Stealing Parker
by Miranda Kenneally
Expected Pub Date: 10/01/2012

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?

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My Thoughts:

I was lucky enough to snag an ARC of this while I was at ALA this Summer. You have NO IDEA how excited I was since I simply LOVED Catching Jordan! In Stealing Parker we learn all about Parker and her struggles. I will point out that the main thing I love about Kenneally is that she knows how to write her heroines. She doesn’t give us “woe is me – I can’t function without a man at my side 24/7 – “I forgot what drawer I left my big girl panties” girls. She gives us heroines who KNOW how to soldier on and I love it. Anyways – back to Parker! lol.
 
Parker has pretty much had her entire world shaken and turned completely upside down. The ideal family life she once knew is now shattered and she is left trying to figure out how to put the pieces back together. (Props to her! I’m a GROWN WOMAN and can’t get that right half the time! lol) Having your Church and pretty much all of your friends turn their backs on your for something YOU had no control over, was pretty much the last straw as far as Parker was concerned. She went right into the – I couldn’t care less – mode. She quit her Softball team, developed the ever loving “Whatever” about almost everything, except her grades. She also decided that she would have a “it’s better to just hook up than to have a relationship” frame of mind. This didn’t get her very far, especially when rumors started to fly about what she did and didn’t do sexually. (Gotta love high school!)
 
Then her best friend, Drew, does the unthinkable. He tries to get her to do something “normal”, in the form of taking the Team Manager position for the boys softball team. (Yay Parker! – note the sarcasm). It’s their that she meets Brian, the new Assistant Coach. – This is where I developed an issue with the book. I in no way condone Teacher / Student relationships. I get where Parker was coming from though – I just.. eh. While I don’t place all the blame on Brian – I think that he should have been the example here for Parker. Fail Brian. Epic Fail.
 
Then you have Corndog – err – Will. I LOVE.. LOVE LOVE LOVE Will. Now, if it was attention that Parker was seeking – Will was as far as she had to look. Screw Brian. In my eyes, these two were made for each other. Having been competitors since day one – on EVERYTHING – it was unlikely that the two would become anything else. That is, until they started spending time with each other and actually got to know one another. I loved watching things blossom between the two of them. Why? Because it was REAL. It was just all of a sudden – it was a process. I watched as they went through challenge after challenge – good days – bad days and everything in between. I think this book did these two characters justice. Amazingly written if you ask me.
 
Side characters: Drew was epic. In just about every kind of way. The friendship between the two of them reminds me of the friendship I have with my best friend. I don’t care who you are, EVERYONE needs a friend like Drew. I also liked that we got to see Sam and Jordan again :)
 
One thing I will caution you on. This book touches on some pretty sensitive subjects – but Kenneally did it justice in the way it was written. Just keep an open mind when reading this one. Honestly; I think she took this book in just the direction that it needed to go. I would seriously recommend this book to just about anyone who would listen to me talk about it!

Thanks for stopping by!

Have you read Stealing Parker?
Plan on reading it? Just not your thing? Can’t wait to get your hands on it?!
Either way, I’d love to hear your thoughts!