How did I get these books? I bought them.
Genre: Contemporary
So, any understanding I have of Prom or American Football* is from teen movies and comments in other US YA books. While Prom has now been imported to the UK, it happened after I left school (which isn’t that long ago!) and I don’t think the UK version is anywhere on the scale of the US.
Given the above picking to contemporary stories that dealt with these subjects might seem a bit odd but I’d heard so much about both books and figured the stories would be good enough without me having to require that kind of “local” knowledge.
I’ve posted the books in reading order.
Ditched, A love Story: THERE’S A GIRL.
Justina Griffith was never the girl who dreamed of going to prom. Designer dresses and strappy heels? Not her thing. That said, she never expected her best friend, Ian Clark, to ask her.
AND THERE’S A BOY.
Ian, who always passed her the baseball bat, handle first.
Ian, who knew exactly when she needed red licorice.
Ian, who promised her the most amazing night at prom.
THEN THERE’S A DITCH.
But when Justina is ditched, figuratively and literally, she must piece together–stain-by-stain on her thrift store dress–exactly how she ended up dateless…with only the help of some opinionated ladies at the 7-Eleven.
To get the whole store, Justina will have to face the boy who ditched her. Can losing out at her prom ultimately lead to finding true love?
Catching Jordan: ONE OF THE BOYS
What girl doesn’t want to be surrounded by gorgeous jocks day in and day out? Jordan Woods isn’t just surrounded by hot guys, though-she leads them as the captain and quarterback of her high school football team. They all see her as one of the guys and that’s just fine. As long as she gets her athletic scholarship to a powerhouse university.
But everything she’s ever worked for is threatened when Ty Greeen moves to her school. Not only is he an amazing QB, but he’s also amazingly hot. And for the first time, Jordan’s feeling vulnerable. Can she keep her head in the game while her heart’s on the line?
Review: Both stories have really good female protagonists, they are independent and opinionated. Actually they both seem to have rather the same view point on “girly girls” – I rather liked the way Justina & Jordan had to acknowledge that they were wrong on that subject.
Ditched & Catching Jordan are entertaining reads, while Ditched comes across as the more light-hearted of the two. That said both books tackle sexism really well. In Catching Jordan it’s her struggle with being a female player in a male dominated sport and the fact that her potential university only sees her as a mascot and Justina in Ditched has to deal with her reputation (once gained never forgotten) of being a slut for kissing a lot of boys.
I think my lack of Prom understanding did effect my enjoyment of Ditched more than I anticipated. Jordan in Catching Jordan was easier to sympathise with as I could just replace American Football with another sport but with Ditched I didn’t understand why this one night was/is so important.
In the end both books were what I hopped for, they are well written with good narrators and some really great supporting characters, ensuring that you will not be bored at any point during the story.
Recommend Ditched?
Yes
Recommend Catching Jordan?
Yes
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*I will continue to refer to this as American Football just so you know.
Luna's Little Library 