Now that I am completely done the book I can truly say that I was unimpressed by this book. The target audience was clearly middle school aged students, possibly the reason why the main character was only twelve years old. I was really hoping that Travel Team would live up to the standard that I used to classify other Lupica sports novels, and it completely failed to do so. The books plot seemed so simple and typical that I hard an extremely hard time getting immersed in the book because I knew exactly what was going to happen next. Based on my strong opinions toward this Lupica novel I have officially decided not to re-read any of his other books in hopes of preserving my respect towards them.
"The two of them shook hands the regular way. The old-school way. Then Ty kept holding on to Danny's hand and somehow lifted him up in the air in the same motion. Then Will was there, and Bren, putting Danny up on their shoulders, carrying him around the court, the way the old Vikings had carried his dad once," (274). This quote almost entirely sums up my feelings toward this book (I can't help but chuckle when reading this excerpt). The entire story followed a typical structure, Danny gets cut from the team, he creates another team, they win, the team carries Danny out on their shoulders, and they all live happily ever after! This plot line just did not draw me in and I'm going to focus on making sure my chosen books have a more complex story structure.
As a kid that enjoys a good sports book, I feel like I should not try this book. The way you described the plot and how it ends sounds like the book is especially bland. I feel like thats a problem with most sports books though. Almost always it ends with beating the rival and winning the big game. This, after a while, gets very repetitive.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with the idea that the entire story follows a typical structure of any sports book in the world. I think you realized that throughout your reading as well. For future reference, I would read the summary of the book, just to get a general idea of the plot so you can decide whether or not to read the story.
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