2 out of 4 stars
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Rubber Girl by Sean Wheeler is the 3rd book in the Wheelerverse series, but can be read as a standalone novel.
Katie is your average 14-year-old girl who goes to school, has a best friend, and a boyfriend who loves her. Her parents run the Elaztix factory that produces super stretchy clothes made of a special rubber formula. One day when Katie reports for her internship at the factory, she falls into a vat of the rubber and crazy things happen to her body. Katie is now extra stretchy and bendy, and has become Rubber Girl! When she realises she has amazing new abilities, Katie decides to become a crime fighter. Little does she know that on this journey she will meet a host of new friends who are also gifted, as well as encounter enemies that only she can defeat. Is Katie up for the task?
The idea behind the series, and the way the author ties the books and characters together is very clever. I was impressed with this young author’s imaginative use of the land, sea, and air, by incorporating a mermaid, flying superheroes and regular folk. He also makes a play on the names of the characters, like Limbella, being the flexible crook, and Doctor Plastique, the plastic surgeon. The book is categorised as science fiction, but has a lot of comedy elements to it. Scenes like this made me laugh out loud: Katie falls into the vat of rubber (which by the way should be lethal) and her father turns to the guy who accidently bumped her in and says “You are so fired!” That was a definite facepalm moment. The story is simple, but an entertaining and quick read.
With the positives come the negatives, and after reading the official review of Book #2 which stated that there were no editing mistakes, I was disappointed that this had quite a few. As early as page 2 had your and you’re mixed up, and later in the book the exact opposite happened. Punctuation was missing and lots of run on sentences could be found. Spelling like Saterday and payed (used in the wrong sense) cropped up. Past and present tense was mixed up a lot, and missing prepositions occurred. Certain things in the story also caused a break within the reading flow. At one stage a roll call is done in a classroom, and an entire page is devoted to calling names in the register and having them answer “Here.” Strange sentences like the following could be found: “Katie walked over to a clothing rack and felt on the shiny clothes” or “Why are you waiting around for?” Sometimes eagerness to describe things caused a sentence like “He instantly recognised me immediately.”
Rubber Girl, as well as the books of the entire Wheelerverse series with their categorisation of powers, has the potential to become a hit. I do have to take into consideration the book as it stands now, so I rate Rubber Girl 2 out of 4 stars. One star was taken away for punctuation and grammar errors, and the other because the story needs polishing. The base idea is there, but it needs guidance to delete unnecessary parts and make the flow better. I recommend this for middle grade readers, and I hope that the author continues his writing, since experience will refine his work.
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Rubber Girl
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