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A review by visceralreads
We Are the Wildcats by Siobhan Vivian
slow-paced
1.0
What!!
To be honest, I know nothing about field hockey or how American high school varsity culture is like so I won't be digging deep into it. What I WANT to know is why the fuck is everyone worshipping the eponymous Coach (he's literally just A Guy and not all that istg) and why do they keep brushing off his verbally abusive and manipulative antics? Like I get that the girls are so in AWE of this Coach guy that they're all kissing his ass and gaslighting themselves into thinking that his yelling and all is his way of strengthening their field hockey spirit and pushing them to do their best but I honestly don't care for that. I ain't a sports person so take this as a grain of salt.
BUT there was ONE thing I hate about this book and it's Coach's relationship with Mel, the team captain. I don't understand how Mel doesn't get that this weird chatting-till-late-night, secrets-stay-between-you-and-me, i-was-invited-to-your-family's-dinner-and-we-held-hands-under-the-table thing between her and Coach is wrong, or even downright problematic. You're seriously gonna brush off your kinda-boyfriend because Coach is more important? Hell nah, you're being groomed, missy. And I'm glad it took you 350+ fucking pages to realize that. Wait, scratch that, I didn't even see an on-page confirmation from Mel that she's aware this thing between her and Coach is Bad. damn.
The story itself bore me to tears. I'm sorry, I should've DNF'd this right from the beginning because there was like exposition upon exposition, but I promised myself I'll have no DNFs this year. Six POVs and the whole story crammed/dragged into 24 hours of present-day action is not a good idea, I'm sorry. It's also very hard to tell when the flashback ended and the present-day action started because the only thing that changed is the tense! The story was so messy and hard to follow and didn't give me that committing-some-tomfoolery-past-our-bedtime thrill I was hoping for when I read the premise.
TLDR: boring; do not recommend; the story is hard to follow; weird coach-student relationship; I hope Coach goes to jail for whatever he did because that last chapter did NOT do the girls justice, like what kind of ending is that man...
To be honest, I know nothing about field hockey or how American high school varsity culture is like so I won't be digging deep into it. What I WANT to know is why the fuck is everyone worshipping the eponymous Coach (he's literally just A Guy and not all that istg) and why do they keep brushing off his verbally abusive and manipulative antics? Like I get that the girls are so in AWE of this Coach guy that they're all kissing his ass and gaslighting themselves into thinking that his yelling and all is his way of strengthening their field hockey spirit and pushing them to do their best but I honestly don't care for that. I ain't a sports person so take this as a grain of salt.
BUT there was ONE thing I hate about this book and it's Coach's relationship with Mel, the team captain. I don't understand how Mel doesn't get that this weird chatting-till-late-night, secrets-stay-between-you-and-me, i-was-invited-to-your-family's-dinner-and-we-held-hands-under-the-table thing between her and Coach is wrong, or even downright problematic. You're seriously gonna brush off your kinda-boyfriend because Coach is more important? Hell nah, you're being groomed, missy. And I'm glad it took you 350+ fucking pages to realize that. Wait, scratch that, I didn't even see an on-page confirmation from Mel that she's aware this thing between her and Coach is Bad. damn.
The story itself bore me to tears. I'm sorry, I should've DNF'd this right from the beginning because there was like exposition upon exposition, but I promised myself I'll have no DNFs this year. Six POVs and the whole story crammed/dragged into 24 hours of present-day action is not a good idea, I'm sorry. It's also very hard to tell when the flashback ended and the present-day action started because the only thing that changed is the tense! The story was so messy and hard to follow and didn't give me that committing-some-tomfoolery-past-our-bedtime thrill I was hoping for when I read the premise.
TLDR: boring; do not recommend; the story is hard to follow; weird coach-student relationship; I hope Coach goes to jail for whatever he did because that last chapter did NOT do the girls justice, like what kind of ending is that man...