DNF @ 30%

The sports elements of this book intrigued me, but the writing style is confusing. I am having a hard time getting into this one. Not for me, unfortunately.

I really like this story.

Gracias a NetGalley pude leer esta historia, y me encantó. Dsifruté mucho seguir a Cindy Hole-Izati en su camino a la fama. Su crecimiento en el ámbito del fútbol es impresionante, en algún momento de la historia see habla de ella como una futbolista con mayor habilidad que Pelé, Maradona y Messi.

Cindy es una chica con nacionalidad mitad Inglesa, mitad Indonesia que sueña con ser futbolista profesional, por lo que al terminar sus estudios obligatoirios viaja a Londres a vivir con su padre y postular a equipos profesionales. Su nivel mejora tanto a lo largo de la historia que la vemos participar en equipos de renombre como el Arsenal, por ejemplo; incluso llega a ser solicitada para jugar por la selección nacional de Inglaterra.

Cindy además, en lo personal es una chica muy agradable, si bien no es perfecta, siempre fue muy cómodo leer de ella como protagonista. Está siempre abierta a escuchar a quienes la rodean y no deja nunca que la fama se le suba a la cabeza. Crear lazos, y buenos lazos se le da con facilidad.

Por otro lado, los personajes secundarios me gustaron mucho. Amé a Rio, y me dieron ganas de conocer a una Meghan en mi vida. Además todos los amigos de Cindy eran personas dignas de las que ser amigo y eso me resultó entretenido. Su padre además, fue un pilar fundamental para su vida y carrera, le daba muy buenos consejos y apoyo incondicional.

Si hay algo que puedo criticar de la historia es la facilidad en que se daba la emigración e inmigración en la historia. Para los personajes era común viajar fuera del país (o del continente incluso) de forma continua, además que se conocían personas de distintas nacionalidades con mucha facilidad (Estadounidenses, ingleses, indonesios, rusos, etc), y esto ocurría desde antes de que Cindy fuera o suficientemente reconocida; creo que eso me resultó poco realista, pero aun así fue interesante de leer.

En fin, me encantó la historia y la recomiendo un montón. Para ser la novela debut de la autora, estaba muy bien construida.

Cindy has always loved playing soccer, and when she gets the opportunity to play in the men's professional league, she immediately agrees. Despite being the only girl, Cindy's soccer ability speaks for itself and she leads her team through some exciting games.

I was super excited to read a YA soccer book because there aren't many out there. The Girl from Jakarta didn't read like a YA book. While the content was all perfectly fine for teens, Cindy's relationships read like she was an adult. Cindy dealt with sexism from opposing teams, but it was unrealistic that she didn't encounter any from her own teammates, especially at the beginning. Ultimately, the writing style was a bit stilted and the book would be a hard sell to teen readers.

I must preface this review with the fact that I am not a YA reader. This is a YA book. I chose the book because I enjoy novels about athletes, and this concept is a winner. A young Indonesian-English woman breaks into the men's Premier League. Unfortunately, the story and characters are not good at all. The author relies on texting, social media and pop cultural references far too much, but YA readers may enjoy that aspect of the narrative more than I do. I enjoy meaningful, well-written dialogue. Not much of that here. This book will be dated very soon and is not meaningful enough to serve as a time capsule.
The title character's last name is Hole-Something. I cannot get past "Hole". Why would an author name a character Hole? She can name the character anything. I cannot imagine how a kid growing up anywhere English is spoken could deal with being called Hole. Just a bad choice. The character is also a Mary-Sue. The sun shines out her... She even made the shot Pele missed. Was that really necessary? This girl has to best Pele? Her boyfriend and friends are nonentities. They follow her around as worshipful automatons. No personality of their own.
The author included some challenges a woman in this situation could face, but Mary-Sue Hole does not seem bothered by any of it. Maybe it's all the money she earns. Maybe it's because she is perfect. No tension is built around these circumstances. It is very disappointing. This story line has the potential to be very interesting, but it just fizzled out.
The story echoes that of the 1980 US Hockey Team, but that story was real, and those people were not perfect. Everything seemed just too easy and predictable for Ms. Hole.
I would give this book 1 star at the most. However, a YA audience may relate to and enjoy the technology and pop culture references. Younger readers may also be swept up in the fun and glamor of this character's fairy tale life. A YA reader might give this 3 stars. I generously averaged the two.
There are plenty of good books about female athletes I would recommend to young people before this one.
Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for an ARC of this novel in exchange for an honest review.

This book was an easy read and very enjoyable. I liked the premise behind it with a girl breaking into the men's league and all of the challenges surrounding that. I appreciated that there were just enough side stories to keep you interested without taking over the book. The character development was a little odd and the differing viewpoints during the first half of the book was really distracting and confusing at times. Overall, it was a really enjoyable read and I would recommend this book! I think women's sports and soccer should be written about more so I hope the author continues writing. Thanks to Bronwyn Editions and #NetGalley for a copy of #TheGirlfromJakarta.

This book stars a teen female rising in football stardom, and tries to balance representation of the main character’s roots (Indonesian, English). However, it might need a little bit polishing to make the plot tighter and the story more impactful.

There are a few things that I really liked about the book and that show great promise:

-the use of a mixed race heroine who plays football in a mens football team

-I loved the mix of cultures that the book presents as we don't see this often, I definitely have students that would really gel with this representation.

-I like that the book presents the ignorance of the British people Jakarta/Yogyakarta in hope that readers won't make this ignorant mistake.
- I like that there are hints of what a toxic relationship looks like for young people and how they can avoid it [though this could be voiced more directly].
-There are flashes of sophisticated prose

I couldn't find much about the author online, they don't seem to have too much of a presence online and I would like to know the author better. Perhaps this is because the author is young and it's for safeguarding reasons.

I'd like to see the book edited a little more, a few spelling errors but that's the role of the editor/publisher not the author. I get the impression this is a first attempt at publishing a novel for the author, there is a lot of promise for further stories and narratives. It's great to think that young people are out there drafting and publishing stories and novels!