A review by pixieauthoress
Abby the Bad Sport by Ann M. Martin

4.0

Abby was never one of my favourite BSC characters, mainly because I only ever read two of her books before they stopped publishing the BSC series in the UK. She always seemed too similar to Kristy, and a boring replacement for Dawn when she went back to California. Anyway, this book wasn't too bad but I found it rather boring to begin with. Basically, Abby believes that she's the best soccer player on her team and is disappointed when her coach demotes her to a lesser role in the team. She sets out to prove what a great player she is and ends up being a ball-hog and gets benched for not being a team-player. Another girl is also benched and she and Abby hate each other because they each think that they're the best at soccer. Eventually Abby realises that she can do the role that the coach assigned her, even if she isn't the star of the team because of it. She and the other girl become friends. I suppose that the lesson is good, but reading pages of Abby going on about how great she is at soccer isn't exactly thrilling. There are two sub-plots: Abby's mum wants their family to visit their grandparents and their father's grave and Abby still doesn't think she's ready; and the rest of the BSC have a car wash and make badges to raise money to buy team shirts for Abby's team. To be honest, the chapters where the BSC were watching Abby's team play were more interesting than the ones from Abby's POV, mainly because I really don't understand football. I mean, soccer. Overall, this book got better half way through but the first few chapters about the soccer team were a bit boring. Abby does learn a good lesson in the end. Just one thing - was it PC in 1997 to say that someone had "mental-retardation"? I'm sure that in Britain we would have said that they had "mental disabilities" or even "learning disabilities." 7/10