I absolutely adored this sapphic high school romance featuring a cheerleader and football player. My sport loving heart ate this book up and I don't regret a minute of it!

Home Field Advantage features Amber, a cheerleader whose only goal is to make captain, not fluff any feathers and live a closeted life before she goes off to college, because her small town could never handle who she really is, even if she does have a supportive mom and "boyfriend".
Then there is Jack. Jack is actually Jaclyn who has been brought in by the school to be their QB1 after their quarterback, Robbie died in a car crash. But Jack is not welcomed with open arms. Rather they dislike her because she's a girl and everyone is missing their original quarterback, even if he wasn't even good nor was he the person everyone thought he was.

This book had all the good and bad stuff that makes high school seem like the 'be all, end all'. But we had the added twist of the cheerleader falling for the QB who happens to be a girl. I liked the whole storyline of including some religion, hiding who you are to be accepted and even the horrible small town homophobia. These are all true to life and will end up shaping who you are as a person in the present and in the future. I liked having the girls at the center of the story and having them battle their own issues. Jack with trying to be accepted by her family and teammates and Amber wanting to be accepted for who she is by her squad, but also hiding who she is. I really liked that Miss Adler gave Amber a boyfriend who was also hiding something. It made me think of people I knew in high school that did the same thing for fear of acceptance.

WIth all this, I listened to the audio and LOVED the narrators. They were perfection. I believed that they were Amber and Jack and I was living in their world. But my most favorite part was the Homecoming game. The narrators and the author nailed this whole ending. It was spectacular! The game, the cheering, the family and the way everything wrapped up. Yes, it may have wrapped up in a nice little bow, but it was definitely gave you a taste of still not being accepted, but also people being open to change. And that's the what we need. Change and acceptance.

If you like sports romances and female characters that are pretty bada$$ and also like girls who like girls, definitely check this one out. I highly recommend the audio, but I'm going to need this one on my shelf too. It was too good not to own in the physical form. ;)

This is an uber cute f/f YA romance and it has my heart pounding. I am honestly not a YA person because I get a lot of secondhand embarassment and the self-conciousness inherent in books about teens can really make me anxious. This book DEFINITELY made me anxious. However, the romance was so cute, as was the conflict! Amber is torn between her friends, her ambitions, her world and her sexuality and sense of justice. Jack has moved heaven and earth to get her opportunity to play QB. Sparks instantly fly between them but nothing's easy when they have the ghost of the former QB hanging over the cheer and football teams, and the facades they've put in place just to get by. The stakes were very high and made a lot of sense in this book. I was really charmed by both Amber and Jack. I felt sick about all the things they were juggling. A+ for sapphic YA.

Well I liked this just as much the second time around. Natalie Naudus is an amazing narrator and I found the other narrator Lori Prince to be just as good and they really complimented each other well.
I also love dual point of view in romance and this was peak quality. I just love that Dahlia was inspired by that picture and it just works so well. I loved the characters, Jack, Amber, Miguel most of all. There were all layered and captivating and I found their relationships with each other just as interesting as the ones with the rest of the school, or their respective parents. I was just carried away by all of it and simply loved it. I could even picture the football games and everything around it.
For someone who doesn't watch much sports, I do love a good sports romance and that was exactly it. I was really enthralled from beginning to end and I really could not recommend this more.

Home Field Advantage by Dahlia Adler is funny, honest, messy, and fantastic! The story is told through a dual point of view—Amber the cheerleader and Jack, the new female quarterback at the school. This book will appeal to fans of MAY THE BEST MAN WIN and ONLY MOSTLY DEVASTATED, Amber and Jack have distinct voices and both make messy and honest choices in their quest to achieve their goals. Miguel is also a favorite character in this book. I can't wait to buy it for my school libraries.

Delightful and romantic! I don't know a single thing about sports, but Home Field Advantage had me crying in the club over this sapphic cheerleader/quarterback romance.

First, I want to start by saying the narration was excellent. But all in all I wanted to like this more than I did so badly. Every time I started to get interested in the plot, something fell short. The characters didn’t feel well developed and the storyline felt stale and predictable. I think if the characters were more fleshed out and dimensional, they would’ve been much more likeable.

Thank you NetGalley and Orange Sky Audio for this audio arc.

Rep: polysexual MC, lesbian MC, gay SCs

TW: homophobia, misogyny, religious trauma, miscarriage


Jack is the first and only girl to ever get to play football in an all boys team after the tragic death of their QB1.
If being in a new city without any friends isn’t difficult enough, the team isn’t too excited about that, even though she does amazing and they’re winning for the first time ever.

This did such an amazing job showing what queer phobia, misogyny and girl on girl hate does do woman!!!
Don’t go into this thinking it’s a cute sapphic sports romance, because it really isn’t.
This has some heavy topics and there’s a lot of hate there for the most of the story.
I absolutely HATED how everyone treated her and I wanted to slap them all!
Especially the cheerleaders who should know better than to treat another female athlete this way.

The only light at the end of the tunnel is Amber, who’s really nice to her…but only in secret. Partly because she’s really into her, partly because she has her own ulterior motives.
She wants to be cheer captain next year, since it’s her only possibility to gain some money to go to college.
I thought they were cute together, but I couldn’t overlook how selfish Amber was a few times.
Coming out is not always save and super scary, especially if you know how the people around you will react and if you’re living in a very religious community.
Still she wasn’t always treating Jack perfectly either, especially around her so called friends.

I liked the ending. I don’t know how realistic the “female football player” scenario was in the first place, but I wanted her to have at least some positive experience!
I liked how Amber finally realised how all her other stuff didn’t matter more than Jack and her feelings and well-being.
I loved the tiny queer family Amber, Jack and her best friend built and how in the end being there for the people you love was more important than anything else.

For me end was a little too sudden, I would have liked there to be a bit more of a resolution for the more serious topics raised (the death, Ambers bf secrets and revelations, the way Jack was treated) and for Jacks friends to have a little more screen time.
I also would have liked to see a resolution for Ambers problem with money for college. Even if her being cheer captain wouldn’t have been a given for her to go, I think it wasn’t an easy choice to give this up.

As with most YA books, it took me a minute to get out of my mid-30s, adult headspace and into a teenager’s POV, but I was totally in once I did. I’m gonna recommend this one if you liked Shara Wheeler, because it had a lot of the same “growing up closeted in a small Southern town” vibes, but fully stands on its own. Amber starts off seeming like a typical cheerleader, but Adler does a great job fleshing her out to be a real person beyond a stereotype. I had my frustrations with her, but they mostly had to do with her being a teenager struggling with decisions she shouldn’t even have to make, and she is wrapped up so well. And Jack is just my favorite. I loved how she is portrayed, and being inside her mind was such a treat. I have been interested in this book since I saw the author talking about it being inspired by the photo of a cheerleader fixing her QB girlfriend’s hair during a game (seems like that was years ago!), and it absolutely lived up to expectations. The dual narration for the audiobook was absolutely impeccable and added so much to my reading experience!

Coming of age story with the main characters a quarterback and a cheerleader. They both have dreams they are trying to reach. Things might just get in the way though.

I love a good sports romance! Home Field Advantage was a quick listen and, though the characters were frustrating at times, a fun one. I understood everyone's motivations and complications, and I also thought that there was great chemistry. I have never read a book about a girl on an all boys team, but I'm wondering if there are more out there. The reaction that the school had to Jack being on the team was so discouraging but I appreciated how that all turned around. This book takes a lot on and it is not just a cute and fluffy romance. I appreciated it!

Let me start by saying YASSSSSSS!! This was the cheesy 90’s RomCom between a jock and cheerleader (but make it queer) that I always wanted growing up. Was it predictable at times? Yeah! But what romance isn’t? If there wasn’t an HEA, would it actually be romantic? Not to me, atleast. I need a modicum of knowing that I’m not going to be sad when I finish it. And I was not!!

Amber is the model cheerleader. She has everything she could want in life: the boyfriend, the friends, the incredible understanding mother, the chance to become Captain for her senior year… but she’s living a lie. She’s fake dating Miguel so that no one finds out they’re both queer. The friends only like her because she’s the model cheerleader on the outside. And Captain won’t happen if she can’t retain her bubble of perfection. (Her mom is an immaculate bi goddess! I love her!!!)

In walks Jack… she moved 4 hours away from home to become the new quarterback after their last one died tragically in a car crash. But the entire team… really the entire school treats her like the garbage on their shoe. It doesn’t matter that Robbie (the deceased) was a horrible person who created an heir of mysogyny, hate, and intolerance in the team that is still there even when he’s gone. It also doesn’t matter to them that they are finally winning games and it’s all because of their newest addition to the team.

Amber and Jack are literally the cutest. I enjoyed their banter and chemistry from the very beginning. I wish that Amber didn’t want to live in the closet from fear of what her friends think AND just to become Captain, but no one deserves to be forced out. And Jack did NOT deserve the abuse she received from a team full of petty babies. But without those hurdles to get over, their relationship wouldn’t have lasted long at all.

I REALLY loved this book! It was exactly what I wanted and needed right now. Also!!!!! It was set in Florida, which made me that much more excited!!

Likely My Book of the Summer

5 out of 5 stars

When I first heard about this I noticed right away that this is a combination of two of my top five narrators all in one book. Yes, please. I saw Natalie Naudus talk briefly about how much she loved this book on her TikTok and I knew I had to dive into it as soon as I could. Then I realized it was a Dahlia Adler book and I was even more pumped. She wrote "Cool For The Summer" which I thoroughly enjoyed last year (and posted my review 368 or so days ago).

Jumping into Home Field Advantage I had a smile on my face from the opening chapters. Hearing Naudus and Prince narrate the same book from two different points of view had me smiling ear to ear. But this book... it's so damn good. Adler was able to write characters that I instantly fell in love with. And she combined that with a great coming-of-age/self-discovery plot-line on both sides. So good. Amber was the one I was more worried about liking - I wasn't sure how a cheerleader (and one who wanted to be cheer captain) was going to play out, but she was so cute and likable from the very beginning. There were a few times Adler sprinkled in some things that made me worry or doubt she was as great as I thought, but she definitely redeemed herself later in the book.

Then there's Jack. Now, I went to school with a Jack-like person. She didn't want to play softball, she wanted to play baseball with the boys. And there was a good reason. She was flat-out better than any of us. And I mean that from T-Ball all the way up to high school. I was convinced she was going to do what Jack did (if our school didn't let her play - go find one that did) -- but alas she didn't because of all the things that Jack ended up putting up with. Which, I will admit that Adler nailed whether this was set in the late 90s/early 2000s like when I was in high school or today. I know that the kids today have come a long way but I also know that bullying people because they're different hasn't gone away. Especially if they're different AND better than you.

So, yeah... this book hit home for me in my personal life, but it was also just the cutest and sweetest book. As I mentioned above, it has a lot of scenes where each character has to grow, find themselves, etc. But Adler was able to weave those stories into the overarching storyline and really took this from a really good book to an excellent one.

It's weird finishing a book and knowing you're going to have a book hangover. Home Field Advantage had me smiling throughout and in the last chapters I had a perpetual well of tears that were almost falling (and I won't say if it was happy or sad reasons - it depended on the chapter).

I went even more long-winded than I expected - but I just wanted anyone who took the time to read this review to understand that even though this one hit home for me, ignoring that part, it was still easily one of the best books I've read this year.

Home Field Advantage is a story where the quarterback gets with the cheerleader, except this time they bend gender expectations. I appreciated how it examined how hard it can be to find yourself during high school, especially when you fear judgment.

I loved Jack and her determination to succeed. I thought that the emotions she was feeling about having to give up her family and friends to achieve her dreams came through authentically. Amber and Jack had moments full of banter and I appreciated the way they came together. I also appreciated the growth in Miguel, especially when it came to standing up for Jack on the football field.

This story explored how it can be challenging to be a young queer person whose story looks different from your peers.

I appreciated that both narrators had distinct voices allowing for me to distinguish between Amber and Jack's thoughts.

This is my favorite Dahlia Alder book yet! I listened to the audiobook, and really enjoyed Natalie Naudus and Lori Prince’s performances.

HOME FIELD ADVANTAGE is a sports-centered YA novel that perfectly captures the heartache of being queer in a small town. The main f/f romance includes polysexual and lesbian representation — I loved this sapphic twist on the quarterback/cheerleader quintessential high school romance! That said, this book tackled a lot outside of the love story, so I would consider HOME FIELD ADVANTAGE to be a YA contemporary novel (instead of romance).

This book contained a cast of complicated and realistic characters. Our leads weren’t traditionally “likable,” but I think this made the story more interesting. However, I will say that this book was a lot darker than I expected it to be — a fluffy rom-com, it is not. This novel contains instances of sexism, homophobia, and bullying nearly all the way through. Though this is challenged by the narrative and main characters, proceed with caution when reading.

I really enjoyed HOME FIELD ADVANTAGE and its cast of messy, complicated queer teenagers!




Trigger warnings include: bullying, sexism, homophobia, slurs, blackmailing, death by drunk driving (off page before novel), abortion, pregnancy loss, threat of outing

Living in Oklahoma, the "yeehaw y'all" of this book rings 100% true. Such a powerful story of being true to yourself and your passions, no matter what, and finding the people who care about you, no matter if the weird thing you love makes sense.

Thirsty cheerleader Amber suddenly discovers the new QB is hot girl Jack. "How many dreams does one girl get in this life anyway?"

But Jack? "Instead, every minute of this day is just one wave of nausea crashing while another begins. If there's one message everyone seems to be sending my way, it's that I don't belong here. Tell me something I don't know. Starting at a new school sucks enough; starting in a new school where you're walking on to the football team and replacing their beloved dead quarterback? That's a whole other level."

The dual p.o.v. keeps the story flowing, and what a ride it is! Ups and downs with a huge dose of teenage drama. Like Bring It On and Mean Girls meets Friday Night Lights.

But Jack? "I'm done being anyone other than who I am?"

So much I loved about this book! Characters I want to hug. Characters I want to punch. Characters I want to hug and punch and I’m not sure in which order.

There’s so much going on in this book, it’s almost guaranteed to be exactly the book someone needs at the time they pick it up.

Some highlights (spoiler warning!):
* Accepting parents 🏳️‍🌈
* Coming out 🏳️‍🌈 (in general, not to their parents)
* Sexism in sports, and in general
* Permission to speak ill of the dead if the dead was a piece of shit in life
* Religious trauma 🏳️‍🌈
* grumpy/sunshine
* butch/femme
* the beard couple wins homecoming king and queen
* a bunch of modern pop culture references like Love, Victor and Hayley Kiyoko

Home Field Advantage is a twist on the classic love story between the High School Quarterback and the Head Cheerleader. Jaclyn (Jack) Walsh is recruited to play football at Amber’s high school but Jack doesn’t exactly fit in right away. The previous quarterback was killed in a car accident and everyone looks at Jack as a not-nearly-good-enough replacement for him. So things are super uncomfortable and awkward. On Amber’s part, she’s hiding her queerness by fake dating another player, but things get complicated when she starts to fall for Jack.

The author managed to create a balance between these complicated issues with themes of friendship, how to be a team player, and what your passion is. One of the things I loved about this book is that while Jack does face homophobia from the football team, as well as Miguel – Amber’s fake boyfriend, it was not extreme, so the characters were allowed to still have fun, fall in love, and live their lives. Sometimes YA books can become ‘issues’ books and lose the character’s lightness. This book managed to keep hold of that and celebrate their lives as well.

I enjoyed both Jack and Amber’s story arcs but Amber’s in particular rung true to me and I feel like a lot of people can relate. Her story revolves around wanting things to change, but not knowing how to hold on to friends and activities from before. It’s something many can relate to when leaving high school.

I listened to the audiobook of this one and it had dual narrators, which is my favorite. Natalie Naudus and Lori Prince did a great job giving both Amber and Jack a distinct voice and helped me relate to them in different ways.

This was such a fun, light book balanced with teen angst, and a sapphic one that’s an excellent one for teens (and adults) to read.

Grade: B+

CW: homophobia, misogyny, death (off page)

Home Field Advantage
By: @missdahlelama
Pub Date: June 7th!

I really enjoyed Cool for the Summer, so was excited to read Home Field Advantage! This is a classic Cheerleader gets the Quarterback love story…only this year, the starting quarterback, Jack, is actually Jaclyn, and people are none too happy about it.

Amber wants nothing more than to be the captain of the cheer squad next year, so she has a lot to prove to the team and coach this year. Jack wants nothing more than to just play football, so she and her mom relocated to a town where Jack could play. Both have insecurities that they need to work through as well as roadblocks that are preventing them from being leaders on their respective teams.

I love the representation of queer kids in the popular group. I feel that their internal conflicts are portrayed in a genuine and accurate manner. So many people need to hide their true self “until this happens” or “until this is achieved”. It must be exhausting. I feel Adler does a good job of having the characters balance what they want with what others think of them.

This was an adorable book that I flew through in a single day! The audiobook was quite good. Despite having two female narrators, the physical and literary voices were so clearly different that I never got lost trying to remember whose perspective I was listening to.

Clearly sapphic sports stories have been stealing my heart this year, even though I've never personally been romantically interested in athletes NOR have I ever been a cheerleader. This particular story took on the homophobia of an entire town mourning the loss of their star quarterback and refusing to let him be replaced by a girl. Though some of the football team's completely irrational hatred of new quarterback Jack Walsh was a bit over the top (I don't normally advocate for a good smack, but they all needed one), the conflict here felt interesting and fresh due to some of the layers Adler built into the story. This isn't trying to be a high-brow literary story, but it did its job well of being a high school romance with a fluffy Happily Ever After that made me smile.

Three things I appreciated the most here:
1. Both Jack and Amber are already out to their families, they just aren't out at school. I liked that they were generally already through much of the coming out process and that this flipped the typical YA coming out trajectory on its head a bit.
2. Jack is specifically noted as butch. I feel like we don't have enough butch characters in queer/sapphic/lesbian stories!
3. This met my standards for avoiding needless miscommunication tropes. The conflicts here were around the challenges of their situation, but most communication issues were handled quickly and honestly. These characters talked to each other and didn't let things linger for weeks, which it always refreshing.

I highly recommend this book for anyone looking for a queer romance that feels authentic to the queer experience AND will make you smile. This is a quick fun read that, though rooted in the very real realities of how challenging it still is to be queer, is the perfect fluffy book candy for a summer read!

This was such a fantastic book! I told me best friend that teaches high school English that he needs a copy for his classroom library ASAP! There is fantastic LGBTQ+ representation in this young adult novel! I tend to get bored with many YA novels, but this had me hooked from the start.