Published: Dec 1, 2011
Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire
Source: I purchased this book
Find the author: Goodreads || Website || Twitter: @MirandaKenneally
Buy: Amazon || B&N || The Book Depository

~ The Blurb ~
From Goodreads

ONE OF THE BOYS

What girl doesn't want to be surrounded by gorgeous jocks day in and day out? Jordan Woods isn't just surrounded by hot guys, though-she leads them as the captain and quarterback of her high school football team. They all see her as one of the guys and that's just fine. As long as she gets her athletic scholarship to a powerhouse university.

But everything she's ever worked for is threatened when Ty Green moves to her school. Not only is he an amazing QB, but he's also amazingly hot. And for the first time, Jordan's feeling vulnerable. Can she keep her head in the game while her heart's on the line?

~ My Thoughts ~

I loved absolutely every second of this book. I originally picked it up because I had heard so many people raving about Catching Jordan that I knew I just had to see what all the hype was about. I will admit though, I had my reservations. I’m not a football person, I don’t know anything about it, nor am I really into football culture, so I was wondering how am I going to relate to a book about a sport I know nothing about? What I quickly realized is that Catching Jordan is an absolutely brilliantly written book and it is about so much more than football. It was the amazing characters and the dynamic relationships that made me absolutely fall in love with Miranda Kenneally and her debut novel.

Jordan was a character who continually surprised me. Not only was she a 17 year old girl who played football, but she was a quarterback who could hold her own with the guys. She had earned the team’s respect as captain long ago and was used to being a leader. Jordan was definitely not a girls-girl, all of her best friends were guys on the team and she could eat most of them under the table. She refused to show weakness, and to her caring about clothing, or admitting her growing love of writing, were signs of weakness. I really enjoyed watching her character grow throughout the novel. Despite her desire to keep life simple and unemotional she had a lot going on that was out of her control. Her NFL playing father was less than supportive of her dream to play college ball, she developed her first crush on the new quarterback on her team vying for her spot, and the relationship with her best friend Sam was becoming increasingly complicated.

The most magical part of Catching Jordan was the unexpected relationships that Jordan had with her teammates. It was so much fun reading how they interacted with each other from her dinners at the Pasta Shack with JJ to her sleepovers with Henry. Their conversations had me constantly laughing and more than once I was swooning over the subtle sweetness that was Henry! I really thought that I would like Ty more than I did, but unfortunately for him I was won over by Henry so early on that he just paled in comparison!

I also loved Kenneally’s attention to the relationships that went on within Jordan’s family. So often family relationships are all but missing from YA novels and I found it really interesting to read about the differences between the relationship that Jordan and her brother each had with their father. Even Jordan’s teammates had a relationship with her family. It was just such a refreshing change to see a family present in a YA novel, granted they weren’t perfect, far from it, but they were there and it was obvious the role that they played in her life.

It only took one book for Miranda Kenneally to jump to the top of my favorite YA authors and I am beyond excited to read the rest of the books in the Hundred Oaks series as they are released. Her beautifully fluent writing style, her incredible ability to breathe life into her characters and her ingenious story telling makes her an author to watch out for. Catching Jordan was literally in my hands from start to finish, and I still can’t get the characters out of my head. This is a book that made me very, very happy and I hope that you take the time to read it, or re-read it (as I’m sure I will be doing very soon) so that you can feel the same way that I do right now!

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