You Can't Sell Right Field by Brian Tarcy

Summary

Every small resort town in America faces huge development pressures. This is the story of one such town.

In the summer resort town of Vermouth, Massachusetts, on Cape Cod, Cletis Bord is the town garbageman and the shortstop on the Townies softball team in the Vermouth Softball League. His best friend, Bobby Linster, the second baseman, just sold the Linster family land that is the right field of their longtime softball field. You can't sell right field. Can you?

You can if a well-dressed slick-talking developer claiming to be an heir to Walt Disney comes spreading money around like lottery winnings to 19 Vermouth landowners, including the Linster family.

And that's how Cletis Bord, an unambitious stoner got involved with other town characters, and even an endangered species, trying to win an election to stop a zoning change that would allow a huge development to change his hometown forever.

Set during a softball season pennant race during an idyllic summer on Cape Cod, You Can't Sell Right Field follows the Townies as they split apart over the zoning change and try to come together to win softball games and the championship.

By the end of this love story for his hometown, Cletis, the narrator, finds his own version of love, grows up some and learns an important lesson about small-town democracy.

My Thoughts

I'm not quite sure how to classify this book.  Not really sure how to rate it.  It wasn't super great.  It wasn't horrible either.  It was just simply ok.  Somewhere between 'meh' and good.  I hope that makes sense.

There were times when it felt like I was reading about The Sandlot kids all grown up with mediocre lives.  That was when it was a bit more enjoyable.  Then there were times when I got kind of bored with it.

I honestly don't think it was a bad book!  I just don't think it was the right book for me.  I will say, there are times when I feel like I completely wasted my time with a book.  This didn't feel like a complete waste of time.  There were good parts.  It just wasn't a good fit for me.

*Note:  I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.