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A review by pagesplotsandpints
Heavy Hitter by Katie Cotugno
1.75
<b>Read Completed 9/9/24 |</b> 1.75 stars
I was SO excited for this because I'm always looking for more baseball romances, but I didn't like this in many ways.
Firstly, this is so heavily Taylor Swift coded that it's gross. I'm not a Swiftie, and honestly, even though this isn't *actually* about Taylor Swift, it made me like her less because Lacey was not a good character. I honestly understood the stress, the need to play ball with the press, how your life totally changes when you have that level of fame. I get it. But Lacey's character wasn't likable. She was boring, she was two dimensional, and she barely had a personality outside of leaning on TS similarities. It was TOO similar and I wish it the author would have created more differences so it didn't feel like fan fiction.
I liked the baseball, obviously, but I wished it was incorporated more. Lacey only went to one of Jimmy's games and it was a shitshow. She didn't even watch a game on TV, and then she barely did, and it was only to incorporate something negative after the game. We didn't even get any cute feelings of her watching him on TV or watching at a game and being proud of him or excited to see him play. NEITHER of them really cared about each other, if we're being honest here. She didn't care about baseball or seeing him in his element, and he didn't really ask her about her music. They were both boring as all hell and didn't even really seem to LIKE each other.
The baseball parts that were included were so cliche and mostly not common. Jimmy somehow hits an inside the part homerun, even though he's obviously not fast, complaining about all of his joints and how he's 37. It's not called an inside the park home run but why is he sliding into home if it was a home run? Then it happens to a player on the other team -- again!? A kid who hits it and no one can come up with it and he comes all the way home. Look, this is not a thing that happens often, okay. The only thing that happens baseball wise seems to be home runs. We could have some hits and some action outside of that. Then during the playoffs, the whole Orioles team is traveling back and forth from Baltimore to Boston, apparently. I don't think during any away series do players travel back and forth from home and to the visiting ballpark unless it's like Cubs vs Sox and you're already in Chicago. Why are they traveling back and forth before Game 5 of the playoffs to a city that's 6.5 hours away? They're not flying the whole team back every night. That's just not gonna happen.
The only thing I did like was that Jimmy was 37 and and older player. I liked breaking the mold of being young or in your 20s. Even in your early 30s is still very common but 37 is on the edge of retiring, so that was something to shake things up.
They each had a family member that struggled with addiction and Jimmy's brother even died from an overdose, and yet, they don't even really talk about it. It's one short conversation. Jimmy barely seems empathetic that her mom is an alcoholic, and we gloss over the fact that her mom was drunk driving. Aside from Lacey saying one line that she could kill someone by driving and her mom sleeping it off, that was it. Lacey didn't grow at all. She didn't cut things off with her mom or even confront her. She just continues to enable her. She says well, she TRIED to get her a car service so she wouldn't be driving. We have no emotional growth where they talk and she tells her mom how this hurts her, how she can't enable her anymore. Nope. We never come back around. Jimmy's brother only seemed to be there to make his character more sad. We have a surface level conversation about how he got addicted to opioids and how he overdosed, and how his brother was also into baseball. But we don't get to KNOW anything about Jimmy or his family.
This book also had zero romance. The only things these two did was to hook up and have sex. They didn't act romantic towards each other at all. It was all physical and very, very little emotional connection to the point where we got to the third act break-up and I thought this was going to end in a tragedy, and I honestly hoped it would. They were not right for each other at all, and I was actually disappointed to see them together in the end. These two probably both need a lot of therapy and this is a couple that will 100% break up and get into a nasty, horrible fight after this book is over. They didn't resolve any of their issues and that's just going to carry over. They were MEAN to each other when they fought and just saying sorry doesn't mean that it's not going to happen again.
I'm mad how much I hated this. I wouldn't have finished it if I hadn't gotten so far in, but at least it was quick.
I was SO excited for this because I'm always looking for more baseball romances, but I didn't like this in many ways.
Firstly, this is so heavily Taylor Swift coded that it's gross. I'm not a Swiftie, and honestly, even though this isn't *actually* about Taylor Swift, it made me like her less because Lacey was not a good character. I honestly understood the stress, the need to play ball with the press, how your life totally changes when you have that level of fame. I get it. But Lacey's character wasn't likable. She was boring, she was two dimensional, and she barely had a personality outside of leaning on TS similarities. It was TOO similar and I wish it the author would have created more differences so it didn't feel like fan fiction.
I liked the baseball, obviously, but I wished it was incorporated more. Lacey only went to one of Jimmy's games and it was a shitshow. She didn't even watch a game on TV, and then she barely did, and it was only to incorporate something negative after the game. We didn't even get any cute feelings of her watching him on TV or watching at a game and being proud of him or excited to see him play. NEITHER of them really cared about each other, if we're being honest here. She didn't care about baseball or seeing him in his element, and he didn't really ask her about her music. They were both boring as all hell and didn't even really seem to LIKE each other.
The baseball parts that were included were so cliche and mostly not common. Jimmy somehow hits an inside the part homerun, even though he's obviously not fast, complaining about all of his joints and how he's 37. It's not called an inside the park home run but why is he sliding into home if it was a home run? Then it happens to a player on the other team -- again!? A kid who hits it and no one can come up with it and he comes all the way home. Look, this is not a thing that happens often, okay. The only thing that happens baseball wise seems to be home runs. We could have some hits and some action outside of that. Then during the playoffs, the whole Orioles team is traveling back and forth from Baltimore to Boston, apparently. I don't think during any away series do players travel back and forth from home and to the visiting ballpark unless it's like Cubs vs Sox and you're already in Chicago. Why are they traveling back and forth before Game 5 of the playoffs to a city that's 6.5 hours away? They're not flying the whole team back every night. That's just not gonna happen.
The only thing I did like was that Jimmy was 37 and and older player. I liked breaking the mold of being young or in your 20s. Even in your early 30s is still very common but 37 is on the edge of retiring, so that was something to shake things up.
They each had a family member that struggled with addiction and Jimmy's brother even died from an overdose, and yet, they don't even really talk about it. It's one short conversation. Jimmy barely seems empathetic that her mom is an alcoholic, and we gloss over the fact that her mom was drunk driving. Aside from Lacey saying one line that she could kill someone by driving and her mom sleeping it off, that was it. Lacey didn't grow at all. She didn't cut things off with her mom or even confront her. She just continues to enable her. She says well, she TRIED to get her a car service so she wouldn't be driving. We have no emotional growth where they talk and she tells her mom how this hurts her, how she can't enable her anymore. Nope. We never come back around. Jimmy's brother only seemed to be there to make his character more sad. We have a surface level conversation about how he got addicted to opioids and how he overdosed, and how his brother was also into baseball. But we don't get to KNOW anything about Jimmy or his family.
This book also had zero romance. The only things these two did was to hook up and have sex. They didn't act romantic towards each other at all. It was all physical and very, very little emotional connection to the point where we got to the third act break-up and I thought this was going to end in a tragedy, and I honestly hoped it would. They were not right for each other at all, and I was actually disappointed to see them together in the end. These two probably both need a lot of therapy and this is a couple that will 100% break up and get into a nasty, horrible fight after this book is over. They didn't resolve any of their issues and that's just going to carry over. They were MEAN to each other when they fought and just saying sorry doesn't mean that it's not going to happen again.
I'm mad how much I hated this. I wouldn't have finished it if I hadn't gotten so far in, but at least it was quick.