and heartwarming family support.

Thank you Wise Wolf Books for the ARC! All opinions are my own and I am leaving my honest review voluntarily.

Rating:
3.5 stars rounding up to 4

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​Author info:
Tamara Girardi