Name: Susan's review of The Prospects by KT Hoffman
Item: The Prospects
Rating: 4.5
Author: Susan

KT Hoffman

The pressure cooker of minor league baseball leads to major chemistry in this exhilarating, sexy, and triumphant rivals to lovers debut romance. “Tenacious, sexy, effervescent, doggedly hopeful, and endlessly charming, with characters to root hard for and an irresistible voice—I completely adored it.” —Casey McQuiston, author of Red, White & Royal Blue Hope is familiar territory for Gene Ionescu. He has always loved baseball, a sport made for underdogs and optimists like him. He also loves his team, the minor league Beaverton Beavers, and, for the most part, he loves the career he’s built. As the first openly trans player in professional baseball, Gene has nearly everything he’s ever let himself dream of—that is, until Luis Estrada, Gene’s former teammate and current rival, gets traded to the Beavers, destroying the careful equilibrium of Gene’s life. Gene and Luis can’t manage a civil conversation off the field or a competent play on it, but in the close confines of dugout benches and roadie buses, they begrudgingly rediscover a comfortable rhythm. As the two grow closer, the tension between them turns electric, and their chemistry spills past the confines of the stadium. For every tight double play they execute, there’s also a glance at summer-tan shoulders or a secret shared, each one a breathless moment of possibility that ignites in Gene the visceral, terrifying kind of desire he’s never allowed himself. Soon, Gene has to reconcile the quiet, minor-league-sized life he used to find fulfilling with the major-league dreams Luis makes feel possible. A joyful, heartfelt debut rom-com revealing what’s possible when we allow ourselves to want something enough to swing for the fences.

A Novel

The Prospects

with those strong wrists that Gene would like to put to good use.

Does he know what that smile does to a defenseless homosexual?

Lindsay

The Prospects is about the people who often get left behind— how we find each other and work to build something incredible in spite of the circumstances. It’s about letting ourselves want those unimaginable dreams that we may never have seen someone like us achieve— the dreams we’ve been told we aren’t allowed to have at all. I hope, when you read this book, you feel allowed. I hope you stop feeling like you need permission at all.

For Glenn Burke, Lou Sullivan, & anyone else who had to be the first. Thank you for the worlds of dreaming & hoping & wanting you made possible.

The craziest thing, the thing that hitches Gene’s breath, is not that Luis wants him, but that Gene wants to let himself be wanted.

He understands wanting to look queer. It has made his life harder, but it has also made everything in him quiet in a way he never thought he’d achieve.

He has never been much good at wanting things, Gene. It’s a foreign feeling to him. Hope? Hope is comfortable, well- worn. His favorite, most familiar feeling. But hope isn’t selfish; hope is so easy to turn in someone else’s direction. Wanting, though. Wanting has always felt presumptuous— to ask for something, something unlikely and rare, and then actually, really hope to get it? All for himself ? He doesn’t do that.

Gene, possessing a reckless gay heart that refuses to listen to his smarter, equally gay head, falters.

Gene Ionescu has always loved every detail of baseball, but none quite so much as its near- complete indifference to the body. In few other sports can a five- foot, two- inch sprinter appear on the same roster as a six- foot, five- inch pitcher. Size— muscle, height, maybe a few extra inches of reach or long running legs— helps. But baseball also rewards the patient, the crafty, and, perhaps most of all, the optimistic.

Jazelle H

This felt comfortable, like a warm hug. SO happy for Gene and Luiz ❤️

Susan

best trans representation i’ve seen in a book!

There is an overarching sports-y plot but at the core this is a soft and cozy romance. The only hang up for me was I felt like I was missing something at first possibly only have one single POV and that they had known each other in the past and those references and memories felt disjointedly revealed. 

Also, this is a great book for baseball fans. There’s a lot from the process of players in the minors getting called up to the majors or not down to the nuances of each game and line up. A lot went over my head. I still enjoyed the story but my own personal preference would have been for more clarification and descriptors. Not trying to let it affect my rating though. 

Abigail

There is an overarching sports-y plot but at the core this is a soft and cozy romance. The only hang up for me was I felt like I was missing something at first possibly only have one single POV and that they had known each other in the past and those references and memories felt disjointedly revealed. 

Also, this is a great book for baseball fans. There’s a lot from the process of players in the minors getting called up to the majors or not down to the nuances of each game and line up. A lot went over my head. I still enjoyed the story but my own personal preference would have been for more clarification and descriptors. Not trying to let it affect my rating though. 

was honestly between a 3 or a 4 for a while while reading BUT the author’s note at the end really got me teary eyed.

ash (smokedshelves)

LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE. This book has so much heart. I love the journey that the characters took. This was a great debut.

Murphy-Ann Craig

i may not know anything about baseball, but even with zero knowledge of the sport, i wholeheartedly loved "the prospects." i didn't understand any of the baseball that happened in the book besides whether they won or lost, but that didn't take away my enjoyment of gene, luis, and their love story (not to mention the incredibly loveable cast of characters). it's so special to see trans and queer joy in novels and especially in the sports subgenre. gene and luis were both such delightfully imperfect characters, complex and flawed and real, that you really couldn't help but root for them and their love. this is such a strong debut and i absolutely cannot wait to see what kt hoffman does next! thanks to netgalley and dial press for the arc. "the prospects" comes out april 9th!

Jazelle H &
The Prospects by KT Hoffman

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The Prospects by KT Hoffman