Ana Hartnett Reichardt

Catching Feelings is another cute and interesting romance victim of miscommunication and over dramaticising .

Andy's life is a rollercoaster. She's hung up on her best friend for years, her father's health is slowly deteriorating, and against everyone's expectation she's nominated team captain. Now, she has to learn to be less of a pushover and rekindle herself with their best player, Maya, that for some reason hates her and who she totally doesn't have a crush on.

Don't get me wrong. I really liked the actual dynamic between the two girls and how willing the author was to explore flaws and details in each personality. Even supporting characters were very distinct and fleshed out and I have to give praise for that.

But where the book lost me was in the obstacles to them being together. While I'm aware that drama it's a big part of the romance genre, it just isn't my cup of tea, and I much rather when they lean towards lightheartedness.

Considering how many flaws and and humanity the characters carry, it wouldn't be hard for them to actually have issues and make mistakes while getting together, but everytime it all comes down to miscommunication and misunderstandings. I think the author could've been a little braver and made the issues actually be the characters fault.

But I love the overall themes of the story, and how casual the narrative was with representation (can't believe I'm actually typing this. Yes, it's not just screaming HEY LOOK WHAT I DID, as it should). Even if sometimes some discussions were a little too on the nose, a bit too much of having a character monologue about an issue instead of just showing that is an issue, it wasn't enough to bother me and I can really see room for this to develop really nicely in the author's future works.

Overall, it's not a bad book at all, just didn't rock my boat that much; and if you're a fan of passionate, drama fuelled romance, this is definitely the book for you.

Thanks for NetGalley and Bold Strokes Books for an advanced copy for review purposes.… (mehr)

Andy Foster lives in her head, is studious, and is a second-year, second-string catcher for the Alder University softball team. When the coach gives her the starting catcher’s job, she is surprised and dismayed. When the coach also gives her the captain of the team job, she can’t wrap her head around it. Then she realizes she’ll be catching for her team’s diva-ish star pitcher, Maya Gonzalez, and she tries to get the coach to change her mind about giving Andy the two assignments.

Reichardt has created two strong characters with enough animosity between them to keep readers reading to find out how they overcome their differences. Unfortunately, there is so much angst in this book that readers may find themselves scanning the page-after-page of angst to get to the good stuff of how the two women resolve their issues with each other and fall in love. Readers who dislike superficial angsty books will undoubtedly find themselves feeling the need to yell at Andy to just ask Maya the question that will resolve the main reason for all the angst and be done with it.

While this is the second book in this series, you need not have read the first book to get into and enjoy this book because Reichardt has, essentially, created a stand-alone romance between
two baseball-loving women set at the same university as her first book.

If you’re a fan of softball and love easily resolved angst-filled drama, you’ll love this book.

My thanks to Bold Strokes Books for an eARC.… (mehr)