Book Review- Stealing Parker

I finished reading Stealing Parker by Miranda Kenneally earlier this week for an Around the World ARC Tour.

From Goodreads:

Parker Shelton pretty much has the perfect life. She’s on her way to becoming valedictorian at Hundred Oaks High, she’s made the all-star softball team, and she has plenty of friends. Then her mother’s scandal rocks their small town and suddenly no one will talk to her.

Now Parker wants a new life.

So she quits softball. Drops twenty pounds. And she figures why kiss one guy when she can kiss three? Or four. Why limit herself to high school boys when the majorly cute new baseball coach seems especially flirty?

But how far is too far before she loses herself completely?

First, I have to say that I loved all of the baseball talk.  I am a huge sports fanatic, so I loved reading about a girl so involved in a sport.  Plus, I play on a company softball team, so her love of softball had a soft spot in my heart.

That being said, I didn't like some of the other aspects of the book.  I do not like religious books.  I usually find them preachy and it's just not my thing.  I usually try to stay away from them.  This book was definitely all about church and God. And there was nothing in the summary to lead me to think this book would be so heavily involved in religion so I could stay away from it.  And I think the whole idea of Parker and the baseball team coach/teacher relationship was so inappropriate.  I get that is part of the idea of the story, but it just creeped me out.  Maybe its the fact that I'm a teacher so any kind of teacher/student relationship is so very wrong to me.

I like that the book also tackled homosexuality.  At first, it got on my nerves because it seemed like Parker was against her mom being a lesbian but once we learn about another main person in her life being gay, she seems to be more okay with it.  And so I was less annoyed.

I wanted to like this book more.  I really did. 

I gave this book a rating of 3/5.

Stealing Parker will be released on October 1, 2012.

This book fulfills items in the following challenges:
2012 Reading Challenge 150+: 59
2012 ARC Reading Challenge: 47
2012 Young Adult Reading Challenge: 50
Completely Contemp Challenge 2012: 2012-15
2012 Standalone Reading Challenge: 14

*FTC Disclosure: I was given this book for free for an honest review as part of the Around the World Tours.