Oh my, this book was gorgeous. Definitely one that consumes you while you’re reading it. The story follows two high school basketball players who fall in love and are forced to contend with the homophobia of their small town and their own families. It’s about the pain of first love, which is such a specific kind of love and a very specific kind of heartache. The writing is so beautiful and tender, full of aching and yearning. The novel takes place in 2004, when I was 15, so the references and the culture felt very familiar to me. This is also a coming-of-age story, about growing up and into who you are and will be. What a stunner.

A Sharp Endless Need by Marisa Crane offers a nostalgic look at high school basketball and the complexities of first love in a small Pennsylvania town. The novel centers on star point guard Mack Morris, whose senior year is marked by personal loss and the arrival of transfer student Liv Cooper. On the court, their chemistry is undeniable; off the court, their relationship faces challenges from societal expectations and personal struggles.

While the premise is compelling, I found that the narrative didn’t delve deeply enough into its themes. The exploration of Mack’s grief and the pressures of impending adulthood felt surface-level, leaving me wanting more emotional depth. Additionally, certain plot developments were predictable, which lessened the impact of the story’s climax.

However, Crane’s portrayal of the basketball scenes is vivid and engaging, capturing the intensity and camaraderie of the sport. The depiction of a queer relationship in a conservative setting adds a layer of tension that is both authentic and relatable.

Overall, A Sharp Endless Need is a decent read that touches on important topics but doesn’t fully explore them. Fans of coming-of-age stories and sports narratives might appreciate its nostalgic elements, but it may not leave a lasting impression.

After their first book, I knew Marisa Crane would be an auto-buy for me. This book, while very different in content from their first, just confirms that for me. Their writing is so methodical and with purpose - you can tell every word is meant to be there. With this book especially, you can tell they love what they are writing and the act of writing itself. And with the first-person perspective, this reads almost autobiographical, which maybe it is. There is so much passion in the writing and it's so melodical that it feels personal for the author.
This story is a story of young love in a coming-of-age story: love for another girl and love for basketball. This is also, ultimately, a story of grief. Grief of the characters, grief of the author, grief of the reader. The intensity and heartbreak sneaks up on you. What you think is just a simple story about love and basketball, unexpectedly becomes a story about longing, belonging, and loss. Loss of our innocence, our identity, our purpose, and what it means to find it again amidst the most tumultuous time of our lives. I was so invested in the life of Mack that I was sobbing by the end, feeling it all as if it were me. I was blown away with how consumed and emerged I became in the story and how familiar it all felt (replace basketball with soccer for me). Never has a story I've read encapsulated the longing for another and for an unpromised future better than A Sharp Endless Need. Please read this book!

This book was a rollercoaster of emotions for me. The obsessiveness and the angst. My heart broke more than once. Crane is such a brilliant author and so able to grasp human connection and rawness on the page.

Thank you to the publishers and Netgalley for an arc!

Minor spoilers ahead

I want to start my review by talking about something I don't normally mention too much in my reviews -- the setting. That's not to say I don't appreciate setting in books, I do, but I typically don't discuss it too heavily since I'm already prone to writing longggg reviews. However, I'd be absolutely remiss not to shout out the setting here.

I'm from a small town in Eastern Pennsylvania. The basketball courts Mack and Liv go to play on I can picture being just down the street from me. In fact, I know of several slightly run-down parks just like it within a 5-minute vicinity of my house. They pass Amish on the roads and go to Wawa and are Sixers fans. I knew when I read the synopsis that this story was set in rural Pennsylvania, but I hadn't imagined just how familiar it would be to me. I think that's what made it all too real for me. While this book is set 21 years ago -- the year I was born -- it often feels like nothing has changed. If you had told me it was set in 2025 (minus the AIM messages and flip phones!) I would believe you. There's something suffocating about small, conservative towns, and the use of that setting here drew me in and left me gasping.

This is a book about basketball before anything else. I'll confess, I knew very little about the sport going into this. However, I don't think that lack of experience hindered my enjoyment of the book at all. Crane does a masterful job weaving together sports talk and vivid imagery to create a scene that anyone can picture. I walked away from the book feeling like I should probably check out a WNBA game soon.

I want to talk about the romance, first, before I talk about individual characters. I have a hard-time describing this as a romance. I would call it passion, yearning, a soul-deep connection first. It is a love story, yes, but it's more tragic than it is romantic. I don't say that as a criticism, to be clear, I love a book like that. I think, though, I had slightly false ideas going into this book about what the romantic aspect was going to look like. However, the tension between Mack and Liv sizzles from the very beginning and is drawn out in an almost painful (again, used positively!) slow burn. I felt... sad a lot of the time. I think that has to do a little with what I mentioned before: the suffocating feeling of being in a conservative environment. The escapism fantasies they play out together were sweet but another reminder once again of how difficult it is for them to be together. What we do get is perfect and as Mack's longing and desire builds, we get to see the way her relationship with Liv is influenced. By the end of the book, that wanting reaches a screaming peak and there's no ignoring it any longer.

Mack is a stellar character altogether. She is complex and messy and passionate. She's dealing with a lot -- the end of high school, picking which college to play for, her own sexuality, and the death of her father. In many ways, his death is the catalyst for all the events in the book. He's the one who gets her into basketball, who coached her as a kid, and at his celebration of life she meets Liv. The conversation around grief in this book is subtle, but not in a way where you wish it was more explicitly discussed, but rather where you can feel the undercurrent of it throughout. Mack has complicated feelings surrounding her parents. She often wishes her gruff coach was her father. Despite the love she clearly had for her actual father, she sees the way her coach is with his kids and knows that her father never felt that way about her. Mack's relationship with her mother is also strained. She's absent, often non-caring. There's an extremely powerful moment that I won't direclty quote here until I get my hands on a finalized copy of the book, but it's about Mack realizing there are things her mother knows about her that she doesn't care enough to confront her about. The apathy of it struck me deep in my heart.

The book is essentially told from the perspective of future Mack and we occasionally get insights from her that I liked as they grounded the story but also served to intensify specific moments. For the most part, you forget that it's a retelling of what happened, technically, but then you are reminded and I think it really works here.

Liv, oh Liv. I would say that I promise to be briefer here, but I think that would just make me a liar. (I'm also realizing now how much more I have to say in general, so bear with me here, LOL). Liv really tugged on my heartstrings. I felt very connected to her. She, like Mack, has a somewhat difficult home life. Her father left -- for reasons not revealed until later -- and her mother is cold and unsupportive of Liv. I don't know if like is the right word here, but (for lack of better words) I liked that her mother sees right through her from the very start. Even when Liv denies or holds back on her feelings for Mack, her mother sees her, and that terrifies Liv. That fear is her catalyst in the same way that Mack's grief is hers. I think it would be easy to somewhat dislike Liv -- she pushes Mack away, then minutes later puts her hands on her skin. She knows she is with a guy who is not good for her but sleeps with him anyway. All of those things, however, just make me empathize with her more. She's young and scared and in an environment that will not accept her. The moments where she is able to be true to herself are so powerful. When the reason why her and father are somewhat estranged was revealed, I genuinely went "Oh" and then thought I was going to cry. Like Mack, Liv is scared for her future and is trying her best to make her life easier, even if that means she has to sacrifice happiness.

Katrina is a really strong side character. I initially disliked her pretty strongly but as her own storyline progresses, you realize, just like everyone else, she's not how she seems initially on the surface. Some of the other side characters fell a little flat for me. There were a couple where their names popped up, and I had to go back and remind myself who they were. They don't have as much influence on the story as they probably could have. Grayson, for example, only really pops up to supply Mack with drugs, but then she also refers to him as her best friend. I really liked their bowling alley moment together, however, so I wish they had more of those moments. Mack's relationship with Dani was a good way for her to kinda get some space from Liv, but again she really only serves the purpose being anti-Liv. I do think her presence was important but her place in the storyline seemed to be unresolved.

The last issue I had that I'm going to touch on here is the handling of the sexual assault. I won't be too specific, both for spoiler reasons and since it's a sensitive topic, but I really felt like this needed to be talked about more. It impacts the character significantly afterward once and that was a very real and raw portrayal of the lasting effects, but really other than that and one other brushing-off mention, it doesn't seem to have that large of an impact on the character. There's something to be said for a character pushing down what happened, but in this case, I think it would've been better to just not include it for the purpose it does end up serving.

The ending is open -- which I know people don't always like. I've read quite a few HEAs lately and honestly, I think I was in the right head space for it. It also was undeniably realistic. I do somewhat wish there was more resolution to the ending, specifically Liv's, but I can accept what was given.

While I know I had some criticisms, I'd like to reemphasize really how much I enjoyed this book and how much it resonated with me. It hit very, very close to home and in a way I'm sure I will continue to unpack for the next few weeks haha. Reflecting, I am convinced A Sharp Endless Need was the perfect title for this book. I can't imagine four words that sum it up better than that.

4 stars

Marisa Crane’s ‘A Sharp Endless Need’ is a fresh take on high school basketball from an adult’s perspective. With a clever blend of drugs, alcohol, and a captivating love story that explores queer sexuality, the book takes you on a journey filled with vivid sports and relationships. A great read.

Mack is a rising basketball star and she can have her pick of colleges as she is being actively recruited. Still, she is a teenager dealing with the recent death of her father, her identity, and her growing crush on Liv, another talented player.

While I didn’t connect with the story, I did like the writing style which I found to be full of yearning yet a bit detached.

Thank you to Random House and NetGalley for the opportunity to read a copy.

This book was slow but in all the right ways. I felt attached to the girls and the setting was so immersive I felt like I was there. I appreciated the ways the characters had their own identities and I liked the values they held steadfast with.

Mack lost her father and was struggling with this grief. Mack is not necessarily the best player or most popular, and it helps the reader relate to her as most people at some time or another feel inadequate. She found solace in a new friend and teammate Liv. They form a bond and work through if there is more than a friendship.

This is a coming-of-age, sapphic, sports romance, if you like these types of books this one is well worth your time. Typical in these types of books it does have a fair amount of drugs, alcohol, and smoking content. Slow-paced in the sense that you want to take your time to get through this, not boring.

This book was well written. It raised discussions about acceptance, identity, grief, and gender inequality in sports. I enjoyed the characters, and they had a decent amount of depth.

Thank you, NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group-The Dial Press for asking me to read this book early. The opinion in this review is my own.

4.5 ⭐️

you expect me to just move on and be okay after this???? 😃 this is that tjr type of literature that makes you sit with your feelings and question everything. the writing had me hooked, these characters are SO, so real to me, and this is not something i am forgetting anytime soon. do with all this what you will, IM gonna be crying ✌️

I first of all want to thank Netgalley and Random House Publishing Group for allowing me to read and review this book before the release date. This was the first book where the publisher actually reached out to me to review and that is truly a honor.

I will admit that this book was unlike anything I’ve ever read before. It was my first experience reading a LGBTQ focused romance. I was worried I wouldn’t be able to relate to the characters because I’m straight and they aren’t, but that was not the case. I could understand the two main characters struggle of not knowing themselves and who they were going to be outside of basketball. I thought that the plot was great. There was good build up and strong relationship building, but the amount of times that drugs and alcohol were referenced was almost off putting. I wonder how realistic it was to have stellar athletes doing drugs and drinking that much, but then again the time period of the book happened when I was in grade school so maybe that’s how things were. I was also disappointed with the ending. I feel it just ended and we didn’t get the resolution we were hoping for. What happened with the main characters together and independently? Left a lot of confusion and longing in my opinion.

While the book was good, it didn’t excite me or cause me to keep reading like crazy for answers. I do think it could be a very empowering read for young girls struggling with their sexuality, but then I also wonder how appropriate that would be with the level of smut, drug, and alcohol references in the book.

3.5 stars!

This one is for all the queer people who had a somewhat unhealthy co-dependant relationship with a friend when you were young! Shoutout! Hope you're okay! (but I know you're not)

Mack is a high school senior and starting to become friends with a new girl on the basketball team when her dad suddenly passes away, leaving her aimless, in debt, and grappling with her sexuality. Her new friend, Liv, doesn't help matters, complicating Mack's life with newfound love, lust, and obsession. I think this book fulfills most of its promises. Mack and Liv's relationship is a delicious rollercoaster of teenage angst, companionship, and rivalry and the backdrop of basketball lends well to the complexity of their feelings for one another. Mack's struggle with her sexuality as well as her gender will feel familiar to readers who grew up queer without a lot of queer people around them. I think the book lost me a little bit with the drug experimentation because it feels strangely distant from the other events of the book. I think if it had been more closely intertwined with her father's death or lack of direction it would have made more sense. The ending was also pretty ambiguous, which I don't necessarily mind generally in books but it felt a little wishy-washy/anti-climactic.

I generally enjoyed A Sharp Endless Need and definitely think it will find its audience, but I'm not sure that it was entirely up my alley. It's not long, though, so it's definitely worth giving a chance if you're on the fence!

Thank you to Marisa Crane and The Dial Press for this ARC in exchange for my full, honest review!

Happy reading!

3.5 stars, rounded down to 3 stars.

I liked this combination of coming-of-age and basketball, but I had some issues with it as well. On the positive, the author has a clear voice, and the characters are distinctive and memorable. The basketball integration was really well done -- you could feel the love of the sport coming through. On the negative, the amount of drug/alcohol/smoking was hard to believe, and hard to believe that it never caused an issue with the coach or parents. The nostalgic angle I felt was overlooked. Other than the constant reminder of the characters' favorite NBA players, there was next to no mention of the early 2000's.

All in all I enjoyed this, reservations and all.

I received a complimentary copy of the novel from the publisher and NetGalley, and my review is being left freely.

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group - Random House/The Dial Press for the ARC. Not really quite sure how I feel about this one. It was a good read just not spectacular in my eyes. At times I felt like the story dragged and it could have been better. This is the first book I have read by this author. I will give her another go and see what I think after reading something else.

A Sharp Endless Need is a painfully beautiful sapphic story about a crush on a teammate but it's equally a stunning love letter to basketball. And what I mean is, I have never seen the love for a sport and the feelings one can get while playing it portrayed in such an all-encompassing and romantic way. And, with Mack playing her final high school season alongside her crush, Crane brilliantly illustrates the pain, wonder, fear and possibilities that are constantly revolving in the mind and heart of a high schooler, and one who is not openly living as her true self- when you're still very much a kid but faced with choices that will impact the rest of your life. So much to hope for but also so much to be afraid, or at least uncertain, of.

I intentionally read this slowly and distracted myself from reading BECAUSE I DIDN'T WANT IT TO BE OVER. A brilliant coming-of-age story with 2000s nostalgia. I'll be thinking about this one for a while.

What Crane has done with words on a page is pure magic.

I flew through this! I enjoyed the writing and felt very invested in Mack and Liv. I was rooting for them the whole time! Very Love & Basketball meets coming of age, brought me back to my basketball playing days and I loved that. While a solid 4 stars, I would have liked a more definitive ending, more answers like did she recover and play for Gonzaga? WNBA? I'm guessing not as she grew to realize there is so much more to life than just her sport but other than that, a solid, fun, fast read.

As the mom of a gay daughter, A Sharp Endless Need really hit home for me. It’s such a poetic and emotional read—one of those books that sticks with you long after you finish it. The writing is beautiful and deep, and the characters are so well-drawn that they feel like real people you know and care about.

I appreciated how basketball is woven into the story. It’s more than just a sport here—it’s a way for the main character to figure things out, to find escape, and to push through life’s challenges. It reminded me how important it is to have something solid to hold onto when everything else feels uncertain.

This book really dives into what it’s like to grow up queer, trying to find your place in the world while dealing with family, friendships, and your own self-doubt.

A Sharp Endless Need is heartfelt, honest, and beautifully written. It’s the kind of book that makes you feel and reflect, and I’d recommend it to anyone who loves stories about identity, love, and finding where you belong.

Check the trigger warnings first. I went in blind to this eARC.
Set in a small Pennsylvania town, Mack has just lost her father, but gained a new basketball friend in Liv.
2004 was not yet a time where being lesbian was really accepted and thus Mack has to hide a substantial part of herself.
Being a teen myself around that time really adds to the uncomfortableness of reading this book and recognizing forced behavior.
The pacing is very slow, which gives the book a well rounded feel for living in a small town and waiting to decide what to do after high school.
It’s also very interesting going into what it is like for these young talented kids having to chose if they want to try to persue a career in sports.
However the languid pace that lets the reader in keeps up for too long and I just wasn’t invested or riveted enough to appreciate the last third of the book. Pity because it has a lot of elements that could make it stellar.

This book wasn’t quite my cup of tea, but I’m sure there are plenty of basketball fans out there who’ll love it. I’m not exactly a basketball expert, so some parts of the book were a bit hard for me to follow. It felt a bit slow at times, and it made it tough to get pumped up for what’s next.

Thank you netgalley for the opportunity to read this as an arc in exchange for an honest review 3.5 stars, The best way to sum this up and it will make you want to read it is: basketball and queer This felt like such a real forming of an young relationship, I was so immersed this story and loved the "vibe" of the book
Really recommend