Butterflies in the End Zone

• Author: Jacob Gelman
• Genre: YA Romance
• Publication Date: June 15, 2023
• Publisher: Self-Published

I received a copy of this book from the author in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

Alex has everything going for him. He’s the quarterback of the football team. He has a great group of friends. He’s popular. He’s got stellar grades. So, why is he so enamored by the new kid from the Bay Area.

Meanwhile, Jamie doesn’t understand why the quarterback of Scalia’s football team could possibly want to be friends with him: the closeted Jewish kid. It’s the last thing he needs to worry about after leaving California for Jacksonville. He planned on just keeping his head down and finishing his senior year quietly to get into his dream school.

Against the odds, though, they become close friends in an area that would teach them to be enemies. But, over time, their friendship turns into something deeper—scaring the both of them. Will their love survive the trials of being in a homophobic environment? Or will it all prove to be too much for them?

The author contacted me a while back, offering a copy of his book in exchange for a review. I did say it was going to be a while until I could get to it, although that turned out to be much longer of a time than I originally planned on. I was prepared to love this book, and while it had really good bones, there were some things that made this just an okay read for me.

Let’s start with the positives, and there are some great elements to this story. The thing that I really loved about this book is the way that it navigated some really sensitive topics, like antisemitism, homophobia, and toxic masculinity. In a town with minimal Jewish representation, Jamie’s family is the only Jewish one around, and they are recent transplants from California. Going from a diverse and inclusive environment to small-town Central Florida is a culture shock for Jamie. He’s out and has amazing parents who accept and support him fully. But he’s now living in a place that isn’t as accepting of LGBTQ people, and feels forced back into the closet. Gelman really addresses head-on homophobia in multiple types of situations: from casual use of a homophobic slur in everyday jargon; to adults making homophobic statements; to internalized homophobia. 

He also wrote a great friends-to-lovers romance. It’s got great bones, and I found myself really hoping that the characters would get their HEA. The story itself was a good one, but ultimately, it wasn’t enough to overcome the issues that made this a tough one to love. I think the biggest flaw is that I can see in places where the authors writing is so evocative and strong, and it’s frustrating that it happens not nearly frequently enough. Here’s one example:

“The moon’s light barely reached us from where we sat, leaving Alex and I shadows in the dark glow of the early morning.”

The first, and most glaring thing that I noticed was that this book could have benefited immensely from a thorough proofread and complete edit. There were glaring issues with formatting, spelling, and grammar, all of which could easily have been caught by a good editor and proofreader. Although the two chapters were different, my copy had two headings for chapter twelve and no chapter thirteen. And the writing was descriptive yet veered into overly flowery prose, while at times the phrasing was clunky or didn’t make sense, and there were far too many similes and metaphors.

“The food melts against my tongue, falling to my stomach as soon as my fork is reaching for another bite.”

Although there is a Jewish main character, the actual Jewish representation doesn’t go farther than having him be a Jewish main character, and seeing a Shabbat dinner through the eyes of a Christian character who has no idea what is going on. This is as far as the representation goes, and it isn’t much at all:

“It is still ten minutes before we eat, a series of prayers sang from the table as we thanked G-d for a seemingly random assortment of foods and drinks. I remained silent, at a loss for the prayers they chanted.”

We get alternating chapters through the eyes of Alex and Jamie, and as different as these two young men are, neither develops a distinct voice, making it hard to differentiate who was speaking. But the emotion felt genuine in scenes between Alex and Jamie. 

Overall, this has potential to be a really good read. But it isn’t going to happen without a thorough round of editing and proofreading. They’re standard at big publishing houses for a reason. As is, it’s just an okay read, but I know it could be so much better. I know I’m being tough on this book, but as someone who occasionally works as a proofreader, I can’t turn the part of my brain off that makes errors stand out. I was a little surprised to see some spicy scenes in the story, since it’s a YA book, so I’d recommend this to more mature readers. It would probably work better for you if you like sweet, queer romance, guys showing emotion, and an underdog love story.

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