Archenemy

Overview

Addie has always been the player her team could count on to read the field and shut down an attack before it starts. Her instincts as a defender for Fraser High's girls soccer squad are sharp, and her position on the roster has never been in question. What she isn't prepared for is a threat that comes from inside her own locker room.

That threat is Eva Riley, who arrived in town and quickly became Addie's closest friend. The two grew inseparable until Eva made clear she wanted something more than friendship, and Addie chose to keep things as they were, prioritizing the team and the season over a romantic connection. The fallout is swift and personal: cutting notes, deliberately blown plays, and a campaign of small sabotages that puts Addie's spot on the team at risk.

As the story moves forward, Addie has to decide how much of the old friendship is worth saving, and whether she can protect her place on the field while the person undermining her is someone she once trusted completely.

A Story Built for Momentum

Archenemy belongs to a shelf of short, plot-driven sports fiction aimed at readers who want a fast, emotionally direct story without a long runway. Hoblin uses the compressed length and the rhythm of a soccer season to keep the pages turning, but the athletic conflict is really a frame for something more interpersonal: what happens when a friendship carries more weight for one person than the other, and how that imbalance can curdle into resentment.

The book sits comfortably within a genre that has long used team sports as a low-stakes-seeming setting for higher-stakes emotional material, letting young readers approach questions of rejection, jealousy, and loyalty through the familiar shorthand of practices, positions, and games. Its brevity and accessible voice have made it a natural fit for classroom and library collections built around reluctant or developing readers, where the appeal is as much about giving kids a book they'll actually finish as it is about the specific plot.

Why Archenemy Has Been Challenged

The moment that has drawn attention is Eva's admission that her feelings for Addie go beyond friendship, and the retaliation that follows once Addie doesn't reciprocate. Because the book is marketed to a younger, middle-grade audience, some objectors have argued that a same-sex romantic interest, even one that is stated rather than depicted in any explicit way, is not material they consider suitable for readers at that age or reading level. The concern in these cases tends to center on the introduction of the subject matter itself rather than on any specific graphic content.

A second line of objection focuses on the conflict that follows Eva's rejection: the notes, the sabotage, and the sustained targeting of a former friend. Some readers have questioned whether the book gives that behavior enough context or consequence, worrying that younger audiences might absorb the retaliation as a normal response to romantic disappointment rather than as the harmful pattern the story presents it to be. Within the catalog's records, these objections have resulted in the book being challenged in one state and one district.