Not Your #LoveStory

Money is tight in 18-year-old Macy Evans’s family, and she, her mother, and her grandmother get by on low-wage jobs and her grandmother’s Social Security. Fiery, feminist Macy works at an old-school video store (“Gen X nostalgia was our biggest draw”) and reviews movies on YouTube. When she spills her food on the handsome guy next to her at a baseball game, he ends up shirtless, she catches a fly ball, and they become an internet phenomenon, she’s both appalled and tempted. Could being #FlyBallGirl, who’s pretend-dating Eric—#BaseballBabe—get her viewers and a sponsor? Eric’s persuasive, so she risks her privacy and the romance that might be brewing with friend Paxton, who eschews social media. Hartl (Have a Little Faith in Me) effectively sets up Macy’s small town, with its rural poverty (and vacationing outsiders who find it suitably backwards and charming), as well as believable secondary characters. The effort Eric puts into perpetuating #FlyBallGirl isn’t quite believable, and the obstacles keeping Macy and Paxton apart feel contrived, but the love story is pretty swoonworthy. Ages 14–up. [em]Agent: Rebecca Podos, Rees Literary. (Sept.) [/em]