Michigan vs. the Boys

4.5 stars. this was so so good!! I absolutely loved Michigan. she was so ambitious and even though some of her decisions frustrated me, I definitely understood them. she's 16 and just wants to play hockey and will do anything to do so. the only thing that brought this down a liiittle for me was this was definitely a story about Michigan, which is a great thing, but I felt a few of the characters & relationships with those characters weren't as fleshed out as I would have liked them to be (specifically Brie & Michigan's mom). with that being said, I did really like Jack & their relationship.
other than that minor issue, I loved this!

3.25 stars. I couldn't decide on whether Michigan vs. The Boys should get 3 or 3.5 stars, so I settled for my first ever .25 rating. This book had me LIVID. The misogyny was so blatant that I had to step away from the story at times. I skipped ahead a bit just to make sure justice would be served because I couldn't go on without at least knowing there was a happy ending.

This was one of those “meh” books. With such a high GoodReads rating, I had very high hopes and was disappointed. I didn

Me? Rating a sports book 5 stars? Okay, it's happened before with Running With Lions by Julian Winters. And the All For the Game trilogy by Nora Sakavic. So I guess I do tend to like sports books if they have a good cast of characters. Michigan vs the Boys proved that point.

A big deal of the book focuses on the boys' team hating the fact that Michigan joined their team (after her team was cut for budgetary reasons). Which was unfortunate because she's a really good player, but because she's a girl, she's automatically seen as inferior in most of the boys' eyes. Like they keep saying that women are more ‘emotional and prone to rages' or whatever but who's out trashing the streets when their favourite sports team loses? Who gets upset when a girl tells him “No”?

That really riled me up and annoyed me to high heaven. I attended an all-girls' school from Gr. R to Gr. 12 so the only time I had to deal with boys in the classroom was in Drama (Gr.10 – 12). And even then I only liked 2 of them and either would sit by them or sit by the girls. I know for a fact that if my parents put me in a co-ed school I would be in the principal's office at least once a week for fighting with the boys. I just had no patience for them! One reason why I never dated in high school (another because I was too busy reading to find time for a relationship