Mir's Reviews > Check, Please! Book 1: #Hockey

This was cute. Almost too cute. Take breaks lest ye be overcome by sugarshock.

Hockey. Central, but in the sense that these kids's lives revolve around their team; you as the reader do not have to spend a lot of time seeing hockey moves, nor will you gain much understanding of the sport from this book.

Actually you won't spend that much time on anything, and that was my main complaint: all the scenes are so short. And there isn't much pacing. I'm not sure if maybe this was a webcomic with a short format to begin with, but it was frustrating to me because it felt like she kept having an interesting set up or story and then it would be over in a page or two without really going anywhere. Example: Bitty, our obsessive-baker protagonist, talks his way into a senior history course on food. Jack the Team Captain is in the same class. Bitty helps Jack with his final project for one page. The end . Nothing comes of this scene, we don't see them in class, we don't learn anything that was covered in the course. Almost all the scenes are short like this, even the ones that imply longer conversations between characters. Maybe this is just a matter of taste, but I feel like my college years included a lot of long and meaningful-at-the-time conversations. Maybe kids don't have those anymore because they're always tweeting, like Bitty.

I don't care for Bitty's social media voice with its constant "Oh my Lord, y'all" and "girl, please" #blessyourheart Southern-ness, but I did think it was a well-done observation of how people have different voices and personas for different audiences. I can't be bothered with anyone's vlog, podcast, youtude channel or twitter account, though. I don't care that you got FroYo or what flavor you had.

But overall I enjoyed the book. Author, if you read this believe that I like you! And your characters! I want more, not less. Do it all over but make it longer! I'm serious -- two years go by in this book and I think it really ought to have been one covered in the same number of pages. That would have been the right pace.