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In The Swish
Bennett Ryan is one of the region's very best basketball players. In fact, she single--handedly led her team to an undefeated State championship. But when she is forced to switch schools in her senior year, she must first fit in with her old rivals on this new team, then face her old team in the most heated playdowns of her young career.
368 pages, Paperback
Published January 18, 2016
5 people are currently reading
323 people want to read
About the author
Dawn Green
31 books18 followersI live on the Best… oops, I mean West Coast of Canada. If I'm not at my computer you can usually find me in some bookstore somewhere. Besides a good book some of my favourite things include: hoodies, Kermit (green things in general), Dr. Seuss, rain, coffee, the ocean, bookstores…
No, I'm not related to John Green. But I do think he's awesome.
Personal mottos: Question everything. Use your words.
No, I'm not related to John Green. But I do think he's awesome.
Personal mottos: Question everything. Use your words.
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
June 27, 2016
Here is another book I loved! It is a story about a girl, Bennett, who LOVES basketball. Her senior year, after her team wins the states the year before, she has to move to her rival's school. There are lots of issues but her love of the game and her sense of responsibility to "team" prevails. When I started this a thought "oh, a sports story". But, the writing keeps this story intense, heartfelt, and very realistic. Just when you think you might be able to predict what is going to happen, there is a turn. This is a great book for any YAs who are truly passionate about sports, and especially basketball. An additional plus, is what the reader picks up about a child with autism along the way. :) One last thing: I do believe in age-appropriateness and because of the strong language and a chapter about one of the after-game parties, I would recommend this for end-of-the-year eighth graders and up. IMHO. :)
March 9, 2019
This book was a very good book. I think that it would have been a lot better if the book ended with Bennett and her team won the state championship, against her old team.
May 7, 2016
That was a completely unexpected pleasure! Such engaging characters, such consistent pacing, such wonderful dialogue, I breezed through this in less than a day. And it makes me so happy to see a book like this, about girls playing sports and thier friendships and rivalries (and hooray! without a trace of hackneyed romantic subplot) that is actually good and well-written and not some formulaic piece of tripe designed to fill a hole in the world of books where jock girls live. And I think it was a damn shame that the back-of-book blurb sold this tale short by making it sound like it would be a tedious slog.
A big fat thank you to Fitzhenry & Whiteside for the free copy and the enjoyment I got from reading it.
A big fat thank you to Fitzhenry & Whiteside for the free copy and the enjoyment I got from reading it.
January 11, 2019
The book ¨ The swish¨ is a great fiction book, I would recommend this book to anyone who likes sports, and a good visualized setting. The author is Dawn Green, she is mainly telling a story of a 18 year old girl who is a very good basketball player. The book starts out when Bennett ends the season with her home team with winning the state championship and were looking forward to being a two peat until Bennett’s mom drops a bomb on her last second.
Bennett lost her dad when she was younger, him and her loved the sport basketball, it’s all they could talk about at some points. When he passed, it would be just her younger sister and her mom. Which Bennett and her mom got along but it wasn’t the same as how great her and her dad got along, Bennett never talked about basketball with her mom because, she thought she wouldn’t understand what she was going through. Her mom was a teacher at Lincoln High school, which was the same school Bennett and her younger sister went to.
Bennett was going into her senior season, she was getting ready to try and make a repeat of last year. When her mom told her that they would be switching schools because her mom was hired as the new principal. As the school year came closer and closer, Bennett was trying so hard to convince her mom to let her live with one of her friends for the year so she could finish her high school team she believed she loved. No matter how much she tried her mom wouldn’t let it happen. The first day of school started but basketball season doesn’t start for another couple weeks, which gave Bennett some time to get to know the school and where all her classes were.
It wasn’t long after her being in her new school when the basketball team was coming over by her and were asking her if she would be playing basketball this year. Bennett didn’t know how to answer the question because she didn’t know if she would play for the team she help defeat in the championship the previous year. But when they kept asking she finally said maybe i'll tryout. It didn’t take long before the first tryout was going to start, when Bennett finally decided to go for tryouts and see how she does, but little did she know the coach was going to be a former WNBA player. The tryouts were a span of a week. It wouldn’t be long until the tryouts were over and she made the team but one start players didn’t.
It was part of coaches plan in the book to make bennett and teesha “get along” until they actually all got along, to the point where Bennett would realize that she didn’t miss her old team, she somewhat kind of hated them and how snotty they were to anyone. Her old coach would eventually bring it up to court that her mother only got the job if she would play basketball for their school so she couldn’t play until the court was done. It killed her and her teammates, their undefeated season would soon become a losing season until state finals.
Finals were a different story, Bennett could play, she was ready to be back on the team and most of all the court, when by far the biggest game of the year and her first time playing against her old team. The game was close all game, it came down to one last shot, but it wouldn’t be Bennett’s.
This was an amazing book to read, it does have a slow start to the book, but once you get past the first chapter you won’t wanna put the book down. The overall concept of this book is very easy to comprehend, but overall this book is a easy read. This book would have to be a 10/10 because of how well the story is wrote and how it gives you a perfect visual image in your head.
Bennett lost her dad when she was younger, him and her loved the sport basketball, it’s all they could talk about at some points. When he passed, it would be just her younger sister and her mom. Which Bennett and her mom got along but it wasn’t the same as how great her and her dad got along, Bennett never talked about basketball with her mom because, she thought she wouldn’t understand what she was going through. Her mom was a teacher at Lincoln High school, which was the same school Bennett and her younger sister went to.
Bennett was going into her senior season, she was getting ready to try and make a repeat of last year. When her mom told her that they would be switching schools because her mom was hired as the new principal. As the school year came closer and closer, Bennett was trying so hard to convince her mom to let her live with one of her friends for the year so she could finish her high school team she believed she loved. No matter how much she tried her mom wouldn’t let it happen. The first day of school started but basketball season doesn’t start for another couple weeks, which gave Bennett some time to get to know the school and where all her classes were.
It wasn’t long after her being in her new school when the basketball team was coming over by her and were asking her if she would be playing basketball this year. Bennett didn’t know how to answer the question because she didn’t know if she would play for the team she help defeat in the championship the previous year. But when they kept asking she finally said maybe i'll tryout. It didn’t take long before the first tryout was going to start, when Bennett finally decided to go for tryouts and see how she does, but little did she know the coach was going to be a former WNBA player. The tryouts were a span of a week. It wouldn’t be long until the tryouts were over and she made the team but one start players didn’t.
It was part of coaches plan in the book to make bennett and teesha “get along” until they actually all got along, to the point where Bennett would realize that she didn’t miss her old team, she somewhat kind of hated them and how snotty they were to anyone. Her old coach would eventually bring it up to court that her mother only got the job if she would play basketball for their school so she couldn’t play until the court was done. It killed her and her teammates, their undefeated season would soon become a losing season until state finals.
Finals were a different story, Bennett could play, she was ready to be back on the team and most of all the court, when by far the biggest game of the year and her first time playing against her old team. The game was close all game, it came down to one last shot, but it wouldn’t be Bennett’s.
This was an amazing book to read, it does have a slow start to the book, but once you get past the first chapter you won’t wanna put the book down. The overall concept of this book is very easy to comprehend, but overall this book is a easy read. This book would have to be a 10/10 because of how well the story is wrote and how it gives you a perfect visual image in your head.
Read
January 19, 2017Well, I was not sure that I would really like this book! Maybe too sporty. I certainly enjoyed it, the sport, the team spirit, the friendships. It was an exciting and have to keep reading the next page. I totally got lost in the story and felt that I was one of the team members. A great read!
June 2, 2017
Loved this story! I'm not an athlete. This is a great book for all ages.
August 14, 2018
I loved this book. I knew when I saw that this book was about girls high school basketball I knew I had to read it. I loved the storyline and watching the characters evolve throughout the book. Five star read.
August 4, 2020
Starting this book was not so easy for me, because of the many basketball references. I am not a basketball player or even a fan of the game, so I was not able to keep up with the book or understand what was really going on. I believe this book will catch someone’s interest if they are basketball players or someone who is interested in sports because that is what the story mostly focuses on although it does have some other elements to it. This ended up being a better book than I was expecting it to be. The only reason I did not really resonate with this book is because of the many references to basketball. I ended up having to look up what some of the basketball terminologies meant which detracted from and distracted me from reading the book.
This book is not made for younger kids, rather it is for mature teen audiences only! It contains many curse words which impressionable young readers should not be exposed to. There are also references to underage drinking which is against the law and when an adult showed up during this scene, she did nothing about it! Therefore, I would definitely recommend this book to a mature reader who is interested in basketball who can handle cursing and underage drinking appropriately.
Reviewed by Giovanna P., age 13, Connecticut/Western Massachusetts Mensa
This book is not made for younger kids, rather it is for mature teen audiences only! It contains many curse words which impressionable young readers should not be exposed to. There are also references to underage drinking which is against the law and when an adult showed up during this scene, she did nothing about it! Therefore, I would definitely recommend this book to a mature reader who is interested in basketball who can handle cursing and underage drinking appropriately.
Reviewed by Giovanna P., age 13, Connecticut/Western Massachusetts Mensa
Read
June 6, 2019BTSYA / Teen Reader (14): I am not a big sports fan, but I really liked this book. In the Swish is a story about basketball, friendship, and teamwork. The messages of resilience, tenacity, and positivity really resonated with me. The characters are relatable and endearing. Bennett was a great role model with lots of admirable qualities.
June 16, 2017
I wasn't expecting to like this as I am not a sports fan, but it was engaging and had themes about sportsmanship, friendship and the challenges of being an elite athlete. It also asks readers to challenge their assumptions about class and race. A bit heavy on the basketball jargon at times, but also refreshing to see a YA novel about a girl in sports and not focused on romance.
December 7, 2016
It's refreshing to find a YA book that is about teens and sport and friendship, along with being well written and mostly entertaining. For non-sports obsessed reader comfort levels, there might be one too many play by play accounts of Bennett Ryan's basketball games, and somewhat too much technical detail. Bennett, a star high school basket-ball player is forced to move to a new school hours away when her widowed mother takes on the job of principal at that school. So, Bennett not only has to find a way to be accepted on the new team but she also carries the burden of being the principal's daughter. With tenacity, positivity and resilience, Bennett finds her place on the new team despite facing a lot of antipathy and hostility from her new team mates. While this may be Bennett's book, Dawn Green introduces another strong character - the new coach's daughter, Matti, who lives somewhere on the autism spectrum - and who routinely steals most scenes she appears in. Green demonstrates much sensitivity in her depiction of Matti.
While Dawn Green openly says that this is the book that she never found when she was a teenage female athlete, there are limits to this type of book and it is unlikely that it will become more than a niche book. Had she fleshed out some of the characters more roundly (specifically Bennett's mother and sister) and included how the back story of her father's death impacted Bennett and her family, this book might have succeeded in becoming something more universally read, rather than being a basketball book, albeit a good one.
While Dawn Green openly says that this is the book that she never found when she was a teenage female athlete, there are limits to this type of book and it is unlikely that it will become more than a niche book. Had she fleshed out some of the characters more roundly (specifically Bennett's mother and sister) and included how the back story of her father's death impacted Bennett and her family, this book might have succeeded in becoming something more universally read, rather than being a basketball book, albeit a good one.
October 17, 2016
This book really resonated with me because I'm also a student athlete. I don't play basketball competitively, but I'm still a huge fan, and this book really captured all the difficulties that come with sports in high school. The book describes the life a of a female star basketball player who moves to her previous school's arch rival for her mom's new job. She obviously is furious at first, both at her mom for making her move and herself for not being happy that her mom got this new job. She has problems socially too, with having to fit in with the girls she used to play against, so she has tons of trouble trying to juggle her personal life and her athletic life. That feeling is something I understand completely, so I would definitely recommend this book to other student athletes.
May 10, 2016
4.5 stars
This is a sports book about high school girls basketball and without a love triangle/romance focus! It is actually about sports and friendship!
In her junior year of high school, Bennett's basketball team made it to the state championships but lost the final game to their rival. Just before she starts her senior year, her mom gets a job as principal - at the rival school. Bennett does not want to leave her friends and school but mom says family comes first and so she has to go.
Lots of drama at both schools; realistic relationship problems; convincing characters. The coach's daughter is especially likable. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and look forward to more by this author!
This is a sports book about high school girls basketball and without a love triangle/romance focus! It is actually about sports and friendship!
In her junior year of high school, Bennett's basketball team made it to the state championships but lost the final game to their rival. Just before she starts her senior year, her mom gets a job as principal - at the rival school. Bennett does not want to leave her friends and school but mom says family comes first and so she has to go.
Lots of drama at both schools; realistic relationship problems; convincing characters. The coach's daughter is especially likable. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and look forward to more by this author!
April 25, 2017
Maddi is a star basketball player on her high school team but has to move in her senior year and play for the arch rivals. To make matters worse, her mother is the new principal. Maddi is a great main character for girls to admire, she has a strong competitive spirit and her drive to be better for her own sake is inspiring. Teens will quickly identify the bullying behavior and the difficulty of fitting in when you are the new person at school. The message of friendship over winning will be loved by all.
Want to read
May 28, 2016I received this book for free through Goodreads Giveaways.
November 20, 2020
Awesome read
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews