A review by teaskate
Home Field Advantage by Dahlia Adler

medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.75

First of i like the cover and the premise sounds very interesting. But the execution was lacking for me. I just could not fully vibe with the book. First of all the pacing was kind of weird I often felt like nothing is processing, but also everything was going to fast. First you never want to do a thing and then one page later you do everything against what you just said. Like at least tell us your thoughts etc. Than the main characters were both at some point very unlikeable, which is not something particularly bad for a book. It shows that the characters have depth and they are not perfect. However in this case it just felt so weird. There was a lot of misogyny in the book, which was obviously the whole point and a big part of the story. Nevertheless the dialogues and monologues of the main characters often also just had misogyny or other weird stuff in it. Which didn’t really fit in the story or help it proceed. It just made me very uncomfortable. The relationship was rushed and kind of toxic, which okay this is not some super long novel. But still so much potential. Also Cheerleading was often sexualised, which made reading the book really not enjoyable and undermines the message the book wants to deliver. I do want to say that the discussion and the points the book wants to make are important and partly good executed. Also there were a few very sweet paragraphs in the book. Even so I felt like this book did not give what it was supposed to give. I still think there are people that would enjoy this book. So I would give it a go and see for yourself. 
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