When Parker’s mother leaves her family to go live with her girlfriend, Parker’s charmed life is turned upside down. She decides to make some changes, so she quits softball, loses weight, and starts hooking up with lots of guys. But how far can Parker go before she goes too far and loses sight of who she really is?
Miranda Kenneally’s follow up to Catching Jordan offers more of what readers either liked or didn’t like in her first novel. There’s some romance, some witty dialogue, and plenty of sports talk to be found. Despite the book being jam-packed with issue after issue, the pacing is quick and the pages go by fast. It’s an issues book disguised as a frothy romance.
In this one, Kenneally does away with those embarrassing poems that broke up the narrative of Jordan and instead allows the reader insight into Parker’s mind via her journal entries. These work for the most part and help to make the self-destructive Parker sympathetic, even as she enters into an ill-advised relationship with the young, hot, softball coach. There’s certainly authenticity to Keneally’s characters, and this is a stronger novel overall than her debut.
Even so, I was bored by this one. There’s a formula to her Hundred Oaks novels, and while some readers will find comfort in that, I found only predictability. It’s been a few weeks since I finished this one, and I barely remember it. There’s definitely entertainment and escapism to be found here, but it won’t work for all readers.
Stealing Parker by Miranda Kenneally. Sourcebooks Fire: 2012. Library copy. Read for 2012 Cybils Round 1 Panel.
Hey, Library Girl! 
This was my problem with Catching Jordan. I wanted to love the girl-playing-sports novel, but instead couldn’t muster the energy to care about the main character or her problems.
I actually loved Catching Jordan, but I saw too many similarities between this book and her debut for me to like it. Same plotline. Basically the same voice. Boring.