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A review by maggiemaggio
Stealing Parker by Miranda Kenneally
3.0
3.75 stars
I think it’s already been established that I am a big sports fan and I’ll admit, part of me thought sports would figure more prominently in this story, but in the end I was ok with softball and baseball taking a back seat.
I liked Parker pretty much immediately. By far my favorite thing she did was obsessively paint her nails. I realize that probably wasn’t the healthiest behavior (although it’s better than some of her other behavior), but as a lover of nail polish and someone who puts a lot of thought into what color I’m going to paint my nails, I could completely relate to Parker’s obsession with having the right nail polish to fit the day’s events/mood.
Why does Parker have this quirk you ask? Well, recently Parker’s mother came out of the closet, shocking their church and their small town. Parker was pretty much a golden child: valedictorian, softball star, and fairly popular girl. Once her mom comes out of the closet, and pretty much abandons her family, Parker feels lost. She continues to do well in school (yay!), but she quits the softball team because she feels like all the girls are judging her and she is dropped by a lot of friends, especially her church friends, and she starts acting out. She loses quite a bit of weight and creates many rules for herself about what she can and can’t eat (I would venture a guess to say she developed an eating disorder, but as a future dietitian I tend to over think these things so I’m leaving it at that) and she starts hooking up with a lot of guys.
The whole hooking up with guys thing is the basis for much of the story and I found it so heartbreaking. Not that she’d be promiscuous, if a girl wants to be promiscuous for the right reasons I say more power to her, but Parker is not doing it for the right reasons. Her main reason is so people know she’s not gay, which just made me want to cry. First, that Parker and her community think there’s something so wrong with being gay (although I don’t think Parker really thinks that, I think it’s a reflection of other people’s opinions) and second, that she would rather be known as willing to hook up with pretty much any guy rather than be known as gay.
Parker wants people to think she’s sluttier (and I use that word with no negative connotation) than she actually is, but she’s really just kissing and maybe doing some heavy petting (I love any opportunity to use that ridiculous phrase). Then Parker meets Brian, the new baseball assistant coach. Parker’s friend recruited her to be the baseball team’s manager after she quit softball so she starts spending a lot of time with Brian, who’s not too much older than Parker, he recently graduated college, but certainly not in a position to be dating a student at the high school where he works.
Brian was such a loser. Bah, I hated Brian. I liked what he gave to the story, but I wanted Parker to get over him and date Corndog. Yes, Corndog! How cool of a nickname is that? The story behind it is really sweet, but I’ll leave that up to you to discover. And he has a real name, but I don’t know why anyone would want to call him anything except Corndog. One of the things I really like about Miranda Kenneally’s books, or at least this one and Catching Jordan, is how the romances seem to develop so organically. I wouldn’t have necessarily expected Parker and Corndog to get together, but I loved seeing them get to know each other and then figuring out if they could really be together.
Bottom Line: Another winner from Miranda Kenneally! Again, why did I wait so long to read her books?! Stealing Parker is a great story about a girl trying to figure out who she is in the context of her family and her small town. Her journey to do it isn’t smooth, and there were times I wanted to kill her, but I wanted to kill her in the best possible way. Plus there’s a great, slow-burn, romance!
This review first appeared on my blog.
I think it’s already been established that I am a big sports fan and I’ll admit, part of me thought sports would figure more prominently in this story, but in the end I was ok with softball and baseball taking a back seat.
I liked Parker pretty much immediately. By far my favorite thing she did was obsessively paint her nails. I realize that probably wasn’t the healthiest behavior (although it’s better than some of her other behavior), but as a lover of nail polish and someone who puts a lot of thought into what color I’m going to paint my nails, I could completely relate to Parker’s obsession with having the right nail polish to fit the day’s events/mood.
Why does Parker have this quirk you ask? Well, recently Parker’s mother came out of the closet, shocking their church and their small town. Parker was pretty much a golden child: valedictorian, softball star, and fairly popular girl. Once her mom comes out of the closet, and pretty much abandons her family, Parker feels lost. She continues to do well in school (yay!), but she quits the softball team because she feels like all the girls are judging her and she is dropped by a lot of friends, especially her church friends, and she starts acting out. She loses quite a bit of weight and creates many rules for herself about what she can and can’t eat (I would venture a guess to say she developed an eating disorder, but as a future dietitian I tend to over think these things so I’m leaving it at that) and she starts hooking up with a lot of guys.
The whole hooking up with guys thing is the basis for much of the story and I found it so heartbreaking. Not that she’d be promiscuous, if a girl wants to be promiscuous for the right reasons I say more power to her, but Parker is not doing it for the right reasons. Her main reason is so people know she’s not gay, which just made me want to cry. First, that Parker and her community think there’s something so wrong with being gay (although I don’t think Parker really thinks that, I think it’s a reflection of other people’s opinions) and second, that she would rather be known as willing to hook up with pretty much any guy rather than be known as gay.
Parker wants people to think she’s sluttier (and I use that word with no negative connotation) than she actually is, but she’s really just kissing and maybe doing some heavy petting (I love any opportunity to use that ridiculous phrase). Then Parker meets Brian, the new baseball assistant coach. Parker’s friend recruited her to be the baseball team’s manager after she quit softball so she starts spending a lot of time with Brian, who’s not too much older than Parker, he recently graduated college, but certainly not in a position to be dating a student at the high school where he works.
Brian was such a loser. Bah, I hated Brian. I liked what he gave to the story, but I wanted Parker to get over him and date Corndog. Yes, Corndog! How cool of a nickname is that? The story behind it is really sweet, but I’ll leave that up to you to discover. And he has a real name, but I don’t know why anyone would want to call him anything except Corndog. One of the things I really like about Miranda Kenneally’s books, or at least this one and Catching Jordan, is how the romances seem to develop so organically. I wouldn’t have necessarily expected Parker and Corndog to get together, but I loved seeing them get to know each other and then figuring out if they could really be together.
Bottom Line: Another winner from Miranda Kenneally! Again, why did I wait so long to read her books?! Stealing Parker is a great story about a girl trying to figure out who she is in the context of her family and her small town. Her journey to do it isn’t smooth, and there were times I wanted to kill her, but I wanted to kill her in the best possible way. Plus there’s a great, slow-burn, romance!
This review first appeared on my blog.