Saturday, April 19, 2014

A Whole New Ballgame / Caryn Rose


Reviewed by: BigAl

Genre: Chick-Lit

Approximate word count: 75-80,000 words

Availability    
Kindle  US: YES  UK: YES  Nook: YES  Smashwords: YES  Paper: YES
Click on a YES above to go to appropriate page in Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or Smashwords store

Author:

The titles of Caryn Rose’s novels, B-sides and Broken Hearts and now A Whole New Ballgame reflect her two major interests, music and baseball.

For more, visit Rose’s blog.

Description:

“The story of a 20-something woman who finds comfort and solace in baseball as her carefully ordered world starts to unravel.

26-year-old Laurie Nicholson thinks she's beginning to sort things out when it comes to life, work, and love. When a sudden declaration from an on-again, off-again boyfriend inspires her to take a risk, only to meet with crushing heartbreak instead, Laurie finds herself searching for refuge.

A chance encounter with Eric Morris and Peter Ellis, two friends spending their summer visiting every ballpark in America, offers Laurie an unexpected way to salve her wounds. Despite growing up in Boston surrounded by Red Sox fans, she wasn't a fan of the game-until Eric and Peter's enthusiasm turn that around and she falls in love...with baseball.”

Appraisal:

If you’re one of those women who isn’t much into sports or at least not baseball, you might be tempted to skip past this book. I’m not much of a sporty guy myself, so I understand. But in skipping it you’ll miss out on a good story that just happens to have baseball as a backdrop. Plus, you’ll find you have more in common with Laurie, the protagonist, than you think. You might not understand some of the references to specific players, but they aren’t important to the story. (I don’t know who they are either.) Maybe you’ll understand the music and band references better. (Those, I got, but they’re also unimportant.)

At its heart, A Whole New Ballgame is a coming of age story. Although Laurie is an adult, living on her own, established in her career, and much more “grown-up” than many of her peers, the struggles she goes through and the lessons she learns take her through the next level of growth. I found myself struggling with her as she faced some tough decisions, upset, when she was, and even gaining a small appreciation of baseball, even if I’m not planning to run out to the ballpark on opening day.

Format/Typo Issues:

No significant issues.


Rating: **** Four Stars

4 comments:

Laurie Boris said...

Baseball fiction! Sounds like something in my wheelhouse.

Sooz said...

This is a book I've had on my to-read list. Happy to see it got a good review.

BooksAndPals said...

Thanks for the comment, Laurie. Let me know what you think if you read it.

Susan, When I was scheduling reviews over the weekend I thought about you and that it was one you might like. I even wondered if you might know the author. It's a big city, but the two of you have a lot in common.

Sooz said...

We follow each other on Twitter :)