Sally Steel series are pulp fiction aimed at young adults (middle school). What pulp means is that the characters are generally or specifically competent. The young adult target implies that some of the conflicts are those that are of special interest to young adults.
The setting is midwestern farm country in the early 1900s, and Sally Steel is a teenage girl. Who happens to be gifted in all things mechanical. This leads to a number of problems in her life. Largely due to the fact that she is a girl. And there are expectations of girls in that setting. So she gets teased because she is a girl with her interests, because she is good, she is prevented from getting recognition by society so she does not upstage the boys. Her father chooses to be blind to her abilities (but her mother and brothers all see it).
The meat of the story is Sally being caught up in an adventure with her good friend, Jet Black (whose main character trait seems to be fearlessly going into danger). And, it turns out that there are intelligent, reasonable, and capable adults that she runs into who are also allies. but, this being a Young Adult novel, she has to learn that she does not handle everything by herself.
As a story, it is a fun one. Sally and friends get into and out of trouble at a pretty good pace. The meet friends and enemies, and false friends one after another. For those who are familiar with the Dinocolypse series from the same publisher that features older versions of the same characters, it seems like the book was trying a little to hard to fit everyone in (it is a bit of a stretch to think that the people whose actions will affect the world happened to be the same age and cross paths in rural Illinois as teenagers).
But at its heart, pulp is a story about heros who are capable, in this case, even a hero that is a teenage girl. And it is a fun story at that.
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