4⭐️

“Learning to Fall” by Peach Morris is a quick, sapphic sports young adult novel.

I was instantly drawn to the cover of this book, and luckily, the story itself didn’t disappoint.

I absolutely loved every aspect of this book, from the queer found family to the way it represented mental illness.
I liked the romance between Casey and Imogen, and at the same time, I appreciated how, at least in my opinion, it wasn’t the main focus of the story.

I really connected with Casey and her characterisation. All her fears and concerns really shaped her into a well-developed and realistic character.

In conclusion, I was totally captivated by this author’s debut, and I can’t wait to read their other works in the future.

Thank you to the author, the publisher and NetGalley for the ARC.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC in exchange for an honest review!

Aaaaaaaa.

I wanted to love this. As a gay derby gal I desperately wanted to love this. But so much of it felt cliched, shoehorned in or kind of empty? Plus name checking an actual team that folded? A bit shady… did the author check with the Nottingham Hellfire Harlots before using their name in the book? Seems like the kind of thing you should really ask permission for first especially when other teams are fictionalised.

There were also some really peculiar quotes like “Derby practice…” “I was confused, we don’t live in Derby”. Palm, meet face. You can make it clear that someone knows nothing about the sport without so much exposition dumping. There was a lot of “telling” the reader rather than showing, which also left me a bit cold.

The book did tackle heavy topics like sexuality, gender identity, mental health, chronic illness and alcohol abuse, but it felt like each thing was being shoehorned in for the plot. That being said I loved Mel so much, she was a perfect character and I liked that the fact she’s trans was entirely incidental.

The book did get better as it went along but I found the ultimate ending pretty predictable.

It’s a nice, entertaining and fluffy read and I do wish the author all the best and I hope she keeps writing and honing her craft because I do think there’s loads of potential and talent there. However, despite being about two of my great loves - roller derby and queer awakenings - this just read like any other sports romance book on the market. It’s candyfloss in book form, very sweet, but little substance to be had.

Did not finish book. Stopped at 61% (chapter 17 out of 25)

Words cannot describe how desperately I wanted to love this book. I was so beyond excited to receive an E-ARC and put all my other books on hold to binge read. A sapphic romance novel and roller derby?! The dream for any Whip It fan! Which is why I am so devastated that this book just does not work for me for a handful of reasons.

The characters: Are about as flat as can be. I wasn't hating Casey, our MC, for the first 40% of this book and actually could really relate to her as an anxious, introverted people pleasure and former baby gay. But the author fails to really do much exploration with her character even as we see Casey grow. Her growth on page feels as though we're just hitting that milestone because we're nearing the end of the book instead of because there's actual change and growth.

There's really no exploration into Casey's queerness outside of "I have a crush on Imogen." which is really a shame because the supporting cast of characters is such an unique range of queer, nonbinary and trans characters who could've offered insight and mentorship to a baby queer.

There were also some strange character moments that often too suddenly or happened out of the blue. For example there's ONE chapter where Imogen is pissed off and being really mean to Casey with no explanation given in the moment or leading up to it. And by the next chapter....it's just....resolved? Same with a lot of Casey's relationships outside of her crush; a lot of tension, general meanness that is just suddenly...."okay" after a few chapters.

The plot: or lack there of really. Of the 61% of that I read, 90% of the chapters felt like we were recycling scenes. How many scenes of the group getting drunk, Casey thinking "oh yeah I may be queer", Casey crying because people just don't get her passions, do I have to read over and over before something meaningful happens? I can see what the author is trying to do, showing a progression of Casey coming out of her shell or using these scenes to allow Casey to have reflective moments. But there is no depth to it. There's nothing more than surface level blandness.

The pacing: just....yikes. This ties in with the reasons I feel like the plot didn't work; repeating the same 3-4 events without investigating or exploring more in depth or providing good dialogue makes the pacing of Learning to Fall incredibly tedious. Especially once you hit the 30% and you start to see the pattern.

I'd give this a 2.5 (being generous) for the few moments of queer joy that I really loved and the good representation for chronic illness. Overall this was a big disappointment for me though

ARC received from the publisher via NetGalley.

3.75 stars rounded up. Learning to Fall is a young adult debut novel set in the UK. It's about finding your true self and learning to cope with mental health issues. It has a love story plot on the side but the novel is more about coming to terms with yourself and falling in love with a sport and the community it comes with. And it's about roller derby. There's chronic illness rep (wide character), bipoc love interest, trans and non-binary rep (side characters) in the novel. There are a lot of difficult and serious topics in the book, like alcohol abuse, mental health issues, and toxic family dynamics.

For me there was a bit too much roller derby in the book. For someone who has seen Whip It (2009) but basically does not know anything else about the sport, all the practice and scrimmage and game description were a bit boring. But most of those bits helped to build Casey as a character.

It was a good read and the novel was well written. Really well done debut. It would be great read especially for a teen reader.