Like other girls

After Mara is kicked off the basketball team for fighting, her coach gives her an ultimatum--go one season on another team sport without losing her temper or her basketball hiatus will be permanent. When she joins the football team she doesn't expect to fall in love with the sport. And she definitely doesn't expect to inspire four more girls, including her biggest crush and greatest enemy, to join the team as well. Like Other Girls is a smart look at what gender equality looks like in practice and how easy it can be for a girl to get sucked into a misogynistic mindset when that's been the loudest force in her community. The novel's greatest strength is Mara's realistic, multidimensional presence as she works through a series of essential feminist questions. Lundin has created a book about sports, friendship, and discovering you've always had a place in the world--you just have to claim it. A different but complementary vibe from Catherine Gilbert Murdock's Dairy Queen (2006) and Kris Hui Lee's Out of Left Field (2018).

Closeted Mara Deeble, who's always been one of the guys, confronts her own internalized misogyny after she joins her high school's football team and four other girls follow suit. In rural Elkhorn, Oregon, life revolves around ranching, church, and sports--but Mara's aggression got her kicked off the basketball team last winter, and Coach Joyce won't let her rejoin without proof that she can play a team sport without fighting. She's certainly not trying to make a feminist statement when she joins her quarterback brother on the football team, but after her intense, out-and-proud lesbian archnemesis, Carly Nakata; her gorgeous, tomboyish crush, Valentina Cortez; and two more girls join too, claiming Mara inspired them, everyone's talking about gender--and holding Mara to standards she's uninterested in meeting. Mara is refreshingly, authentically imperfect: judgmental, impulsive, and terrified of being vulnerable yet desperate to be understood. While the Elkhorn Five face open resentment and harassment from the male players, it's Mara's mother's perplexed disappointment that's especially piercing. Thankfully, Mara finds a kindred spirit in Jupiter, an unapologetically butch farmer who is new to town and whose presence feels like "a nice long exhale." Jupiter offers Mara--and readers--new perspectives on gender presentation and sexuality. Most characters appear White; several are cued as Latinx, and Carly is biracial (Asian/White). Readers need not like (or understand) football to wholeheartedly cheer for the Elkhorn Five. Fiercely charming and achingly relatable--a glorious, empowering touchdown. (Fiction. 12-18) Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.