Skid by Doug Solter
Published: May 20, 2012
Publisher: CreateSpace
Pages: 270
Genres: young adult, contemporary, sports, sports fiction
Rating: 4.5 stars
Recommend to fans of: fiction books about sports, racing, driven passionate women, females in male dominated sports/careers, action packed books
Read with food: cheese fries ~ Samantha’s favorite
Synopsis:
Love and romance at the speed of death.
Seventeen-year-old Samantha Sutton races cars. She’s good. Crazy-talented good. A girl who breaks all the stereotypes. But she has a temper that always gets her into plenty of trouble. After her father died, Samantha focused her life on winning every race. Nothing short of that goal will do. The girl knows she has a debt to pay back.
Eighteen-year-old Manny Wolert loves the engineering side of racing. The nuts and bolts. The supercharged engines and intricate aerodynamics. He’s a racing nerd who grew up inside his uncle’s Formula One team. This is their year to win. If only they can find their Mozart behind the wheel.
A story of two teens, brought together by their love of speed.
Fans of Maggie Stiefvater’s THE SCORPIO RACES and Enid Bagnold’s NATIONAL VELVET should find SKID exciting and emotionally compelling. Fans of Ally Carter’s HEIST SOCIETY series will enjoy the international settings and lifestyle.
This book is the first part of the SKID young adult racing series filled with young romance, bite-your-nails-racing action, international travel, a girl you want to root for, and above all else…a story about racing for people who don’t care about racing.
Review:
Skid pulled me in right from the beginning and didn’t let up. The author is phenomenal at bringing us into the world of racing. I know nothing about cars or racing, but I could easily follow the story. The writing made the story work so well. The main character, Samantha, is realistically written as a passionate teenage girl trying to make it in a male dominated sport. Her passion and determination races off each page, making me want to keep reading. I also really enjoyed that the story can be really inspirational for a lot of teenage girls. The more books we feature with strong passionate females, the better. Skid should really be in the hands of more middle and high schoolers.
The only critiques I have are that Samantha kept calling the car her best friend, while driving. Is this a racing thing? After awhile the repetitiveness became a bit annoying. Also she doesn’t have a ton of professional race experience, but after a few months of intense training, she’s competing against seasoned pros. Not incredibly realistic, but young phenols do happen in sport. It certainly makes the world of sports super exciting!
But overall I really enjoyed the book for the exciting world of competitive racing, inspiring character of Samantha and overall fun that made the entire book work.
As of the date of this initial post, Skid by Doug Solter is available for FREE on Amazon.com in ebook format. Such a great way to see if you like the first book in the series.
*Not an affiliate link, just noticed it was free when I went to buy it and thought I would pass along the info to you all.
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