Quick Stats
Age Rating: 14/15+
Over All: 4.25 stars
Plot: 3.5/5
Characters: 5/5
Setting: 4/5
Writing: 4/5

Special thanks to Wednesday Books and NetGalley for an eARC of this book! All thoughts and opinions reflected in this review are my own.

This was freaking adorable. I’m a sucker for a sports romance. I’m a sucker for a dual POV. Everything about this book had me hooked before I’d even picked it up—and it was just as good as I had hoped.
Let’s just run through every amazing thing about this book:
* sporty cheerleader x QB romance
* sapphic
* dual POV
* girls in sports! Girls in FOOTBALL!
* amazing flirtation & banter
* nicknames!!
* lesbian & polysexual MCs
* and honestly so so much more.

Home Field Advantage is told from alternative POVs. Amber is a closeted queer cheerleader whose one goal is to get cheer captain next year. Jack has moved into town to replace the previous quarterback after he died in a drunk driving accident.
Both characters’ voices were strong, unique, and engaging. I read an ARC of this book, so the formatting of the switching between POVs was not always clear, but even when I missed that it told me the narration switched, the change in voice made it obvious within the first few sentences.
I liked that both girls knew they were queer and had experience in being in wlw relationships. I think a lot of coming of age and coming out books focus on discovering your sexuality—which is great and so so important, but I enjoyed reading about two girls who fully knew their sexuality beforehand.
Watching Jack’s relationship with her family grow, evolve, and mend was an aspect of the book that I really loved and wish I got to see a little bit more of. At times, her POV felt a bit less developed than Amber’s. She had story lines of her family and friends back home and the bullying she faced that were touched on a bit, but never fully felt fleshed out to me. Her POV focused mainly on Amber, with a fair amount of focus on the team and her interactions with them—though, really, I could have used a litter more of those interactions as well.
Amber’s POV, on the other hand, focused, of course, on Jack, but also on the cheer squad, her friendship with Cara, and how all of this plays in to her potentially coming out. I think these story lines were overall better fleshed out than Jack’s, though they too got a little lost in the Jack-and-Amber-ness as well. We got a lot more back story with Amber, especially surrounding her relationship with Cara. That storyline was really engaging, and I felt I could viscerally connect with Amber’s feelings on the matter, however, in the middle of the book, it felt like it just faded out for a little bit. Cara had been Amber’s best friend. She drove her to and from school every day, and they were attached at the hip, but I’m not sure she made any sort of appearance in the middle 1/3 of the book. That made her re-emergence as a driving factor of the plot in the last bit of the book feel as if it came a little out of left field. Like, I knew it was going to be an issue, from what we learned in the first part of the book, but she was so absent in the middle I all but forgot about her.
Despite the fact that the story line seemed to get a little lost, once it returned, I was quickly able to get reinvested.

The romance, of course, was adorable. I love Amber and Jack (Jamber? Amback? AmberJack?) as characters, and I love them together. Their chemistry was amazing; their banter and flirtation made me want to shriek. Every time Jack called Amber “Cheer Girl”, I’m pretty sure I actually did squeal. Seriously. Team AmberJack forever. I love them.
I also absolutely adored Miguel and Amber’s friendship. MLM/WLW solidarity in the best way. They were just so pure. I want a friendship like that, please. I liked seeing the blossoming friendship between Migs and Jack as well. I was frustrated with him for not always doing the right thing, but I could understand and empathize, with his past. Also, he and Malcolm were perfection.

All in all, this was an amazing read. It’s definitely a romance and character driven plot. It had a lot going on, and sometimes those story lines got lost in all the romance, but they always eventually resurfaced, and the romance was cute and angsty enough that I really couldn’t get myself to care. I highly recommend this one. Dahlia Adler is amazing, and I think I’d read just about any book she puts out.