All's Fair in Love and Field Hockey by Kit Rosewater
on May 6, 2025
ISBN: 0593898451
Genres: Realistic Fiction
Format: Young Adult
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All’s Fair in Love and Field Hockey

By Kit Rosewater

All’s Fair in Love and Field Hockey is a sweet, sapphic romance about two rival hockey players. It’s also largely about Evelyn’s grief after her mother’s passing and her trying to work through the tension between what she thought her future should be and what she might want it to be. Evelyn and her mother loved field hockey–her mom almost went pro–but when her mom is dying Evelyn promises to carry on her legacy and play field hockey at Duke. However, now in her senior year, Evelyn realizes that all she really has is field hockey and as she starts to spend more time getting to know the soccer player turned (forced) field hockey player Rosa from a rival team, she realizes she might not want that anymore–but can Evelyn live with herself for making her own future? I appreciated all of the complex discussions the characters had, how they tried to navigate their lives, and the queer rep (Evelyn’s brother is also trans). I do think Evelyn and Rosa’s relationship moved very fast (spoiler aler,t but they had sex the second time they kissed); I don’t think this is necessarily atypical of high school/teenage relationships but I also think it made their romance feel a little mis-paced (they hadn’t even been talking that long when they were previously arch rivals). Their friendship didn’t really make sense (Evelyn drove to Rosa’s school–and somehow got through security–just to tell Rosa off, and then they essentially fell into friendship). I appreciated Evelyn’s “queer crisis” (her brother’s words, not mine) and how the characters talk about sexuality. I really liked that we find out that Evelyn’s mother wasn’t perfect–and neither is her father–and while those things don’t get resolved, we see Evelyn actually dealing with things in a way she hasn’t in a long, long time. I think this book could be triggering if you’ve lost a parent or loved one, but otherwise I think it’s a solid sports/romance read for high schoolers and will be adding this to our 9-12 library collection. This was four stars for me because of the representation and important conversations.

Reviewed by Katy Jones, Gardiner Area High School Library, Gardiner