Review The Perfect Game by J Sterling

I really enjoyed the last book I read by J. Sterling, Chance Encounters (see my review here), but I wasn’t really looking forward to The Perfect Game, because I don’t love books with sports stars. I was eventually going to read it but was in no rush. Then I found out she mentioned ME in it!!!!! Holy crap, that is a HUGE deal! How can I not read it?

I’m so glad I did. It was just what I needed to get me out of the rich dominant book rut I was in. This book was a sweet, angsty, romantic, rollercoaster of a quick read, that had me screaming on twitter at one point. The beginning was very similar to Beautiful Disaster (a bit too similar). Jack Carter is gorgeous and a baseball pitcher at his college. Cocky and swoon-worthy, Jack is expected to be chosen for the majors in the first draft. He has girls hanging all over him around campus, but never sleeps with the same girl twice.

Cassie sees him at a party and they have an instant connection, but when Cassie’s best friend sees who she is looking at, she lets her know immediately about his reputation. So Cassie blows him off and rejects him at every turn, he keeps after her, and she doesn’t give in right away.

“You need me to work some of that aggresion out of you?” Jack offered with a sexy smile.

My mouth was full, but I didn’t let that stop me. “I’d rather eat dirt.”

Jack, though, quickly charms the pants off her (literally).  Cassie had been promised a lot throughout her life from her dad, who never followed through, and disappointed her her  entire life, making it difficult to trust anyone. Jack had his own horrible childhood, making it difficult for him to ever get attached to anyone either.

“You’re both so screwed up alone that together you’re like the perfect mess.”

Cassie had 4 rules. Great rules I agree with:

“Rule number one: Don’t lie. Two: Don’t cheat. Three: Don’t make promises you can’t keep. And four: Don’t say things you don’t mean”

Jack goes from being a cocky asshole to being an almost-perfect book boyfriend. Protective, romantic, sweet, loyal and completely in love.

“Cass, I don’t ever want to hurt you, but I can’t promise you that I’ll never screw up or make you mad.”

But Jack is getting swooped into pro ball. Playing in city after city with slutty groupies fawning all over him while his girlfriend is home is hard for any couple to take. But their relationship seemed strong. There was no doubt Jack loved Cassie. But then the shit hit the fan.

And then it got even worse.

And then worse.

Holy fuck. I was ready to throw my phone across the room!

Likes:

• Despite my lack of love for sports novels, the baseball part of this was actually very interesting to me. I enjoyed watching how dedicated and focused Jack was about the sport.
• I really liked Cassie and loved her friend Melissa.
• I was kept up till 3 am and went to bed with my heart thundering in my head.
• The quarters. <3
• The end.
• This was based on some actual real people!

Dislikes:

• There wasn’t enough push and pull before Cassie gave in. It all happened a little too fast.
• This is so hard to say without spoilers: That nobody verified any part of “the story”, I couldn’t believe it from the second I heard it. Cassie just read The Opportunist! There was NO suspicion?
• Jack needed to learn about foreplay.

Rating: 4 stars for story, 2.5 for heat (there was sex scenes, but nothing good, not even foreplay)

All in all, this book was a nice, refreshing, different-from-recent-books break. I loved that Cassie was Jack’s “game changer”, and though I wanted to punch Jack in the nuts at one point, what happened was believable. But what happened after wasn’t. And then the wait……I hated the wait……..But the end redeemed it. So while reading the book, it was 3.5 stars at the beginning, upped to 5 at a point in the middle, down to 3, then back to 5. When I finished, I immediately said, “I LOVED IT”. Rollercoaster? I should say so!

I want you all to know, I purchased this book, and my rating is not influenced by this:

But I’m fucking proud as hell to be in a book, let alone in the company of these amazing bloggers!

Purchase The Perfect Game at Amazon || BN.com/nook

Related Posts:

• Review of Chance Encounters by J. Sterling
• Beautiful Disaster by Jamie McGuire
• The Opportunist by Tarryn Fisher ****mentioned in this book!
• Top Picks: New adult books