Out of Left Field by Kris Hui Lee - OPTIONAL

Out of Left Field by Kris Hui Lee, 320 pages.  Sourcebooks Fire, 2018.  $11.

Language: R (100+ swears, 5 ‘f’); Mature Content: PG (implied sex, mention of bisexuality); Violence: PG

HS – OPTIONAL

Sara Fox watches as her best friend, Cody Kinski, gets hits with a violent pitch by his rival, Santino Acardi, and breaks his arm.  Cody’s pitching may be over for the year – just before the post-season tournament, but Cody has an idea – Sara should take his place.  She may have bailed on softball her freshman year, but she has been kicking butt at sandlot ball her entire life.  Success, however, will require her to secretly make nice with Santino – who is also about to become her cousin through marriage.  Add in Sara’s growing feelings for Cody and we have a heady recipe for possible disaster.

Its an interesting blend of sport novel and romance: for me, the romantic entanglements sometimes threaten to take over the other very interesting dramatic points of this novel. For the author, I think the romance is actually the end point.   In this case, I wish it had been one or the other.  Plus the language is unnecessarily, really jarringly crude. Had it been mostly limited to the reactions of the boys on the teams to a girl pitching, it would have worked, but instead it was all throughout.

Cindy, Library Teacher