The Game Changer by J. Sterling

The Game Changer by J. Sterling
Series: The Perfect Game #2
Published by: Self Published on June 25, 2013
Genre: Contemporary, Romance, Sports
Pages: 322
Source: Purchased
Buy on Amazon • Book Details
Rating: ★★½

Jack appeared at my door last night after six months of no communication wearing a Mets jersey and holding a dozen red roses. He told me he was sorry, that he loved me, and that he would earn my trust again. It took everything in me to not fall apart at the mere sight of him. I wanted to take him back into my life, but I needed to know that this time it would be forever…

In J. Sterling’s highly anticipated follow-up to her USA Today bestselling novel The Perfect Game, Jack and Cassie quickly realize that their new lifestyle can often be cruel and unforgiving. Their happiness is put to the test as the past is never truly far behind.

How do you stay together when the world's trying to tear you apart?

In many ways, The Game Changer feels more like a novella than a full on book. The first 35% consists of:

• Jack recapping his side of the story. In The Perfect Game there are 6 months that are unaccounted for. Jack is doing who the fuck knows while Cassie moves to New York and starts her career. So Jack tells Cassie all about what he was going through and how he got the marriage annulled.
• Sex.

It’s literally like: story time, sex, story time, sex. Sex is their ‘break’ when they’ve had enough of recapping stories.

Then the rest of the book takes place in between the end of The Perfect Game and the epilogue. I mean, it was still interesting to read about how Jack handled the Chrystal bitch and dealt with annulling that marriage, but still.. it wasn’t exactly a ton of new content.

When the book did move on, I wasn’t that interested. It was all about Cassie dealing with being a celebrity athlete’s girlfriend. People harassed her, bought into Chrystal’s lies, spat at her, rated her hotness online, etc. It seemed so exaggerated. I could imagine some of those things happening to some of the most famous actors, but not to the GIRLFRIEND of a brand new athlete. They were literally posting photos of her in real time (like “Cassie out to lunch at x restaurant” then Melissa would text Cassie saying “nice top” because she saw the photo online 30 seconds later). I mean, do people in real life really care that much about the girlfriends of athletes? I could imagine that happening to like.. Angelina Jolie or someone.. but not the girlfriend of a first season baseball athlete.

Cassie really pissed me off sometimes. She decided that she had to hide all the harassment from Jack to “spare him”. Like if he thought about her for 2 seconds then he’d lose focus on baseball.. I just hate that kind of “self sacrificing” thinking. You don’t hide important, soul-crushing shit from your boyfriend to “spare him”. That’s just ridiculous. What happened to COMMUNICATION?

I think it’s clear that The Game Changer was never meant to be a book. That’s why we got that epilogue in The Perfect Game. At the end of The Game Changer, the author says that this book was never meant to be and she wrote it because her fans wanted it.. and I can honestly see that in the book. It’s an “in between” book. The first 35% almost feels like The Perfect Game all over again, but solely from Jack’s point of view.

This will be short and sweet because the truth of the matter is this book was never supposed to exist in the first place. And it’s only because of the fierce love that you, my dear readers, felt for Jack F’n Carter, and Cassie, that does it. You wanted! Demanded! Insisted! I write more to their story… and here we are.
The “Thank You” page of The Game Changer

I know it sounds like I hated The Game Changer, but I didn’t really. I don’t think it was a great book, but some weird obsession kept me wanting to read it.. like I had to find out what happens, and that kept me reading. I’ll probably even read the last book, The Sweetest Game for that same reason. Even though I don’t love this series, I almost have a weird addiction to it where I HAVE to see the conclusion.

The Verdict