Last Book of the Year!

Great way to finish off the year: Whip It by Shauna Cross.
I've been wanting to see the movie since October, but it was an extremely pleasant surprise when I walked into our soon-to-be-closing Borders (SALES GALORE) and discovered that there was a book! So I had to get it. I just knew it would be great. And reading the first few pages as I waited for my brother to get out of the mob known as Gamestop, I WAS NOT DISAPPOINTED.
The story is told by the ultra-cool Bliss Cavendar, a suffering artist, basically. She is an Indie-punk girl through and through, who lives as though she's in a retro movie and loves anything and everything gothic-punkish-AWESOME. So right off the bat she's my kind of girl. Her mother, however, disagrees; she thinks Bliss should be a beauty-pageant winner. You know, Miss America, the whole shebang. Bliss STRONGLY DISAGREES. And what's more, Bliss lives in Bodeen, this tiny hick town on the outskirts of Austin, Texas. Austin, of course, is the center of cool around there, so Bliss wants to get away from home as soon as she can drive.
And then as if by fate she hears of a roller derby. She sneaks out with her best friend Pash and has the time of her life-- so good, in fact, that she decides to try out for the team. She ends up making it onto the Hurl Scouts, these B*A* skaters who have a naughty girl scout theme. With the other girls on the team Bliss makes it to the top of her game, being everything she wants to be.
But in order to keep doing this, she has to lie to her mother, because there is no way her mom would let her go! So between trying to hold down two lives, she may somehow lose all that she has. SUCH A GOOD STORY.
I loved this book. But is it possible to love a book and not the author? This is just my opinion, so ignore the following if you don't like my personal thoughts...
Bliss has this incredible voice throughout the story, if you know what I mean. She just speaks like a crazy teen, but it's insane what pop-culture references pop up in her vocabulary. I just love her sense of humor and how she tells the story, it's half of what made the book so good for me. It's like Juno's telling the story, in a way. SO GOOD, right? But then when I read through the interview with the author in the back, it just seemed like the author was trying to hard to sound hip like her character. I almost want to call her up and go, "Hello, you're not sixteen! Your character is, and you can speak like that through her, that's why we like the book. But a twenty or thirty-something woman? No. Please don't, sorry." But maybe she just came off wrong in the interview. It could just be me. I love how she writes, though, I just don't love her. It's like Michael Jackson: everyone loves his music but they're not so crazy about him, even now. ♠♠♠♠♠