Playing the Field (review)

Talented high-school athlete Darcy wants to spend her senior year playing for the winning boys' baseball team instead of suffering through another losing season with the softball squad. First, though, she has to get permission from Principal Basset, a traditionalist who also happens to be her mother's boyfriend and the father of her crush, Brandon. The principal only allows her on the team after Brandon "outs" her as a lesbian (she's straight), which angers her old best friend, Josh (he's gay), who believes she's exploiting homosexuality to get what she wants. (The question "What does being a lesbian have to do with playing baseball?" is asked in the book but never answered.) Is the plot cheesy? Yes. Offensive? Maybe. Hilarious? Definitely. Naughty humor and pop-culture references abound, and this feels more like a sitcom than a novel—close to a teen Will & Grace, with its disregard for political correctness and its outing of every stereotype, slur, and joke possible ("If I ever did decide to do lesbo, you'd hardly be my type"; " . . . as nervous as a Christian Scientist with a severed artery"). What easily could have degenerated into a slapstick-fest works surprisingly well, mostly due to the chatty style and insight of Darcy's first-person narration, the sharp humor, and the obvious awareness throughout the book that this is all tongue-in-cheek and over the top. Bildner, known for picture books such as The Shot Heard 'round the World (BCCB 5/05), does infuse the text with some serious statistics on teen homosexuality and perspectives from several sides of the topic, plus up-close baseball action, but overall this is pure madcap comedy. While the novel is hardly enlightening, TV-centric teens will gravitate toward its sitcom style and laugh all the way to the final page.