How You Get the Girl: More than Love and Basketball

I never thought this book had so much more to offer than a sappy sapphic romance. Kelly’s third installment of Love & Other Disasters discussed the importance of mental health to athletes, current or retired, as equal to the importance of physical strength and how sports should be inclusive.

The synopsis of the book might be intimidating to non-basketball fans, but worry not because despite having protagonists who are both basketball players, it doesn’t revolve around technical terms of the sport. It’s not like every chapter, you’ll see the story progress on the court as if you are watching a game. No. You’ll see more of their stories outside the court. And how as if the universe conspired, the main characters, Elle and Julie, have the same life trajectories.

How You Get the Girl also seized on the topic of sexual identity. What I liked about this is the new perspective it brought given the main character, Julie, is already 30 years old. Commonly, this topic is discussed in coming-of-age books, and movies and literature with Julie’s age bracket are more about suddenly realizing you like the same gender or maybe it’s something you’ve hidden for a long time. But here, Julie knows she likes girls, but she just couldn’t label herself (yet). She wants to know which one fits best. 

I’m not big on labels. When there’s a form that asks for my gender, I don’t even know what to tick. I used to say labels are for cans. As I aged, I realized labels or how people identify is part of who they are. So if one wants to do labels, that's their decision. Some may have spent their lives in difficult ways just to understand their identities until they're proud of who they are. It might have taken a lot of toll, a mammoth of a journey, then there'd be times they'd be invalidated or unaccepted. So I have understood the weight, and I shouldn't think of labels as merely markers like how they are in cans.

If you like fake dating (is there anyone who doesn’t?!), low angst reads, sports, and happy sapphic endings, this one is for you. You can read How You Get the Girl without reading the first two books (though you’ll be seeing their characters in here). 

P.S. I was suddenly hesitant to read this after I took it out of the store because it has a Taylor Swift song as the title. I was quite disappointed with the last book I had that has a TS song title but I’m glad I gave this one a chance.

P.S. Julie, we need a prayer reveal. How did your ultimate crush, since you were young, become your girlfriend?! Because Taylor Swift’s words clearly were not the instructions you did (as the title of the book).