Getting in the Game

Getting in the Game Date: 01 April, 2005   —   $10.85   —   Book product page Rating:

Joanna (Jo) Giordano has always liked hockey, and doesn’t let the fact that a girl’s team doesn’t exist, stop her. Despite protests from her principal, coach, and the team’s star player, Jo goes out for the boy’s team. While trying to adjust to her role on the team, Jo must also deal with some problems at home. Her father, who has since moved out, has a temper that gets him kicked out of one Jo’s games. Gramps is suffering from symptoms of Alzheimer’s, and Jo’s idolized older brother, Jim, has moved out of the area to go to college.

Getting in the Game is a good, realistic story without delving into cliches, like sports novels can sometimes do. While Jo becomes accepted by her coach, she only becomes grudgingly accepted by Derek, the star player. Her relationship with her best friend, Ben, goes through some ups and downs during the novel, but the book (thankfully) does not end with them as a couple. Even issues with snotty popular girl, Valerie, are mainly left unresolved. Supporting characters add color to the story, most especially Jo’s friend, Taryn, and Jo’s mother, a nursing home nurse. Scenes involving her father fighting with officials at hockey and softball games do border on being silly, but sadly, do address a growing problem in juvenile sports.

Getting in the Game is an empowering novel for any sports loving girl, or for any one going through the trials of early adolescence.

Laura B.

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