Funny and cute and all the pickleball trivia was fun! I've already recommended it to several people!

My husband is an avid pickleballer, and a couple of years ago, I remember mentioning that someone should write a murder mystery set in the world of the sport. "Murder in the Kitchen"! "Dead Dink"! "Paddled to Death"! So far, there are a handful of self-published whodunits (one is titled "0-0-Dead," which is pretty good), but as far as I know, Ilana Long is the first person to hit the publishing big time with a pickleball novel; her debut romance, "Pickleballers," is coming from Berkley in November. If you're an enthusiast, you'll no doubt love spending time in a world where just about everyone plays the game and a fair number of people even have their own home courts. As a bonus, much of it is set on Bainbridge Island, the birthplace of the sport.
As a non-devotee (I could identify with the character of Laverne, who is content to cheer on her spouse), I might be a little harder on the book than a true-blue fan would. "Pickleballers" is very much a rom-com, with wacky pratfalls (a man gets hit in the crotch by a ball, something which also happens in the Brooke Shields Netflix film "Mother of the Bride") and mistaken identities. I prefer romances which aren't quite as heavy on the humor.
Meg is newly divorced (her husband, Vance, left her by writing a goodbye note on the back of a receipt) and her best friend Annie hopes to cheer her up by introducing her to pickleball. Before long, she's obsessed. But the courts where they play are threatened—not by some evil capitalist who wants to bulldoze them in order to build condos, but by an environmental consultant, Ethan, who is helping put together plans to restore the area to wetlands. Not surprisingly, it turns out Ethan is a pickleballer, and Meg's attraction to him grows as her skills improve. A tournament with a big payday offers Meg a chance to earn enough money to relocate the courts, but guess who also plays pickleball? Meg's ex, Vance, and his hot new girlfriend!
Long does a good job of conveying the multigenerational friendships that often arise between players, as well as the not-so-nice aspects (my husband also experienced the difficulty of finding people willing to play with a newbie early on). If you love pickleball and have a fairly high tolerance for hijinks, "Pickleballers" might just be a smash.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the digital arc!

I feel like an idiot saying a book called Pickleballers was too pickleball-y because you clearly should know what you’re getting into from second one, but I still feel this way. The love story was super cute and I bought fully in, I just needed like 10% less references to the sport.

That being said I’ve decided to take a lesson so maybe I bought in fully 😂

What a cute book! I loved that there was a significant amount of pickleball in this book, because sometimes with sports romance, there ends up being very little sports. This was very easy to read (I finished in about 2 days), and I was always excited to pick it back up again while reading it.

My only criticism would be that I wish some of the dialogue wasn’t quite so cheesy at times. And I feel like some plot points weren’t as flushed out as they should have been. In general, I think it could have been a little longer so we didn’t have to glaze over some things.

Overall, I very much enjoyed and am dying to read more pickleball romance!

eARC received for review from NetGalley

3 ⭐️

I found the concept of a sports romance surrounding pickleball so intriguing and I do still think it was a very unique idea, I just feel like there was something flat about the book.
I do still believe the romance between the characters was very cute I just wanted more.
I appreciated the amount of knowledge of the sport the author had and felt like I really get to learn more.
Unfortunately though, I noticed I started to feel like reading was a chore and it just took me longer than usual to get through.

Thank you to Ilana Long, Berkeley, and NetGalley for the free review copy.

This book was amazing and I devoured this book in just a few sittings! I loved the character development and how the story progressed.

📖📖 Book Review 📖📖 Who knew that a game with a name like pickleball could be so darn cathartic?!? When Meg’s short-lived marriage ends, a gentle nudge (peer pressure, maybe?) from her friend leads her to try a new sport. Pickleball is all the rage so why not jump on this trend? Pickleballers is a beautifully written, uplifting read; it is so refreshing to see a new hobby normalized to help through a season of change. Woven throughout this wonderfully written novel are snippets about the history of pickleball, which is so cool to read (especially to someone who thought it was a made up sport at first, whoops)! Friendship, glimmers of hope for the future amidst grief, and pickleball are wonderfully balanced throughout Ilana Long’s adorably fun and flirty novel!

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️💫

Review is posted on Goodreads and the final review will be on instagram closer to publication day!

Okay, this was super cute.

Lots of witty back and forth banter, makes you smile. There is also a lot of light hearted and heart warming moments that you get from the romance portion and also the friendship of the characters.

Sweet, can be romantic, emotional, it was a very entertaining read and a unique story.

Thank you NetGalley and Berkley Publishing for my E-ARC in exchange for my honest review.

This story has a lot of that witty back and forth banter that makes you smirk whilst reading, but at the same time contributes plenty of that heart-warming sensation you feel from a good romance plot. It’s sweet, romantic in parts and funny in others but it all flowed well into an enjoyable and entertaining story. Loved it.