Tracey Morait

Goalden Girl
Tracey Morait
c. 2007
ISBN: 978-1-8479-9758-6
Lulu
www.lulu.com
152 pages, $13.95

Soccer has become very popular in the United States during the past generation. Today most US school-age children are enrolled in intramural soccer teams. Soccer has long been popular in Europe, especially in the United Kingdom. “Goalden Girl” is an adventure story about a young British teenager who is disappointed with an unhappy turn in her family and is also attracted to soccer. Tracey Morait has put together an interesting and well-plotted novel about young Gemma Sutherland, her family problems, and many well-described action scenes of Gemma’s soccer games.

The novel begins with Gemma Sutherland as bridesmaid at her father’s second marriage. Gemma doesn’t like her stepmother or her stepmother’s sister. Gemma is resentful because her father remarried after her mother’s tragic death almost a year ago. Both her stepmother and the stepmother’s sister are drunk at the wedding. In protest to dad’s remarriage to such a woman, Gemma decides to become Goth. While dad and the stepmother are on honeymoon, Gemma cuts her hair short, dyes it jet black, uses wax to make it stand up straight, and wears dark eye shadow and dark maroon lipstick. She tops it off with black tights full of holes, short skirt, and chains. She doesn’t like her new stepsister Portia either, whom she thinks is a spoiled brat and much too fat. She also doesn’t like her stepmother’s nephew Tyrone, who soon becomes her arch enemy and rival at school.

The death of her mother and her father’s remarriage has necessitated that the family move to a new neighborhood with a new school that does not support soccer for girls. Gemma’s earlier school did support girl’s soccer. Concurrent with her rebellion against the changes in her family, Gemma tries to get her new school to authorize a girl’s soccer team. She meets much resistance, especially from her stepmother’s nephew Tyrone.
He and his friends continually harass the girls compromising their ability to play well and even forcing postponement of games. Mr. Cassidy, the soccer coach assigned to the girl’s team has a suspicious relationship with Gemma’s stepmother. Gemma plays sleuth and seriously complicates the relationship between her father and his new wife. The father decides to host an extended family dinner to mend things, and the dinner descends into a venomous family fight.

In the meantime, Soccer has given Gemma an outlet for her frustrations and helps her meet new friends in her new neighborhood. She gradually realizes what kind of adjustments her stepmother and new stepsister have had to make, and her attitude toward them softens. Gemma’s courage and realistic outlook on life brings about a happy resolution to her problems and the problems of other characters in the novel also. Tracey Morait’s “Goalden Girl” is a wholesome action story for young people about problems teenagers sometimes have to face and the therapeutic effect of intramural sports. If you are interested in soccer, or if your children play soccer, you will enjoy this book. The setting for the book is in the United Kingdom. The spelling and local slang words are unique to the United Kingdom. This adds a special flavor to the novel.… (meer)

In the rush of trying to get away from the android guards, Travis and his friends in the Rockets were hiding out when suddenly everything went black. Discovering that is was an epileptic seizure was a surprise. In the year 2099, most all of the illnesses and diseases have been eradicated. Anyone found sick is shipped off to institutions that resembles a prison. Being placed in Number Forty Institution, Travis quickly became acquainted with the new rules and Emmett Hudson. The offer from Dr. Alexander to help him escape was an interesting prospect. Finding that it was through a time portal that his epileptic seizures created made the whole prospect more fantasy than reality to him. Traveling back in time changed his mind, appearing in the year 2009 and meeting Demi Fraser on the isle of Barrasay and then just as suddenly jumping ahead again to 2010, and then 2014. The experiences in the past soon makes him realize how much he doesn’t belong there, he really only belongs in his own time, in his ‘corrugated city’ with the Rockets, now how to get back.

What an interesting concept of a futuristic world. The story was fairly easy to follow even with all it’s twists and the adventure was really creative. Really enjoyed the concept, Travis, Hudson, and Demi where good characters, I just had a difficult time getting into the story. It was written from the point of view of Travis and the simplicity of the story telling made it easy but that may also have something to do with why I had difficulty becoming more emotionally invested in the characters. I would put this in the category of young adult because of the easy writing style as well as the teenage characters. This is not the first work by Tracey Morait, wonder now if all the books have the same simplistic writing style. I would read another of this authors books, but only if I am in the right mood.… (meer)

As Epiworld opens we meet Travis as he runs with his gang, the Rockets, in a brutal and heavily policed future version of England. In this future all disease has been eradicated and only the ‘clean’ are allowed to lead a normal, unencumbered life. Those unlucky enough to be deemed unclean are kept in institutions which sit somewhere between hospital and prison, with guards and nurses in the form of unfeeling droids.

Each member of this future society carries under their skin a probe. This is Big Brother on a very intimate level. A probe knows when you are doing something against the law, it knows when you’re somewhere you shouldn’t be, and it knows when you are ill.

When Travis is hurt in a gang fight he ends up in an institution for treatment of his epilepsy and comes under the care of Dr Alexander, a human and sympathetic psychiatrist. With his help Travis is put into a permanent state of ‘fit’ where he finds he can live in the world of 2009. This time travel experience puts him directly in the path of a young Professor Chase, the Director of the institution where he is house back in his own time. Professor Chase is also about to undertake a dangerous and illegal operation on Travis in an attempt to cure his epilepsy. Can Travis stop Chase in 2009 and save his skin?

Epiworld is an exciting read. The language and thoughts of Travis and his supporting cast put it very much in the realm of the Young Adult novel, but without painting the characters too heavily as ‘childish’ and thereby making it unenjoyable to older readers. The story is fast-paced and easily relatable. The relationships Travis makes throughout the story help in moving it along nicely, each person has their part to play in this tale where everybody’s future is at stake.… (meer)