Whip It
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3.0 • 1 Rating
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- $12.99
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
Roller derby is back, in all of its rowdy and raucous glory! Shauna Cross' Whip It is the basis of the 2009 Drew Barrymore film of the same name, starring Ellen Page, Alia Shawkat, Marcia Gay Harden and Daniel Stern.
Meet Bliss Cavendar, an indie-rock-loving misfit stuck in the tiny town of Bodeen, Texas. Her pageant-addicted mother expects her to compete for the coveted Miss Bluebonnet crown, but Bliss would rather feast on roaches than be subjected to such rhinestone tyranny.
Bliss's escape? Roller Derby.
When she discovers a league in nearby Austin, Bliss embarks on an epic journey full of hilarious tattooed girls, delicious boys in bands, and a few not-so-awesome realities even the most hard-core derby chick has to learn.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Debut novelist Cross, a screenwriter and former roller derby girl, retreads well-worn YA themes as a path to a roller-derby plot line. A main character feeling too cool for school and her plebeian town? Check. Two parents who just don't understand? Check. A budding romance that leaves a best friend left in the dust? Check. Here, the teen angst is embodied in 16-year-old Bliss Cavendar, a blue-haired, Chuck Taylor wearing indie rebel living in a tiny Texas town of country music loving beauty-pageant fans. Yearning to escape the suffocating boredom, Bliss and her best friend, Pash Amini, crash a roller derby event in nearby Austin. The girls are entranced by the glammed-up skaters in heavy makeup and fishnet stockings who shove and elbow their way around a track. Bliss soon lies about her age, becomes a derby girl, meets a cute boy and learns several unsurprising life lessons. Despite being formulaic, the novel shines in describing the dashing world of roller derby, where the players are hot and have nasty names like Dinah Might, Eva Destruction and Princess Slaya. When Bliss describes watching "girls dive on the track, leap over one another, pile on the infield for brawls, fly over the rails into the crowd (more than once!)... and yet, you can tell they're having the time of their lives," her naked enthusiasm for the edgy, underground sport injects some energy into an otherwise labored tale. Ages 14-up.
