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Sep. 4th, 2022 10:28 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
Traditionally 'on airplanes' is the time when I read a lot of easy-to-read ebook romance! Unwritten Rules, a gay baseball romance, is a perfect airplane book which unfortunately I could not seem to figure out how to download to actually read when my devices were in airplane mode, so instead I read it mostly in airports and in hotel rooms. Same energy, though.
I think I first saw this as a rec from
wakeupnew, later reinforced by a comment in another groupchat about lesbians and gays supporting the minors ... the "baseball should probably unionize" subplot is relatively small but, as was predicted, unsurprisingly near and dear to my heart (and also timely as it happens!) It is also usefully emblematic of the things I liked very much about the book as a whole: the thoughtful and unglamorized look at baseball-as-profession, the central and open-ended and pleasingly unresolved! question of whether the the benefits of building one's life around a sport one loves are worth the many costs levied by participation in the baseball-industrial complex.
The primary plot of course is the toll that baseball capitalism inflicts on queer romance: the story takes place across two timelines, one in which catcher Zach Glasser is just meeting Eugenio, the fellow catcher who will eventually become his ex, and one three years later in which they are encountering each other again after breaking up because of Zach's unwillingness to jeopardize his career by coming out of the closet before he earns his baseball pension.
The romance is lovely, and the double timeline worked well for me in providing emotional weight and stakes, but honestly the thing I liked best was the baseball worldbuilding .... I mean, I am probably the last person on Earth who could tell you whether the actual pro-baseball world as depicted in this book is in any way accurate to reality, but it convinced me of its plausibility and made the book feel very compellingly specific and grounded, my streak of enjoying baseball-themed media despite the relatively percentage of time in my life taken up with any sort of sportball whatsoever continues apace.
I think I first saw this as a rec from
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
The primary plot of course is the toll that baseball capitalism inflicts on queer romance: the story takes place across two timelines, one in which catcher Zach Glasser is just meeting Eugenio, the fellow catcher who will eventually become his ex, and one three years later in which they are encountering each other again after breaking up because of Zach's unwillingness to jeopardize his career by coming out of the closet before he earns his baseball pension.
The romance is lovely, and the double timeline worked well for me in providing emotional weight and stakes, but honestly the thing I liked best was the baseball worldbuilding .... I mean, I am probably the last person on Earth who could tell you whether the actual pro-baseball world as depicted in this book is in any way accurate to reality, but it convinced me of its plausibility and made the book feel very compellingly specific and grounded, my streak of enjoying baseball-themed media despite the relatively percentage of time in my life taken up with any sort of sportball whatsoever continues apace.
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Date: 2022-09-05 05:12 pm (UTC)one of which was originally written as a gift for meee)).This is also a reminder that I should download and read the rest of the books lol, so thank you! XD
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Date: 2022-09-05 09:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-09-06 12:16 am (UTC)