5stars

Singled Out is the sequel to Thrown a Curve where Taylor Dresdon was a star pitcher her junior year of high school.   That New Jersey high school no longer has competitive sports, leaving Taylor with only the unchallenging summer leagues.  Plus, with her grades plummeting, the scouts are no longer interested in her astonishing pitching skills.

The Hazelton School for Boys offers Taylor a scholarship.  Gabby (basketball), Kwan (math whiz)  and Taylor become the first girls to ever attend Hazelton, a private school primarily for rich boys – and rich boys’ elitist attitudes.  It does not take long for the Statesmen (a group of arrogant boys who bully-run the school), to run Gabby and Kwan out of Hazelton.  Taylor is next.

That is as far as I am going with this well written story.  Taylor’s senior year at Hazelton, whether she completes the year or is run off by the Statesmen, and if she wins a spot on the varsity baseball team, is up to you, dear reader, to find out.  Usually I go into the story, sometimes too much so, but this one you must read.

Singled Out is a fun, mysterious, romantic and fast spaced story, with characters that are easy to root for or against.  Taylor is a tough, resilient girl in an even tougher high school with years of elitist history, yet the story could never be labeled feminist.

Girls and boys alike will enjoy this sequel to Thrown a Curve even if they have not read that first book.  Singled Out can stand on its own.  Everything you need to know about the first book is told in the first few pages.

Taylor wants to go to college on a baseball scholarship and Hazelton is her last chance to wow the scouts, with both her pitching skills and her grades – if she can hone her study skills and survive the Statesmen’s wrath.  Finding out if Taylor can do all this will keep you turning pages till the very end.  You won’t want to put down Singled Out.

Note:  received from netgalley, courtesy of the publisher