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kleonard's review against another edition
3.0
An okay entry in the Wild Cards series for YA readers. A high school band competition brings together a band of jokers, some hidden aces, and a mix of admirers and bigots in San Antonio Texas.The students and their escorts, adult aces, deal with protesters, conspiracies, runaways, great music, romance, traps, crude humor, and other goings-on. Some of the multiple stories dragged and were less than essential to the primary plot (the story in which a pianist runs away with a charismatic ace and is hunted down by other aces dragged badly and didn't tie in well with the rest of the book), but overall, fans of the series will probably enjoy parts of it.
scheu's review against another edition
3.0
An okay entry. The pendulum swings all the way from High Stakes (which was pretty gross) to this, which is pretty tame.
jonmhansen's review against another edition
4.0
Always interesting to read the books set away from the traditional superhero stomping grounds of NYC. I found this one charming.
citizen6174's review against another edition
2.0
Wow, what did i just read? Like most people on here, I’ve read all the books in the series and when you have a series that has been around since the 80s, there are bound to be some bad eggs in the bunch; I present to you: Texas Hold Em. For the first time ever, it felt like the entry was designed to target a young audience, maybe? The entire story took place around a music competition for kids and one group happened to be made of jokers. It felt so disconnected from the series that it really was like reading something that was absolutely written with the idea of trying to scoop up a younger audience. Bubbles was the saving point for me; there were a few random highlights but overall I don’t ever want to reread this entry again.
kleonard's review
3.0
An okay entry in the Wild Cards series for YA readers. A high school band competition brings together a band of jokers, some hidden aces, and a mix of admirers and bigots in San Antonio Texas.The students and their escorts, adult aces, deal with protesters, conspiracies, runaways, great music, romance, traps, crude humor, and other goings-on. Some of the multiple stories dragged and were less than essential to the primary plot (the story in which a pianist runs away with a charismatic ace and is hunted down by other aces dragged badly and didn't tie in well with the rest of the book), but overall, fans of the series will probably enjoy parts of it.
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