Cristian Castelo

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for an advanced copy in exchange for my honest review!

I was interested in reading this because it's about a high school girl joining a roller derby team! I was thinking this would be sort of like Whip It, but set in the 1970's. It very much is not like that movie. This book fell flat for me. The plot is all over the place, and a bit hard to follow. I'm still unsure if this book is supposed to be reality-based or fantastical. The introductory scene confused me quite a bit, and I'm still not sure if it's supposed to be a flashback or a dream. Both? There were many scenes where I thought it was just Wild imagining the entire thing, until other characters comment on it, and I realized that nope, it's reality. The world of Wild is just that weird. It doesn't help that Wild, the main protagonist DOES have an imaginary version of her roller derby hero that she talks to and gets advice from sometimes. As far as I can tell, Wild's version of Rosie is imaginary. (Also, I can tell from the jump, the plot twist with Rosie is that it's her Mom or someone her Mom knew) The scenes of the roller derby fights were really hard to follow. I'm pretty sure a derby match doesn't allow for two players to monologue for THAT much while standing right in the middle of the track. The way the scenes are drawn makes a lot of the plot hard to follow. There were moments when I couldn't tell the order in which the panels were meant to be read since it was drawn in a chaotic way. The art style of the overall book is just chaotic in general. The style seems to change from panel to panel Everything is drawn in some sort of shade of orange, so it made everything start to blend together visually. Page flow was non-existent. Some of the fonts used in this book were so stylized that they were impossible to read. Also, what's up with there very rarely being any backgrounds? I didn't really care for this, and I see it's the first volume in a series. I really have no interest in picking up the second volume.… (altro)

(Full disclosure: I received a free e-ARC for review through Netgalley. Trigger warning for ableist language.)

Fourteen-year-old Wild Rodriguez made a pact with her besties years ago: train like hell so that they could all score a spot on the Rocket Rollers, one of several roller derby teams at Westhoff HS. Now that freshman year has finally arrived, Wild is having second thoughts: not because she doesn't love roller derby, but because she's afraid she'll prove no good at her only passion. It doesn't help that her mom - a roller derby aficionado who idolizes the mysterious icon Rosie - thinks that Wild is too fragile for such a rough and tumble sport. Or that the members of the opposing teams want to reduce her to a blood smear on the rink.

I love roller derby (as a spectator only, lol), and wanted to love WILD, but ... not so much. This feels less like roller derby and more like MMA fighting. The violence and trash talk is over the top; the word 'gonzo' comes to mind. Granted, what we're treated to is Wild's exaggerated POV, but the result is bizarre and hard to follow. Several of the girls look very similar, and when you throw in the sometimes distorted facial expressions and many demonic faces, it becomes nearly impossible to tell everyone apart. Other reviewers used the term 'experimental' and compared it to CUPHEAD, both of which seem apt. If this is your thing, you might enjoy WILD - otherwise skip this one.… (altro)