This was a book that was definitely written for its target audience, teens and young teens. The teen angst dripped off the page and there were the overblown storylines where everything is the end of the world in the book too. (And, I understand that's why they were written like that, because that's how most teens feel during those years, as if everything is the end of their worlds). Also, it's a brief read, with lots of stuff in a small package.

It's the story of Allie. She's a baseball pitcher on the girls baseball team in Juniper Bay, a very small town on the west coast of Canada, and she's a really good pitcher. Her Mom Suzanne also happens to have a girlfriend, Phyllis, who has a son close to Allie's age named Miles. So, at the same time that Allie's dealing with a lot of the town members looking at her weirdly because she has a lesbian Mom, she's also dealing with a new 'sort of brother' living in her house (And becoming the favorite of Allie's cat Patches). She then gets an opportunity to become a pitcher on a boy's baseball team, the Wolverines. It just happens that it's the same team that Miles is on. So, he winds up wanting to go take Allie's spot on the girl's baseball team, although the league doesn't really want to allow him to.

There's also the character of Eric, he's new in town so the reader can see things through his eyes, and he's probably the worst (as well as the fastest) player on the Wolverines.

The plot wasn't too surprising. Although, the whole Miles on the girls team ended in a way that I did not anticipate, so, there were some interesting surprises. And, there were some really interesting philosophical questions debated within the covers too. Just one example, why are girls allowed to play on the boys teams, but it seems like no one wants to let boys play on girls teams.

Honestly, the only big problem I really had with the book was with the character of Phyllis. I thought that the characterization just seemed totally off to me. I think her character was written the way that it was so that she'd be a 'unique' character, but I just read her character as sorta crazy.

But, hey, it was a story about a girl who got to play on the boys team (and did well), it has a couple of lesbian subplots in it, and it had a solid plot behind it. I would definitely recommend it to teens, but, it's simply a teen novel, not one of the 'crossover' novels like Harry Potter or the Hunger Games novels that have come out in the past few years.

I got this advanced galley through Netgalley on behalf of James Lorimer & Company hoping that I would review it. (Yeah, duh! Of course I would...) ( )