Book Review: We Are The Wildcats | Siobhan Vivian

This is Book #4/20 (#9 overall) that I read this year. It was published on March 31, 2020, and counts towards my 20 for 2020 challenge.

I enjoyed this book, but it was pretty average for me. My favorite part about this book was how accurately it portrays the feeling of being on a team. I really felt immersed in that nostalgic feeling of how it felt to be on a high school team. It really captures the feeling of being an emotional teen and the team friendships that feel more like family.

I think the plot and pacing was a little wonky. The main plot point and adventure doesn't start until halfway through and I was definitely bored at moments. I also think the characters could have been a little bit more fleshed out. The multiple perspectives started out strong, but many of the characters felt like they were forgotten about by the end. The first chapter of each perspective provides a great first look at these characters, but we never really explore too much more into them as the story goes on. The characters for the most part feel like the same person, they don't feel like they each offer something special to the narrative.

I did like the Coach story line. I liked how he wasn't a normal antagonist; we focused more on the girls and their experiences with him. I also liked seeing how each of the girls were affected by losing the championship game the year previously, and how each of them were blaming themselves. And how they come together to address what's been haunting them for the past year. But I also didn't really feel emotionally connected to the characters or their story. I feel like something was missing here to make me really care about them. There also wasn't really anything pushing me forward to continue on with the story.

One thing that I also want to complain about is the mis-marketed and spoiler-filled summary. This is the one-sentence summary given for the book: "A toxic coach finds himself outplayed by the high school girls on his team in this deeply suspenseful novel, which unspools over twenty-four hours through six diverse perspectives." I've underlined the three issues I have with this sentence (when one sentence has this many issues, its pretty concerning). Issue 1: The first underlined section completely gives away a subtle mystery that you're supposed to unravel on your own by reading the story, but in the summary they just outright tell you. This is why I don't read book summaries before I read the book. I read this as part of a book club, so I had to read it anyway without necessarily being interested in it (thus, didn't read the summary). Issue #2: This book is not suspenseful. Like at all. Like I really can't emphasize that enough. It wasn't suspenseful even a little bit. It would have been nice if it was a little suspenseful. It would have made it a little more interesting, but I just have a big issue with them marketing this as suspenseful when that couldn't be further from the truth (at least in my opinion). Issue #3: The six perspectives are really not that diverse. They pretty much feel like they could be the same person, since they don't have very different opinions or personalities.

So overall, I liked the book. I thought it was pretty average. If you are particularly connected to this high school team experience, I think you would enjoy reading this book and being transported to that era of your life. I'd give this book a standard 3/5. Have you read this book? Be sure to leave your thoughts down below.