Throw Like a Girl by Sarah Henning

From the Publisher: Friday Night Lights meets Morgan Matson's The Unexpected Everything in this contemporary debut where swoonworthy romance meets underdog sports story.

When softball star Liv Rodinsky throws on

e ill-advised punch during the most important game of the year, she loses her scholarship to her fancy private school, her boyfriend, and her teammates all in one fell swoop. With no other options, Liv is forced to transfer to the nearest public school, Northland, where she'll have to convince its coach she deserves a spot on the softball team, all while facing both her ex and the teammates of the girl she punched... Every. Single. Day.

Enter Grey, the injured star quarterback with amazing hair and a foolproof plan: if Liv joins the football team as his temporary replacement, he'll make sure she gets a spot on the softball team in the spring. But it will take more than just a flawless spiral for Liv to find acceptance in Northland's halls, and behind that charismatic smile, Grey may not be so perfect after all.

With lovable characters and a charming quarterback love interest, Throw Like a Girl will have readers swooning from the very first page.

Throw Like a Girl is the contemporary fiction debut of Sarah Henning, known for her fantasy novels Sea Witch and Sea Witch Rising. This book, however, is a combination sports and romance novel written for teens. It tells the story of high school softball star Olive "Liv" Rodinsky (known as O-Rod to her teammats), who loses her scholarship to an expensive prep school after a fight during a game and has to transfer to public school and convince the coach she can be a good teammate. However, it's not just any school, but the very school whose first base player she punched out last year! That player has thankfully graduated, but the coach isn't letting Liv join the softball team until she can prove herself as a good teammate. As it turns out, the best way to do that is for Liv to accept star quarterback Grey's offer to become his backup on the football team... on which her ex-boyfriend Jake is also the running back! If she can coexist with him, surely the coach will have to let her play softball.

Liv turns out to enjoy football quite a bit more than she expected, and as a result this makes for a fun, fast read. The story reads as a love letter to high school sports as much as it does a romance between characters. Though there's a bit of melodrama regarding secrets kept by Liv and others, on the whole the story is pretty lighthearted and sweet. Liv has a supportive network of family and friends, and while she does face some sexism as a girl joining a boys' sports team, it's not a major focus of the story. There's also some diverse representation in the cast, as Liv's older sister is married to another woman, and her best friend Addie is African-American.

Readers looking for a fun, fast read involving story of an empowered female playing football, and a romance as a nice bonus, will definitely enjoy Throw Like a Girl.