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Reviewed by Christian Sia for Readers' Favorite
Set in 1975 Michigan, Julie A. Swanson’s South of Superstar is the second book in the North of Tomboy series, and it follows Jessica “Jess” Jezowski, who asks her small school to allow her to play on the boys’ seventh-grade junior high basketball team after Title IX. She struggles with puberty and is terrified that growing up will erase her identity. Jess is going through a lot in school, including the chaotic “Dirty Dozen” classroom — the six boys and six girls in her class, her classmates Martin and Candy, and the arrival of Kat, the sharp-tongued girl from Chicago. Over the school year, Jess experiences public physicals, bureaucratic humiliations, and blistering practices. At the same time, she has to cope with the changes in her body and a "premonition" of death that makes her fear for the future.
Julie A. Swanson creates unforgettable characters, and it was fun to watch Jess fight not only for a spot on the court but for the right to define herself and live on her own terms. She is a genuinely flawed heroine whose dread of the scoliosis test reveals a struggle with body and gender that is beyond mere sports narrative. The pacing is fast, and there is always a sense of urgency, a noticeable anxiety, and fear that keeps the reader racing through the pages to find out what happens next. The author uses specific dates like May 1, 1975, and January 8, 1976, to fuel the escalating tension and situate it within a timeline. The setting, especially Fishtown, feels convincingly real and lived-in, from the portable “fish tank” to the church-basement classroom, the bus-ride social codes, and frayed satin uniforms. You are pulled into a world brimming with its own life, colors, and rhythms. Told in a first-person narrative voice that reflects Jess’s defiant and achingly authentic perspective, South of Superstar is about agency and freedom to write one’s playbook.
