On Edge: The Ice Skating Series #1

What I would really like to have available to young skaters is a more realistic read about kids struggling with Axels and double jumps, school and skating, financial issues and skating's cost to the family in both dollars and time.

it was a good teen read. Not at all complex, but gave the reader a look into what competitive figure skating may be like.

On Edge was a great skating book. I felt like this book captured the skating world pretty accurately. The book catches the emotions of every skater; worrying about their program, watching their weight/food, being anxious about the competition, and most importantly, the drama, drama, drama. Skating is a cut throat sport and I thought that this book summed that up pretty well.Maddie also struggles with asthma and I thought that was pretty cool. Usually in sport books the athlete doesn't have any health problems, but I liked that Maddie has an illness she struggles with daily along with skating.Maddie's coaches were great. I only wish I had that awesome of coaches when I skated, haha! I enjoyed the descriptions of the ice rink and thought that the descriptions of the skaters performing their programs were great.SPOILER ALERT!!!Overall I liked this book, but there were some flaws in it that bothered me. In On Edge the Emerald City figure skaters all practice together as a team, but in real life figure skaters practice individually with a coach one on one. And except for the nationally broadcasted competitions, there is no giant screen or kiss and cry area. The scores are posted after the skaters are all done. Also, it is very hard to believe that all these fourteen year olds are pulling off triple jumps, something Olympians struggle with daily. But these are minor flaws that I overlooked and that didn't bother me too much while reading the book.Even though Sydney was mean, I liked her the most out of everyone. She was the most dedicated skater and you could tell everything she did was to try and better herself as an athlete. Sydney's family is terrible. Her dad is mean, her mom is okay, I guess, but I can't stand her brother, Dylan (who is Maddie's crush). He's hunky enough but he doesn't do anything to help his sister, and barely seems to care about her at all. The stress of skating and her crappy family causes Sydney to develop an eating disorder, which Maddie discovers later.I liked Maddie, but I felt irritated at her when she doesn't do anything to help Sydney once she finds out she has an eating disorder. I thought that she would tell her coach everything, but that never happened. In fact, Maddie doesn't tell anyone at all and the book ends that way. There's a part that really bothered me where Maddie doesn't want to think about Sydney's problems because it would ruin her first date. I wanted Maddie to help Sydney so badly but the book simply ends with Maddie doing a perfect program at Regionals, which was sort of a let down because I was expecting more. I'll definitely be reading #2, Full Revolution, and I hope Maddie finds a way to help out Sydney.

And I'm the first to admit that I love gratuitous teen fiction, and I was obsessed with the Silver Blades series when I was in middle school/high school. ANd I'm old now and cynical LOL.But still...the fact is, the only POC I saw in the whole book was MIchelle frickin' Kwan. Literally the only non-white person. And obviously it's a limited genre in terms of length...but really? Not resolving anything at all? IN a few years this book is gonna be SO DATED. But it is what it is...it doesn't really pretend to be anything more, and it was a pretty nice drunk read.

If you like Jennifer Comeaux's Edge series, then you will like this series. More for the young adult crowd but interesting to see what work goes into skating competitively. Certain arcs were usual tropes but a good overall story. Looking forward to the next book in the series.

The book is fine if you want an easy teen read and don't know too much about skating. I found it hard to ignore the errors about skating - it's as though the writer has googled figure skating without really understanding it. I'd say it was 'Ice Princess' in book form.