For fans of baseball, queer romance, and historical fiction, You Should Be So Lucky is for you! I’m a big fan of Sebastian’s books and so I knew this would be a hit run! Also if you’re not big into sports or baseball, don’t be afraid! Neither am I and I loved this one! Keep reading this book review of You Should Be So Lucky for my full thoughts.
Summary
The 1960 baseball season is shaping up to be the worst year of Eddie O’Leary’s life. He can’t manage to hit the ball, his new teammates hate him, he’s living out of a suitcase, and he’s homesick. When the team’s owner orders him to give a bunch of interviews to some snobby reporter, he’s ready to call it quits. He can barely manage to behave himself for the length of a game, let alone an entire season. But he’s already on thin ice, so he has no choice but to agree.
Mark Bailey is not a sports reporter. He writes for the arts page, and these days he’s barely even managing to do that much. He’s had a rough year and just wants to be left alone in his too-empty apartment, mourning a partner he’d never been able to be public about. The last thing he needs is to spend a season writing about New York’s obnoxious new shortstop in a stunt to get the struggling newspaper more readers.
Isolated together within the crush of an anonymous city, these two lonely souls orbit each other as they slowly give in to the inevitable gravity of their attraction. But Mark has vowed that he’ll never be someone’s secret ever again, and Eddie can’t be out as a professional athlete. It’s just them against the world, and they’ll both have to decide if that’s enough.
Review
(Disclaimer: I received this book from the publisher. This has not impacted my review which is unbiased and honest.)
I will always make an exception to read a sports story if it’s queer. What can I say? I’m not a sports girlie, but You Should Be So Lucky hits the spot. It’s about an unlikely sports viewer – is this me?? – who is tasked to write about the latest season. Both Mark and Eddie are on edge about their future and still haven’t figured out their pasts. For Mark, his story is about grief and the ways love can reinvigorate us. Can convince us there’s more to life than survival and loss.
For Eddie, it’s a story about coming back and handling a slump. When we think we aren’t going to make it, that everything we thought about ourselves could be wrong – or right. It’s also about letting people in, a community and a team, about finding and making a home. You Should Be So Lucky is tender and heartfelt. This historical fiction queer romance also broaches the safety and sacrifices queer couples had to navigate. How they want to be open, but what that might mean for them.
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You Should Be So Lucky is a charming story about finding space and community, about being brave and happy. It’s a book I read in a matter of days because of how wrapped up I was in Eddie and Mark’s story. Find You Should Be So Lucky on Goodreads, Storygraph, Amazon, Bookshop.org, Blackwells, & Libro. fm.