Leave It On the Track by Margot Fisher is a fun YA roller derby novel about enduring loss, dealing with anxiety, and feeling free to act on your crush for the first time with roller derby flair. I picked it up on a whim after seeing it on a shelf, and this is exactly the sort of queer YA that I am glad that kids have access to today. Leave It On The Track deftly weaves more serious themes in with the fun and confidence building of roller derby, showing that it is possible to experience great loss and upheaval and still reinvent your life in a positive way.
Moose Shaker has practically grown up on roller skates in her small Utah hometown. Feeling isolated from her peers because of her two dads and unable to act on her crush on a girl in her class, the roller rink is where Moose connects with a community and can express herself. When a horrific fire at the rink leaves her one of the few survivors, Moose has to go and live with her semi-estranged sister Eden in Portland, new scars and social anxiety in tow. She didn’t think she would ever get on skates again, but when Eden brings her to a roller derby bout that Eden is participating in, she is convinced to give it a try. As she struggles to get a grip on the ways Portland is different from Utah, Moose finds friends and a new way to skate in derby, but she faces difficulty accepting it in the face of her grieving feelings and the anxiety of starting over in a new place.
What I liked most about this book was that it covered a lot of different topics, but it didn’t feel like there was Too Much going on. This is a book about loss and grief at losing people unexpectedly and horrifically. It’s about trauma and anxiety about scarring and complicated family dynamics and having to move and start over in high school. It’s about growing up queer in Utah and what that means and then suddenly moving to Portland and experiencing the 180 of queer culture. Fisher seamlessly links it all together with a through-line of Moose’s love for skating and something that links her past and her present, her trauma and her healing. I thought it was deftly done, and I would have enjoyed it as a teen. Moose has gone through a lot, and Leave It On The Track shows her journey not as a straight upward line, but a series of messy incidents and growth and setbacks. I also like that it covered a little bit of roller skating history, as well as derby culture. I think that would have made me feel a lot differently about my hometown rink as a teen!
I think that Moose’s move from Utah to Portland is something very interesting too. Of course we have many narratives about queer people moving to a larger city in order to find community and acceptance – it’s a queer lit staple. And there is a smaller but dedicated amount of stories about queer people finding love and acceptance in unexpected (rural) places that is also important, because queer people exist everywhere. But Leave It On The Track isn’t quite either of those – Moose was cognizant of the way her dads and her adapted to living in Utah, but it was also her home. Moving to the more queer-friendly Portland was not her choice, and not about her sexuality, and I think it was very interesting to show that she in fact struggled a little with this change. Her YA crush on her fellow classmate and teammate Mercury is very cute, you love it see it, but I think it was more interesting that Moose is both not only completely accepting of her own sexuality, but struggling with how to suddenly be able to act on it, and what to show publicly. I think it’s a very good balance for a coming of age YA book.
In conclusion, Leave It On The Track is a fun YA read. I wish we had more roller derby books because they are made for the sapphics! But as more than a cute coming of age romance, I think it does well to balance its heavier themes with derby bouts and high school drama. I would definitely recommend this one.
