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sebastian787's Reviews (328)
emotional
informative
reflective
fast-paced
hopeful
lighthearted
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
emotional
funny
hopeful
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:
Complicated
challenging
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
emotional
hopeful
reflective
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:
Yes
Thank you NetGalley and Avon for the eARC of this book!
Truly words cannot express how much I loved this. As a baseball playing, vintage aesthetic loving gay man, this feels like it was handcrafted for me. Sports romances often just kind of wave away the sports itself and use it more as an excuse to have an entourage cast or fun little uniforms while letting the sport fade away, but this was nothing like that. Cat Sebastian either loves baseball or does a damn good job pretending, because the game and all its weird little intricacies are woven throughout.
Eddie and Mark had such a sweet, wonderful romance. It felt perfectly paced and unlike a lot of romances, I felt like I could really see them growing closer and starting to trust each other and fall in love. And both characters were such a joy in their own way.
I shed several tears through this. Over Eddie's journey of crafting a life for himself. Over Mark's grief. Over their slowly learning each other. I haven't felt so caught up in a story in a long while. I almost feel like Eddie coming out of a slump.
The historical aspect was also realistic, without ever falling too much into doom and gloom, if that's a concern for any potential readers. It's beautiful in its own way to see how our community has always carved out spaces for ourselves even in hostile environments.
Truly, I love this book. It'll live front and center on my bookshelf as soon as I can get my hands on a physical copy.
Truly words cannot express how much I loved this. As a baseball playing, vintage aesthetic loving gay man, this feels like it was handcrafted for me. Sports romances often just kind of wave away the sports itself and use it more as an excuse to have an entourage cast or fun little uniforms while letting the sport fade away, but this was nothing like that. Cat Sebastian either loves baseball or does a damn good job pretending, because the game and all its weird little intricacies are woven throughout.
Eddie and Mark had such a sweet, wonderful romance. It felt perfectly paced and unlike a lot of romances, I felt like I could really see them growing closer and starting to trust each other and fall in love. And both characters were such a joy in their own way.
I shed several tears through this. Over Eddie's journey of crafting a life for himself. Over Mark's grief. Over their slowly learning each other. I haven't felt so caught up in a story in a long while. I almost feel like Eddie coming out of a slump.
The historical aspect was also realistic, without ever falling too much into doom and gloom, if that's a concern for any potential readers. It's beautiful in its own way to see how our community has always carved out spaces for ourselves even in hostile environments.
Truly, I love this book. It'll live front and center on my bookshelf as soon as I can get my hands on a physical copy.
emotional
funny
hopeful
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
emotional
hopeful
reflective
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
informative
reflective
medium-paced
adventurous
emotional
funny
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
While normally I enjoy dual timelines, something about this one was hard to really lose myself into. Partly I think it was a pacing issue, but also I think bouncing around between the two meant I never really felt I knew all that much about either of them. When I step back and look at what I read, I do enjoy it, but in the moment of reading, it was hard to immerse myself and sometimes dragged. Overall, I did enjoy it, but I do wish some parts of the execution had been better.