Book Review: Catching Jordan by Miranda Kenneally

Title: Catching Jordan

Series: Hundred Oaks (#1)

Author: Miranda Kenneally

Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire

Date: December 1st, 2011

Pages: 288

Format: Paperback

Source: Borrowed

 

Synopsis (from Goodreads): 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 Green 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:

My dear friend Jasmin and I decided it was about time for us to do another buddy read together and Catching Jordan was the book we chose was the perfect choice, because we always buddy read YA (or NA) contemporary.

Catching Jordan is the first book in Hundred Oaks series and it follows Jordan and her friends who play football (or like I prefer to call it, American rugby, because you know, us people from Europe prefer another sport called football).

Jordan is a Quarterback, the captain of her team and – a girl. Yes, guys, you read it right. She is one badass girl who plays rugby better then any guy in her team, she is the only female member of her team and she is one of the guys.
As a result, her best friends are all guys, they appreciate her, and watch her back in a way.
Even though at first it sounds pretty unbelievable that a girl could be so much better then guys at sports, especially if you consider the fact that the female body is naturally builted weaker then male, there are things explained in this book.
Jordan comes from family of sport champions. Her father is great Alan Woods, one of the best rugby players in America. Her brother also plays rugby professionally, and she is bigger then other girls. She is just a big girl.

Jordan has a dream to play rugby professionally and to go to study to Alabama where all the best rugby players go.
She wants to be looked at equally as men.

This book talks a lot about sexism and how hard it is for women to be appreciated equally as men even if they are as good or even better then them.

Jordan was an interesting character but I wasn’t fond of her.
Don’t get me wrong, being a tomboy myself, I had nothing against her manly behaviour (except in times when it went too far).
What I didn’t like about her was that she was supposed to represent feminists when in reality she wasn’t feminist, not at all! The reason I’m saying that is because she more then few times brang down cheerleaders just because they had an interest in make up. She put them all in the same box, labeled them as stupid and thought she was better then them just because they liked girly stuff.
I know one of them did her wrong in the past, but still, I think Jordan’s behaviour said more about her then about any of those cheerleaders.

This book is good, funny and easy to read in general.
I enjoyed reading about Jordan’s relationship with her friends. JJ was my favorite.

Henry is her best friend who has a habit to spend nights in her bed. Her parents are fully aware of that but they approve it. Let me ask you one thing: What kind of parenting is that??
They trust her. They know she has no interest in Harry. The only precaution they did is to say that Jordan and Harry can’t sleep head to head, but have to sleep head to legs. Yeah, like that’s gonna stop teenagers from doing anything!
Don’t forget we’re talking about minors, teenagers full of hormones.
Maybe I took it too harsh, but I just can’t get over that aspect of the story. I didn’t like it, not at all!

There’s also one more thing (third to be precise) thing I didn’t like: how Jordan hits like it’s a fun game. She hit Harry so hard that his jaw cracked, and she laughed about it, along with him.
If the similar thing happened with roles versed, if guy hit a girl, that would be women abuse, but when the girl hits a guy it supposed to be funny? I don’t think so!

I feel like I’m in minority here, but I actually liked Ty. I think he was right most of the times and everytime Jordan had problems with his behaviour, I was on his side.
Of course he had problems with his girlfriend sleeping in the same bed with another guy. Who wouldn’t?

As you can clearly see from m y review, I had more then few problems with the story but I am still glad I read it and, believe it or not, I actually had a good time reading it.
I would like to read next book in the series because it follows different characters and I am curious to see whether I’ll like that one better.