4.5 Stars. Bella’s a gem of a girl and it was a joy to read her story.

Eager to help her mom pay for her little brother’s special schooling, Bella secretly heads out to a local pub at night (somewhat daring when you’re only twelve and have your eight year old brother in tow). Bella enters into a darts tournament with men as her opponents and her eyes on the cash prize. That one decision to compete behind her mom’s back brings both good and bad with it, sabotage and accolades, the threat of Bella’s family being pulled apart while at the same time the possibility of it expanding, and test upon test of Bella’s nerve and heart.

Knowing nothing about darts, it did take me a moment to grasp how it works (there is helpfully a brief glossary of terms at the front of the book), but I quickly had a handle on it and came to really enjoy the competition scenes in the book. The things I love most about the sports I do watch, the tension, the strategy, seeing the athlete think their way through a problem, were so well-illustrated here, you’re right there with Bella through the highs and lows of it all, the anxiety and the exhilaration, reading it is much like the sensation of cheering on your favorite real life athlete or team. That said, I don’t think you need to be a sports fan at all to have fun with this or appreciate the stakes and the emotions, it’s like with Friday Night Lights, where you didn’t need to be into football to be into the television series.

It definitely helps that Bella is the easiest girl in the world to cheer for, she’s smart and persistent and your heart goes out to her when she struggles with her nerves, when she makes a crushing error, when you realize just how much weight she’s put onto her little shoulders.

Fortunately, Bella has a great, thoughtful mom in Jane, who is very much aware of needing to shift that weight off of her girl, and Jane also has this really enjoyable habit of supporting her kids in everything they do. I feel like a lot of parents in a lot of books (and in life), may have reacted differently and I am so glad that isn’t the character Jane turned out to be, I found her every bit as uplifting as her daughter.

Bella also has a sweet though never cloying bond with her little brother, and while the story doesn’t delve all that deep into his Asperger's, he was nonetheless, a delightful presence with his pirate persona and his constant cries of “huzzah!” and “blaggard!”

If you’re craving something humorous and heartfelt about a girl defying expectations, this is definitely worth reading.

I received this book through a Goodreads giveaway. ( )