Book Review: Lucy Zeezou's Goal
Fun and Inspiring Australian Teen Fiction by Liz Deep-Jones
An enjoyable Bend it Like Beckham-style story, Lucy Zeezou’s Goal (Random House, 2008) by Australian author and journalist Liz Deep-Jones introduces Lucy Zeezou, a likeable and inspiring teenaged girl attempting to follow her dream to play football despite her parents’ disapproval.
Lucy Zeezou’s Goal Plot Summary
In a twist on the usual heroine struggling to rise above family financial and cultural restrictions, Lucia Zoffi (known to her friends as Lucy Zeezou) seems to have it all. Her father and grandfather are international football legends. She lives in Milan with her parents and her mother is doing everything she can to establish Lucy as a catwalk and photographic model.
Fourteen-year-old Lucy just wants to be out on the pitch playing football. Unfortunately, both of her parents believe that football is a sport for boys. After her parents ban her from playing, Lucy continues to play in secret.
Lucy’s life is turned upside down when she must travel to Sydney to be with her maternal grandparents. Lucy makes friends and joins a local football team without her parents’ knowledge or approval.
Lucy must decide how to follow her dreams and convince her parents that she belongs on the football pitch.
Girl’s Achieving their Dreams
Aimed at 10 – 14 year old girls, Lucy encourages readers to be passionate about their dreams and goals. It is unfortunate that Lucy so often resorts to subterfuge and outright lies to sidestep her parents’ resistance to her interest in football, however this is balanced somewhat by her obvious regret at the need to deceive them.
Lucy’s story highlights that girls are able to achieve in male dominated arenas if they are willing to make a commitment to achieve their dreams.
The World Game for Teenaged-Girls
Obviously targeting existing fans of football (soccer in Australia), Lucy Zeezou’s Goal contains numerous references to game play and famous international football stars. At the conclusion of the novel, Cheryl Salisbury, Dianne Alagich, Melissa Barbieri and other members of the Australian women’s football team, the Matildas, share their inspiring stories of developing a love for football and striving to achieve their goals.
The importance of a positive team spirit, good sportsmanship and commitment to training and developing skills is emphasised throughout the novel.
The Importance of Friendship and Family
The importance of family relationships and friendships are also significant themes of the novel. These themes are boldly evident in the text.
As a sub-plot, Lucy befriends Max, a teenaged boy who has been hiding his homelessness from his friends and teammates for some time. As Lucy and her friends try to help Max, they reassess the value they place on their own family and home life.
The price of fame is also explored, as Lucy compares her public life in Milan with her relative obscurity in Sydney. The experiences of Lucy’s best friend Bella, the daughter of a prominent politician, further highlight the cost to family relationships when a member of a family lives largely in the public eye.
A Novel to Encourage Teens to Reach for their Dreams
While the themes of Lucy Zeezou’s Goal are rather obviously incorporated into the story, the football and fashion references and the action of the story are sufficient to ensure that readers remain interested. Lucy is likeable and realistic as a teenaged-girl struggling to find a balance between her own dreams and aspirations and her parents’ expectations.
Lucy’s group of Australian friends are interesting and diverse and as the story ends with an obvious lead-in for a second Lucy Zeezou novel, there is plenty of potential for interesting and relevant storylines to interest young teen readers.
Lucy Zeezou’s Goal (ISBN: 978-1-74166-277-1, 274 pages)
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Lucy Zeezou's Goal by Liz Deep-Jones
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