SIDELINED

Two star football players—estranged childhood friends with a complicated past—set, hut, hike their way into their last year of high school with a high-stakes homecoming game in sight down the yard line.

All eyes in football-obsessed Meridien, Texas, are watching quarterback Julian Jackson and his long-lost teammate Elijah Vance, a once-promising defensive player. Until three years ago the two were inseparable, but then Elijah and his family moved away without explanation or saying goodbye. Now that he’s returned, unresolved feelings are stirred up between them as the biggest game of the season against their archrival approaches. This sports romance includes all the pageantry of small-town Texas with none of the homophobia. When it comes to their sexuality, both main characters experience nothing but love and support from their community, including their local pastor and his husband. Instead, the tension focuses on their families’ intertwined histories, perceptions of teen pregnancy, and the pressure of upholding the tradition of a local prank war with the rival football team. Contextual cues describing secondary and background characters indicate some ethnic diversity, but gender representation remains binary. Written in first-person, the chapters alternate between the perspectives of Elijah and Julian, both of whom are presumed White. Will-they, won’t-they suspense accelerates the story’s momentum, but the rushed pace of the resolution will leave readers yearning for a few more chapters.

An engrossing drama with an abrupt conclusion.