Hmmm... I truly wanted to love this, because I LOVE the idea of combining Savannah Bananas with the Philadelphia Phillies, and the cover is simply adorable. However, there are a few HUGE problems with this book that are very concerning. For one, the author refers to a POC character in the book as "looking like he's from the coast of Spain, tan, and exotic". I'm sorry, what? This is 2025, and we should not be describing a POC as exotic; they are not zoo animals. Also, the author basically blatantly ripped off ACTUAL people. This feels like real person fiction, not just "based on" or "inspired by", and this is really not okay. This means there's no author creativity or authenticity, and brings forth the question of right of publicity. Did the real life players give their permission because this is WAY too close to the real thing, like their names, personalities, stats, positions they play, etc. 

For example, the same character she called "exotic" is named Nick Costas, plays right field, and has a son named Leo. Nick Castellanos plays for the Philadelphia Phillies, is a right fielder, and has a son named Liam. Okay, fine. Then, we have Alex Boimler, third baseman in this book. So, basically Alec Bohm from the Philadelphia Phillies. Next, we have his bestie, Brandon Marsh in the book, when a REAL Brandon Marsh plays for the Philadelphia Phillies! So, she didn't even try to change his name. It's the SAME NAME. We also have Johan Ramos that plays in the outfield and is Dominican... just like Johan Rojas who actually plays for the Philadelphia Phillies. Another blatant rip off of a real person with real details. We also have Trea Tennant, who plays shortstop in the book, and Trea Turner is the real shortstop who plays for the real Philadelphia Phillies. She also mentions a pitcher named Ranger Santana and the REAL Ranger Suarez is a pitcher for the real Philadelphia Phillies. She did not even change the first name, and that is not a common name. She also included the fact that he's Venezuelan, which Ranger Suarez really is. 

And the nail in the coffin is JT Rheems who is our MMC and is an older catcher. This is EXACTLY the same as JT Realmuto, the catcher for the Philadelphia Phillies. I'm sorry, but is JT Realmuto okay with himself basically the character in a romance novel? I don't think so. It's just wrong and feels like the author is using real people's identities for fiction without consent. 

Listen, I understand that most people reading this book won't catch these things because they don't know baseball or the Philadelphia Phillies all that well, if at all (which is a problem because did the author think no one would catch this?), but I do and I do NOT think it is okay to basically keep all the same names and details and not change much at all, if anything. This feels wrong, not creative or fiction at all, and is reminiscent of the whole Taylor Swift/Travis Kelce books that were coming out after they started dating and it is creepy and makes me feel like I am reading about real people hooking up. While it's not technically plagiarism, it does veer into misappropriation or unauthorized fictionalization of real people. It's framed as fiction but does not do enough to separate itself from reality, and that's the issue. I know this is indie published, because a real publisher would have NEVER allowed this. I'm sorry to call out the author on this, but it needs to be said. I hope that, as an ARC reader, this shows the author that this simply should not be published after all and if it is, it needs to be SIGNIFICANTLY changed. 

Thank you to K. Iwancio for the eARC of this book.