The Perfect Game by J. Sterling

Title: The Perfect Game
Author: J. Sterling
Blurb:
He's a game she never intended to play.
And she's the game changer he never knew he needed.

The Perfect Game tells the story of college juniors, Cassie Andrews & Jack Carter. When Cassie meets rising baseball hopeful Jack, she is determined to steer clear of him and his typical cocky attitude. But Jack has other things on his mind... like getting Cassie to give him the time of day.


They're both damaged, filled with mistrust and guarded before they find one another (and themselves) in this emotional journey about love and forgiveness. Strap yourselves for a ride that will not only break your heart, but put it back together.


Sometimes life gets ugly before it gets beautiful...

Links:
The Perfect Game on Goodreads

The Perfect Game on Amazon

J. Sterling's Website

 Kala's Review:

I have really mixed feelings about this book. The first half is almost a clone of Beautiful Disaster with Jack acting like a huge player who "never sleeps with the same girl twice" and gets in fights a lot (aka Travis). Cassie acts exactly like Abby as the girl who can resist him, but not really, and he instantly falls for her. They start dating quickly and he becomes possessively obsessed with Cassie. He even gives her an arbitrary nick name the first time they meet - Kitten (which makes as much sense as Pigeon, but at least is something cute instead of the cockroach of birds). Jack also beats people up, treats every other girl (EXCEPT Cassie and her best friend) like a slut.

Speaking of the best friend, Cassie's best friend is a clone of the BFF in Beautiful Disaster too. She fluctuates between warning Cassie off of Jack and telling Cassie to forgive Jack's constant bad behavior.

Despite the similarities to Beautiful Disaster, I still enjoyed the story for the most part.

The book starts deviating in plotline towards the middle when Jack gets drafted (for baseball).  

Major spoilers after this point!

Jack cheats on Cassie, which I don't understand at all. I know he was drunk, but he was completely uninterested in this girl who won't leave him alone yet he KEEPS drinking until he's so drunk he goes home with her.

Of course, the girl ends up pregnant. Then Jack, who is the biggest moron ever, decides he has to marry the girl. He can't stand her, is in love with Cassie (who is willing to forgive him despite him cheating AND getting a girl pregnant), but he insists on torturing everyone by marrying the girl.

AND HE DOES IT. Despite Cassie coming down the day before to beg him not to. That conversation broke my heart and the way he treated Cassie during that conversation, especially when the other girl shows up, was unforgivable. Completely unforgivable.

But then, of course, the girl was faking the pregnancy (and Jack, the biggest moron ever, can't wait to see a pregnancy test or a PATERNITY TEST... this girl is a huge slut and he doesn't wait for a paternity test??).

So Jack dumps her and waits six months to beg for Cassie back. I admit he did it in a cute way, but I didn't care at that point. He was not redeemable at that point. He just wasn't. So I couldn't feel like it was a happy ending, despite it being a happy ending.

I was impressed by the author's writing style though. The book was well edited, has a nice cover, and was formatted well. Though I had some issues with the story itself, the book flowed really well and was a quick and easy read. I will be checking out additional books by this author

3 out of 5 stars.


Link to Kala's review on Goodreads:
http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/444239414