The Academy: Game On
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3.0 • 1 Rating
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- $7.99
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- $7.99
Publisher Description
The Academy is an International Sports Mecca for teen athletes. There are only two ways in. Deep pockets or enough talent to score a scholarship.
Young tennis star Maya's dreams have finally come true when she earns a scholarship to The Academy. Plucked from her small town, Maya moves to the sports training facility/boarding school to (hopefully) start the beginning of her pro career. But Maya's fantasy of The Academy doesn't quite match the reality. Because where there are hot, talented teens, there's a lot of drama. Meet the players:
Nicole: A tennis star who feels threatened by Maya (but she'd never admit it).
Cleo: Maya's rebel/punk roommate who is nearing the top of the golf world.
Renee: The gorgeous swimmer with enough money to buy her way into The Academy.
Travis: The son of The Academy owner--perfectly groomed to be the next NFL star.
Jake: Travis' younger brother--the bad boy to his brother's good.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Seles won nine Grand Slam titles before her 20th birthday, and she bases her first novel on her experience at an elite sports school. But this first book in the Academy series fails to deliver, most fundamentally by including disappointingly little about tennis. Instead, Seles and coauthor LaRosa serve up a lackluster melodrama about backstabbing rich kids. Maya Hart, a "sixteen-year-old have-not from central New York with absolutely no connections whatsoever," wins a scholarship to the Academy, "without question, the greatest sports training facility in the world." She immediately runs afoul of reigning school doyenne Nicole King, already a world-class tennis player, but catches the eye of star quarterback Travis Reed. Maya bunks with another scholarship student, a conflicted Chinese golfer, until a makeover from a rich classmate reveals Maya's stunning beauty and new doors open for her. Seles touches on the expectations for female athletes to conform to a certain standard of beauty, but readers may sense a missed opportunity to gain greater insight into the psychological and physical pressures of competitive sports. Ages 12 up.
