Blood City Rollers is a Middle Grade graphic novel about an ice skater kidnapped and forced to play roller derby for a team of vampires. This was definitely a weird one! The main character is training for the Olympics in Ice Skating when she gets kidnapped by kid vampires and is forced to join their roller derby team. The author very easily breezes over the kidnapping and the MC doesn’t seem to care much about it either. 

Despite that, it was quite a fun read. On one hand I enjoyed the explanation of all of the rules of roller derby but it was very heavy info dumping and definitely takes you out of the story. What should be a one-sitting read turned into a 3-sitting read because of the heavy game rule info. I definitely think this would hinder a child’s enjoyment of the book since they’re the intended audience. 

I loved the art style and colour palette. The character designs were so cool. The yearbook-style “meet the characters” pages were really cool and had a diverse range of pronouns which was so lovely to see! I think the ending does hint at a second book but I don’t know if the story enticed me enough to continue if it does turn into a series.

Overall, I think this was a very mid read and I do rather enjoy Middle Grade books so it was disappointing. I think the main issue really was the detailed explanation of roller derby rules, it definitely overshadowed the story.

TWs/CWs - Blood, Blood Consumption, Car Accident (past, mentioned), Kidnapping (on-page), Mind Control, Misogyny, Missing Person, Parental Death (past, mentioned), Vomit (mentioned)