Blog Tour ~ Blood City Rollers by V.P. Anderson & Tatiana Hill ~ Review
Hey all!
A spectacular welcome to the Blog Tour for Blood City Rollers by V.P. Anderson & Tatiana Hill! Vampires! Roller Derby! Fantastic art! LGBT!
For today I got a 4 starred review + book/author information~
Ready? Let’s Go!
Review
I received this book from TBR and Beyond Tours in exchange of an honest review!
I have had my eyes on this book for a while so I was definitely excited when I could be part of the Tour and review the book! I mean, that premise! Roller derby but darker because vampires! And witches!
In this one we start with Mina going to an audition/competition and things go all the way wrong (poor Mina, I just felt for her and I wish her mom would see that what she is doing is not OK) and then go even more wrong when Mina gets kidnapped! Yes! To vampires! Who apparently run a roller derby team to survive and need humans to complete their team (which I still don’t entirely get, but hey I will roll with it). I loved seeing how well Mina fitted with the team and how hard she worked to get over her fear of falling, getting kick-ass with each new page, getting more stamina (because roller derby is way more intense than ice skating it seems), befriend people in her team (not just the human player but also the vampires). Plus, I loved seeing Mina grow in other parts as well. We see her think back to how she started ice skating, how big her dreams were, but were they entirely her dreams? I loved seeing her discover a new love that still involves the skating that she likes but just without a lot of pressure and parenting hovering. Mina was really a fun character and I was just rooting for her to discover a new side of hers and to feel free after so many years of being thrown into practices, competitions, and more.
The roller derby was such a thrill! It is a sport I would definitely kinda like to check out. Not sure if it is as big as it is in the US, but who knows. Maybe I should check things out. Though without the vampires please. Haha.
I liked to meet all the teens on the roller derby and see their pronouns + so many being LGBT.
Oh, and I just love the dash of romance between Mina and Val! I loved seeing them get closer. They really were cute together and I found myself rooting for these two to get together!
Bonus points as well to the ending (which made me smile and now I need another book, I am happy that Mina decided for this, it fits so well with her and the development she went through in this book), the cute doggo (Bruise Wayne who was just the sweetest and well just a dash bit demonic, teehee), what happens before the ending and which was just drawn so epically, Val saying a Dutch saying/proverb just made me smile so much, oh and the referee ghosts at the derby were just fantastic and I love the diversity not just your normal standard ghost but even one with a hijab.
And of course, all the points to the art! I just love how the vampires were drawn and how the colours used fitted the right scenes and the vampires stuff so perfectly.
HOWEVER, I did NOT like how humans were kidnapped for the roller derby team. It just felt off/weird and not OK. I would have rather have them go to kids who are good at skating (either roller or ice) if they wanted to join a superduper fun team with danger and excitement. Let these kids themselves choose if they want to be part or not. Because hey, the roller derby team does contact the parents with some make-up excuse so I just don’t get why the kidnapping. I am sure there are kids enough who would LOVE to be part of something like this.
Oh, and I was so confused when Mina at one point had way shorter hair yet I didn’t see her doing any cutting of it. I think that would have been such a cool moment to add. See her cut it off, celebrate her freedom/celebrate that she found something new to love.
But all in all, I really enjoyed this one! There is action, excitement, great character development, a dash of romance, fab art, and roller derby!
Skates on. Fangs out. Let’s roll. This perfectly paranormal graphic novel about a 13-year-old ice skater who embraces the dark side and finds her light when she joins a vampire roller derby team is to die for.
Ice-skater Mina is on a one-track path to Olympic gold and glory—that is, until she totally wipes out at her biggest competition, and is kinda-sorta-kidnapped by undead kids on roller skates. Sucked into the high stakes world of Paranormal Roller Derby, she finds herself “recruited” by a squad of vampires who need a human player to complete their team—just in time to save the league from losing it all.
Between learning to play derby well enough to kick butt on the track, crushing hard on the dreamy team captain, and navigating the spooky rules of the supernatural, how can Mina go from striving to be a ten alone, to becoming one of nine chaotic bodies forming a perfectly-imperfect team? Forget being the best. Will she be enough to help her new friends survive the season?
Buy this book here: Amazon ||| B&N
Veronica Park (VP) Anderson (she/they) is a neurodivergent, queer, feminist millennial writer with a resume that Victor Frankenstein would disown for being “a bit much.” V’s previous job titles include: award-winning community theater actor, professional lecturer on cruise ships, indie film producer, literary agent, and creative project manager; however, “writer” is the title that always fits. V plays competitive flat track roller derby as “Scarlet Five” #55 and prefers the pivot role, aka “surprise jamming.” Born in Alaska and raised in Oregon, she currently lives with her partner in Upstate NY and has two cats named Skeletor and Bo-Catan.
Tatiana Hill (she/her) is a Black and Latina illustrator by day and roller skater by night. Her art journey began simultaneously with her growing love for anime and culminated in a BA in Animation. Receiving an award for Best Art Direction in her end of the year showcase, she would later apply her skill set in color and design to her illustration career. As a member of the Los Angeles roller skate community, Tatiana enjoys participating in a space that celebrates diversity and found family. Her love for this community led to her illustrating The Roller World Tarot Deck and eventually Blood City Rollers, her debut graphic novel as an illustrator.
