Thursday, November 22, 2012

Book Review: Hooked by Liz Fichera

Title: Hooked
Author: Liz Fichera
Publication date: January 31st 2013

Genre: YA, contemporary, sports
Pages: 368
Rating: 2.5 out of 5

Get hooked on a girl named Fred... HE said: Fred Oday is a girl? Why is a girl taking my best friends spot on the boy's varsity golf team?
SHE said: Can I seriously do this? Can I join the boys' team? Everyone will hate me - especially Ryan Berenger.
HE said: Coach expects me to partner with Fred on the green? That is crazy bad. Fred's got to go - especially now that I can't get her out of my head. So not happening.
SHE said: Ryan can be nice, when he's not being a jerk. Like the time he carried my golf bag. But the girl from the rez and the spoiled rich boy from the suburbs? So not happening.
But there's no denying that things are happening as the girl with the killer swing takes on the boy with the killer smile...

This is a story about Fred, a Native American girl golfer who joins her all boy’s Varsity high school golf team. She gets Seth’s place on the team  and he is not happy about that. His best friend, Ryan accepts the fact Seth won’t be joining him again really fast. But Seth can’t let it go even though he is not very good at golf.  So he starts to bully Fred at every chance he gets.

What I liked about this story that it’s about sports-golf, to be exact. I don’t know anything about golf so it was refreshing to actually learn something reading YA novels. I thought golf was only for white, bored rich people but I couldn’t be more wrong.  Apparently, even girls can play it. Crazy, I know. :P

When I first saw this book on GoodReads I thought Wow, I gotta have this. But when I started reading it it wasn’t what I thought it would be. That is probably my problem, for thinking Fred would stand up for herself when people called her Pocahontas and dirty Indian. I just hate watching people get bullied because I used to be bullied too. But the difference between Fred and me is that I fought back and eventually the scum who tormented me backed away after they saw I wouldn’t put up with their shit.

Also,at times it got a lot of dramatic. All sorts of bad things kept happening to the MC and it went too far. IMO. 

When it comes to the romance I was also disappointed and that disappointment is connect with the way I thought Fred would be as a character. Ryan isn’t perfect either but he did man up a couple of times and I respect that. It would be better if we got more of Fred and Ryan scenes where they would talk and get to know each other better but those scenes kind of faded into black.

In conclusion, I liked this book enough to read the second book, Played when it comes out. The main characters in this book will be Fred’s friend Sam and Ryan’s sister Riley. 

2.5 stars


2 comments:

Christina said...

I'm happy to see a review for this one, because, though the cover is awful, I still hoped it might be surprisingly deep. Unfortunately, it sounds like it's just as CW teen drama as the cover.

Oh no, the romance too. I think that's why instalove is such a problem partly. Authors don't want to spend the time creating a real bond between the two characters, so they just TELL you that they're in love. Umm, no, not buying it.

I'm glad you liked it enough to keep going, but I'll be steering clear of this one. Thanks for the info!

Unknown said...

The story sounds good, I actually have it on my TBR list. Good to see some more critical review on it as well!