Wow okay wait I enjoyed this so much! It’s a girl-powered slice of life roller derby story, and was super fun to read. I loved the characters, the energy of the sport, the celebration of the body, and the very real feeling look at how women balance their lives and friendships. I saw some other reviews saying the plot felt lacking, and I understand that argument, but for me personally it hit all the marks. SLAM is just really chill and realistic, and I want to be friends with the derby girls so bad now! ( )

This was a lot of fun.

Two women, Jen and Maisie, meet at a roller derby tryout and become fast friends. They end up being drafted onto different teams, which starts to put some cracks in their young but intense friendship. Jen flourishes on the track, but is struggling with her studies, while Maisie's skate skills take a while to improve, she starts a sweet relationship with a guy who adores her.

Jen and Maisie's friendship is really cute, if very homoerotic. It's the central relationship, with roller derby being both the means for their relationship to start and also the narrative device through which it's viewed.

I absolutely adored the Veronica Fish's art and Brittany Peer's colouring. Colouring is such an underrated aspect of comics and with roller derby being so colourful literally and metaphorically, it was a huge part of the overall story for me. ( )

I wished that this book was about flat track instead of bank, and there were a few things normalized in here (ie, all derby parties are about drinking, skating without a helmet, glorifying injuries) that I didn't love. That said, I think this book really captures the roller derby feels and experience. I will definitely be on the lookout for volume 2. ( )

Easy breezy fun read

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Read Harder: book about sports ( )

Great comic that captures the spirit and feeling of roller derby. ( )