The changing tides of middle grade friendships—and a first queer crush—form the heart of this soccer-themed novel set in Iowa.
Mel, Tory, Chloe, and Rima used to be best friends and soccer teammates, until an incident last year tore them apart. Now, Mel is focused on captaining the team to the Eighth-Grade Girls’ City Championship, even though things are particularly tense between her and Tory. Secretly, however, Mel is unsure what she brings to the table as a leader and is flailing over a class presentation project. She’s also hesitant to share the fact that she writes poetry; her sister has always been the writer in the family, while she’s been the “sporty” one. She connects online, however, with an unknown classmate who goes by “BTtoYouPlease,” and with whom she can share her verse.
Organized, rule-following Tory, who hates change, is upset that she had let herself start to feel a crush on Mel, something she knew would change the group’s dynamics. And she’s upset about the wrong thing she said that led to the friend-group breakup—a fumbled response to a classmate’s homophobic remark. Only Chloe is still talking to her. Tory finds support from her new stepbrother Terrance, but not from her mom, who is spending more time with her new husband than with her. She, too, turns to an unknown online classmate, “NotEmilyD,” to unburden herself.
It’s no great spoiler to say that the two girls are in fact messaging each other (the book jacket says so), but it’s the journey of how they discover this and eventually share their feelings for each other that forms the heart of the story, told in alternating chapters from each of their perspectives. The narrative is more than just their texts, however; we also see them interacting in real life on the soccer field and at school, and navigating relationships with other friends and family members. There’s a lot going on, but author Erin Becker organizes her team of characters well.
I particularly like the nuance that Tory is hesitant to come out to Chloe not because she’s afraid Chloe is homophobic, but because “telling her would be a whole thing. She’d see me differently than before. And that makes me feel squirmy inside.” Too often coming out storylines are either focused on overcoming homophobia or on seamless acceptance; the middle ground here, however, neither seamless nor obstacle-free, feels important to explore as well.
Soccer fans should particularly enjoy it, but so should many other readers who enjoy thoughtful novels of friendship and self-growth.
Mel and Tory read as White; Chloe is Black, as is Tory’s stepbrother Terrance, and Rima is Muslim and hijabi.
