Reviews

Oh I really liked this. It's heavily grounded in baseball. Very baseball, respect for the grind and the work of the game. Aside from that it's a quiet heart wrenching journey of two very lovable characters. The tone is slightly melancholy but with enough humor sprinkled in it just kind of conveys Zach's lonely journey.

The author also used sex to further the narrative very well-this doesn't always happen and is worth calling out because few authors really excel at that. I definitely teared up more than once especially in the final 20% or so. It has this scene that absolutely guts me an is so realistic

Where they meet up after their initial break up and Eugenio basically just uses Zach.

--just brilliant.

So, not a coherent review in the least. But worth a read for what it does if you like baseball or want a deep dive, and you want to go along on a journey with a closeted gay baseball player who chose the game over himself...until he figures it out (also about the 3-4th book I've read about how the coming out process is never over.)

katrins_kaffekranz's review against another edition

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2.0

It just felt soooooo long?

jengirlreads's review against another edition

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4.0

This was lovely. It was more melancholy than I was expecting from a sports romance, but I really enjoyed it.

writtenechoes's review against another edition

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3.0

Unpopular opinion incoming :( I did not love this. I expected to love it because, well, most of my GR mutuals seemed to love it. Also it contained two of my fave things: sports romance and second chance. I don't know if it was the writing style or narrative choice between past/present but... it never clicked for me.

Negatives: As I mentioned above the writing style was different. I'm used to read third person present tense because I read a lot of fanfic (aftg & hp mostly where this tense is very common), but it was odd here. I think combined with the tense and KD's writing style.. it was hard to follow at times. Lots of "likes" as well which is nice when used sparingly but here it was used so much that I started to notice it. I also got supremely frustrated with Zach here. I just found him so ... weak for a better word. Which made me feel just awful for Eugenio. Like two years is so long to be together and have to keep it a secret especially if you're on the SAME team... that's simply too much. Also, and I saw this with so much love, TOO MUCH BASEBALL. Look, I'm a baseball fan, but bro I do not care about baseball that much. The focus of this story was more technical baseball than the romance. I skipped a lot. I'm also not a fan of second chance romances that start with a hook after years apart. It just fizzles out for me from there.

Positives: The rep in this was amazing. It's got disability rep, Jewish rep, and Latino rep in one novel. That's a huge deal. All that rep almost swung this into the four star territory for me but at the end of the day the romance just wasn't there for me. But I did love the last 25% of the novel once Zach realized how shitty he was being. That he wanted to fight for Eugenio and also for himself. They had some very sweet moments that made me smile. Also their dynamic was fun? While I would call his low steam, the steam that was within was interesting and well written. I also loved the scene with Zach's parents and Eugenio. It made me smile very big :)

Overall... this was very meh to me. I think I'll continue on with the series, because I'm hopeful I'll enjoy the writing with different tropes. But I'm not going to rush into it either if that makes any sense :)

alopexi's review against another edition

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2.0

This book stress d me out more than I expected

paulnewman's review against another edition

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emotional fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.5

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