Keeping Score

by Jami Deise

When her 9-year-old son wanted to play summer travel baseball, Shannon had no idea the toughest competition was off the field.... When her son Sam asks to try out for a travel baseball team, divorced mom Shannon Stevens thinks it'll be a fun and active way to spend the summer. Boy, is she wrong! From the very first practice, Shannon and Sam get sucked into a mad world of rigged try-outs, professional coaches, and personal hitting instructors. But it's the crazy, competitive parents who really make Shannon's life miserable. Their sons are all the second coming of Babe Ruth, and Sam isn't fit to fetch their foul balls. Even worse, Shannon's best friend Jennifer catches the baseball fever. She schemes behind the scenes to get her son Matthew on the town's best baseball team, the Saints. As for Sam? Sorry, there's no room for him! Sam winds up on the worst team in town, and every week they find new and humiliating ways to lose to the Saints. And the action off the field is just as hot. Shannon finds herself falling for the Saints' coach, Kevin. But how can she date a man who didn't think her son was good enough for his team ... especially when the whole baseball world is gossiping about them? Even Shannon's ex-husband David gets pulled into the mess when a randy baseball mom goes after him. As Sam works to make friends, win games and become a better baseball player, Shannon struggles not to become one of those crazy baseball parents herself. In this world, it's not about whether you win, lose, or how you play the game... it's all about KEEPING SCORE.

Genres: Fiction

332 pages, Paperback

First published July 25, 2013

About the author

A lifelong resident of Maryland, Jami Deise recently moved to St. Petersburg, Florida, along with her husband Tom, son Alex, and dog Lady. A baseball mom for over 10 years, “Keeping Score” is her first novel. Jami is an associate reviewer at www.chicklitcentral.com and a generalist reader for an NYC-based literary agency. Along with women’s fiction, she loves all things horror and watches too much TV.

Reviews

[Nadene Seiters · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have to admit that I was skeptical at first. I’m not a huge sports fan, but this book is so much more than just about a single mother and her son who plays baseball. It’s about a single parent attempting to keep up with everyday life and make her son’s life better than the one she had growing up. This is a story about love, friendship, mistakes, and forgiveness.

I especially like the fact that her son was the voice of wisdom and reason in this novel rather than the parent. Sometimes children know how to move through life more smoothly than an adult. The main female lead, Shannon, makes a lot of mistakes throughout this book. However, she comes to realize her mistakes and she moves past them by the end.

[Kobby Gyampoh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Also available on http://chicklitpad.blogspot.com

My Synopsis
From the very start of our lives we are in a competition. Right from when the sperm has to struggle , swim fast and be the first to reach the ready egg, till the very last breath , even then we are in a struggle to be the one who lived longer. Sibling competing for the attention of Parents, to be the best athlete to have the hottest boy in school , get married first and the competition continues.


The single mom with her kid is not exempted from this lifelong Competition. What she does not know is that winning all the time has consequences that comes with it. She finds out the hard way that you can't compete with your friend and have your friend back after the competition.


Shannon a very competitive mother of a nine year old , baseball, soccer and basket ball player. It is undeniable he talent of her son but she gets so sucked up in the competition that she loses her friends in the process.
And what with the hot coach she’s crushing on? And oh, her friends wanting to take her down as much as she wants to take them down (with their children).
Pure evil and brilliantly entertaining.


My Review
I've read a lot of books about divorced mums, and not all of them are worth reviewing but i rather enjoyed reading this book, maybe because I related to it very well . I mean who wouldn’t? At some point in our lives we’ve all gone through Shannon’s predicament, haven’t we? It’s sometimes even so healthy when we involve our kids too. A family of haters. I know a handful of women who’ve been in this position for a while. Including my mum who’s still rooting for me to shed off some pounds faster before the “neighborhood bitch’s” (who happens to be her ‘friend’, bless her heart) daughter does.


Life is very competitive and am a very competitive person by nature so (I would lose weight before that silly girl across my house does with her neighborhood bitch of a mother, and) it was easy for me to relate with Shannon. Keeping score is easy to relate to and am not a single mum.
The characters were lovely and fun to read about. Good characterization on the part of Jami Deise.

The suspense was amazing and I could not help myself i just wanted to read more to know what will happen next, what Shannon would do or say, and that’s pretty cool it kept me at the edge my seat wanting more. Amazing.

Overall, I loved the book but i wished it had more humor which would have made it outstanding.
I recommend this book to all the mothers out there (though I’d hold it off my mum for a while before she gets any ideas she’s destined to marry a coach―my dad has quite a belly).

[Amy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was very intrigued by this book as I am a baseball mom 9 months out of the year. I read this book while away at a state baseball tournament and could not put it down.
The author paints such a vivid picture and does a fantastic job of bringing out Shannon's feelings as she watches her son become more independent. This is a very quick read and you live the mother-son relationship with her. I give this a 5 star review.

[InD'tale Magazine · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fun Contemporary, Chick-lit, sports novel, “Keeping Score” reveals the world of Little League baseball in a completely different light, with enough crazy parents to fill a TV drama series, and one mom determined to bulldoze her way through it!

Read full review in the 2013 Dec/Jan Holiday issue of InD’tale Magazine.

[Donna McCaul Thibodeau · Rating 5 out of 5]

Four and a half stars rounded up to five. I had my doubts about this book. The author is a friend of mine and I didn't want to hurt her feelings if I didn't like it. Also, I'm not a huge baseball fan. I needn't have worried. This is a great story about Shannon and her son Sam. Sam is best friends with Matthew but ends up playing on a rival team. The author totally nails it with coaches, crazy baseball parents and the team politics that take place. The story flowed beautifully with just the right amount of humor. Highly recommended.

[Kami · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a hard one to review. I did enjoy the book but only because I am a baseball mom myself. I don't think others not involved in this activity would enjoy it because it is VERY baseball specific. I thought it was a romance book but that was really just a little side storyline.

[Mary Stockwell · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wonderful book

This is a very endearing story. I listened to it on audiobook. The narration is very good. I loved it.

[Beverly Diehl · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really wanted to LOVE this book. Having been around the bleachers as a single mom for my share of baseball seasons, I expected to be rooting for Shannon and Sam, much more than I did.

I received a review copy of this novel via Masquerade Crew in exchange for an honest review.

This book felt like watching a youth baseball game where your son's team is in the field and the pitcher and CANNOT consistently find the strike zone. Time seemed to slow to a crawl as I slogged through. Was the primary theme about female friendship, as the opening and blurb seemed to suggest? Romance? Challenges of single motherhood?

Shannon and Jennifer are (theoretically) best friends, as are their sons, Sam and Matthew. But when the boys are placed on rival baseball teams, the friendships of both mothers and sons falls apart. My problem is that I didn't see that the women ever HAD a deep, intimate, friendship. Jennifer did a lot of carpooling and was a bleacher friend, but there was no mention of missing the monthly mani-pedi, or texting each other about cake recipes, or missing girls' movie nights, or being able to call each other up and talk about getting called back for another Pap smear.

Shannon sounded just as catty and backbiting and trying-to-get-the-other-moms-to-take-her-side as Jennifer might have been. Then there was voiced angst over the cost of this equipment and the amount of the check for the travel team, but it simply sounded like whine-bragging, because I never SAW Shannon feel any pain over the money; for instance, getting the IMPORTANT two tires replaced, not all four because that money had gone to the pitching coach, cancelling her gym membership because the XX dollars a month would be just enough to cover some baseball cost, or looking for part-time free-lance work she could do with her laptop at night to pay for said coaching.

Where this book excelled was at portrayed both the behind the scenes gossip about who was sleeping with which coach to get her kid on the team, the catty one-upmanships among the bleacher moms, and the play-by-play baseball action, which I really enjoyed. The potential romance between Shannon and Kevin/Shannon and Ron - neither felt very deep or meaningful. The love affairs of Sam's dad/Shannon's ex - another gadfly.

What rang most emotionally true to me was the pain over seeing one's child teased or losing a friendship because of a sports rivalry. In the end, the stakes did not feel high enough, and the characters didn't have to risk enough, nor go deep enough. If you enjoy a light overview of a summer with a baseball travel team with various anecdotes, you might enjoy this.

[Kathryn Svendsen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Don’t let the cover fool you. This isn’t really a book for you to pick up for your children to read. Yes, it is about a mother and her nine-year-old son’s baseball team, but it’s really more about sports and teams from the parents point of view.

This was an entertaining read from the Shannon’s point of view. Sam is her nine-year-old son who wants to play summer travel baseball. It sounds pretty simple until she finds out that it means eight weekends of tournaments plus two evenings of practices and all the nasty gossiping and competitiveness among the parents.

I think Jami does a good job capturing the competitiveness and gossiping that sometimes goes on in competitive team sports. Hopefully most of us aren’t as mean or crazy as some of these baseball parents are. I think that many people will be able to relate to the struggle that Shannon and the other parents went through with hiring special coaches to coach their children in special techniques like hitting and pitching, having coaches who seem to have it “in” for their child etc.

I’ve always thought baseball was a bit of a boring game to watch, but Ms. Deise made the game sound quite exciting. I almost wanted to be there to watch!

I also appreciated some of the humorous insights that Ms. Deise brought to her story. In particular I enjoyed the part where Shannon tried to help Sam with his pitching and she was all dressed up in the catcher’s equipment, making it completely impossible for her to see the ball coming at her let alone catch it.

And of course, this wouldn’t be a “mom-lit” (as Jami puts it) novel, if there weren’t a romance element to it. Ms. Deise does a splendid job of injecting humour into Shannon’s relationships with wild and crazy happenings with her ex-husband, her co-worker Ron, the Saint’s coach Kevin, and a few others.

This novel was a fun book to read. There was a little bit of swearing in it but no explicit romantic scenes. I gave it three stars.



Thank you to the author Jami Deise for providing a free copy of this book in exchange for a fair and honest opinion. I was not required to write a positive review. All thoughts are my own.

[Rachel Barnard · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Select baseball’s a small town. Everyone knows everyone else’s business.” (p. 163).

For Sam’s mother, Shannon, it’s all about getting him the opportunities to excel. If that means Sam gets more pitching practice and coaching time and is better than many of the other baseball mom’s kids, then all the better. Summer is fast approaching and Sam wants to try out for travel baseball. Both Sam and his mother will discover that there’s more competition off the field than on it and that baseball has its own set of politics and unfairness. All Sam wants to do is play, but what does Shannon really want? What is she willing to do and to let go of for her son?

Even though I don’t have kids and have never played baseball, I could relate to the mother in this book. She had her ups and downs. She was harried and busy. Sometimes she didn’t even have time to properly eat or sleep. The way she complains about anything that went wrong was hilarious and always in perspective of her son’s happiness. She was an endearing, yet flawed, character.

There were some great one line zingers in this book. Like, “Sometimes relationships you think are friendships turn out to be tools only to get you through the week.” (Page 222) and, “At least with sports, the competition was direct and the winners and losers obvious.” (Page 235).

Keeping Score was like Ready Player One and its constant over-the-head 80’s pop and game references but with technical baseball terms and lingo. Much of this went over my head and I focused in on the story and the relationships between the characters. The technical baseball terms and phrases did not detract from the story being told.

This book is for mothers everywhere, especially anyone who knows anything about baseball. Also for those who want to know precisely what it’s like to be a sports mom or anyone who wants to read a fast-paced fun book about mothers, baseball, and the highly competitive nature of parenting.

[Deborah · Rating 5 out of 5]

How does Shannon Stevens do it all? With a little help from her friends, both logistically and emotionally. That's the only way a divorced working mom with a semi-hellish commute is able to provide a happy childhood for her sweet son Sam. Fortunately, the sons of the mothers she's close to are also friends with Sam. By the time the story opens, Shannon has perfected the balancing act that is her life and allows her to put up with the self-righteous boss who doesn't think family is a good enough reason to call in sick when needed.

When something is so carefully balanced, one domino falling can send the rest of them crashing down surprisingly quickly. The worst of all is when her best friend lies to her about an opportunity for her son and then defends herself. Before she knows it, Shannon is left virtually friendless- and paying hundreds of dollars more for childcare.

But is it all worth it if Sam has opportunities in a sport he loves? Even if it is, what's to stop Shannon from turning into "one of those" moms- self-reflection, studied indifference, or an unexpected new friend who might be the breath of fresh air she needs? And oh yeah: what about that hot baseball coach who can't talk to her without setting off a fresh round of whispering among the other baseball moms?

These were serious topics, but Shannon's sense of humor found me laughing out loud. I also found myself screaming at the screen at several points; warning: don't give someone a first kiss when you might be a little drunk. I also gasped after I read one scene; I think most parents will too.

This definitely has a happy ending, but not everything is wrapped up in a tidy bow. Perfect, because neither are most people's lives.

[Ems. (afternoonbookery) · Rating 2 out of 5]

Shannon, a single mom and her baseball loving son take on pretty much the whole team in alot of intense relationships, the author does a great job of describing and creating brilliant characters who are memorable, although is most certainly alot of them so make sure you keep track. We bascially watch through Shannons eyes which i feel is why the description is so vivid. Okay, i wanted this book to work for me, and it did in parts but in others it failed miserably, but i am not a sports mom - so i didnt kind of understand alot. The author did mention this was Momlit - and i agree a 100% and you know, it would work for that audience. So - there is alot of baseball in this book, and that is where i struggled, i am english, i don't know all too much about the ins and outs of baseball and the focus on it was you know, kind of key in this book. I did like the underlying stories of love, relationships and crazy women, that did appeal to me, because thats the kind of story i opt for. So, overall this was mid range book for me, i think it was written well and very detailed and if i was a competitive american mom - it would be bloody brilliant, i am not however, but i am not one to slate a book, so i took it for what it was, and the mainly focused on the relationships between the characters and tuned out the baseball and in the end it was a good.

[Caroline Fardig · Rating 5 out of 5]

KEEPING SCORE by Jami Deise is a well-written chick-lit novel about a divorced mom and her son navigating through the competitive world of boys’ travel baseball. It’s very true to real life with the requisite mean kids, overbearing moms, and overzealous coaches, but the author also adds a great mix of quirky characters (and some hottie leading men) who help keep the story light-hearted and lots of fun.

Following Shannon and her son, Sam, on their whirlwind summer tour of ball tournaments made for a fast-paced read. The play-by-play of Sam’s games was interesting (even for someone who doesn’t know a lot about baseball), and the drama in the stands was laugh-out-loud hilarious. I’ve been to kids’ games where there was more angst on the sidelines than the field, but this book brought helicopter moms and their one-upmanship to a whole new level of crazy. Poor Shannon also has to deal with her needy ex-husband and his trail of conquests, carpooling nightmares, and finding a little time for herself to choose between two nice guys vying for her attention.

KEEPING SCORE is a great read—one I didn’t want to put down. I would recommend it for anyone looking for a fun take on life, love, and kids.

[Connie McElfresh · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was gifted this copy for a fair and honest review, This book is about a single parent named Shannon and her son Sam. She is a busy single parent working and getting Sam to his different activities, for the summer he wants to play baseball, he tries out for a summer travel league and his best friend tries out also, his friends dad is a coach on the team the friend makes the team even though he is not as good as Sam. He then gets on the worst team in the league, in the process of this Shannon feels as she has lost all of her friends due to the dad and his son making the team. In the story Shannon is trying to do all she can to help Sam get better at baseball and is able to get one of the coaches of the best team in the league to give Sam some lessons once she does this she becomes gossip among the "baseball moms". Her ex husband comes to some of the games and brings a girlfriend to some of the games then breaks up with her and decides to go to a weekend tournament invites his self to stay in the hotel room with his ex wife, while at this tournament he hooks up with one of the other baseball moms. There are some very funny situations in this book. For me this book was a very fast read, the writer has a way of writing that is very easy to read.

[Kat · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sports brings out the best and the worst in people and Shannon Stevens sees it all as her son Sam plays his first season on a travel baseball team. This book isn't something I would typically pick up, however, I found it to be an entertaining and decently written novel. Even if you don't know baseball this novel, explains plays and how the game works in way that is not to technical or to dumbed down, it was just right. The conflicts between the women were realistic without being over the top or to cliche. Obviously, the author has spent time following traveling teams! Towards the middle and end the novel began to lag and the author gave too much detail about individual games and plays, I found myself quickly skimming the play by plays to get to the real action between Shannon, her friends, family and potential boyfriends - I found that to be the real story. Overall I enjoyed this book and think if you are a parent with children on traveling teams you would really enjoy Keeping Score.
I received a copy of this book from Chick Lit Central in exchange for a fair review.

[Joecool Review · Rating 5 out of 5]

Keeping Score was such a real-life story!!

I grew up around these traveling baseball teams and I can vouch that some of them were just like this!! I was nodding and talking out loud to this book...lol. My husband was pretty sure I had lost it :-)

I really enjoyed this book and felt it was very believable. I think we have all been at the point where we want to stop our mouths from spouting off, but just can't! Shannon was such a real person, I wanted to be there for her when she felt she had no one to talk to. I love the real struggles with trying to decide what to do for her son without stepping on any toes. I also loved that she listened to her son and knew when to distinguish between hot-headed 9-year-old and true feelings. :-)

All in all this was a fun read that keeps the story going and will have your mouth dropping open at certain points. There are quite a few of those "I can't believe she just said that!" moments that had me laughing out loud! Feel free to check out more at http://joecoolreview.com

[Lrd · Rating 5 out of 5]

What an enjoyable read! Don't worry - you don't have to be a divorced, baseball-obsessed mom like Shannon Stevens to find pleasure in this well-paced, engaging novel. You will meet Shannon's friends (and sometimes enemies), her helpful neighbor (who had the nerve to get engaged!), her ex-husband (who she doesn't want back!), her co-workers and her son's assorted coaches.

As a lead character, Shannon is both confident (quick to defend her son and co-workers with bold, witty comebacks that you wish you had the guts to say) and yet quietly vulnerable as she tries to find her place amongst a new team of baseball moms and deals with her baby boy growing up. Despite her flaws, Shannon is someone you will want to spend more time with and will want her to be happy.

Of course, romance is scattered throughout to keep it interesting for readers like me. The writing style encourages a quick read and the dialog is very natural and believable.

[Lilian Roberts · Rating 5 out of 5]

The author did a great job describing the life of a single mother Shannon Stevens who is involved in her young son’s life and his love for baseball. She is a devoted mother, committed to making sure that her son is happy and successful. For me it was an enjoyable easy read.

This is a wonderful book for sports lovers especially for parents with young children. There is a little bit of romance; enough to make you smile, but the main story is about Shannon and Sam. There are many places that the dialog is quite enjoyable between Shannon and other moms. Some kids and their parents tend to be mean and very competitive and that is where I loved the way Shannon handled those situations, and protected her son from hurtful words.

The moral of the story according to the author is that you can have friends, or you can complete, but you can’t compete against your friends and expect to keep them.

[Shelly Hickman · Rating 4 out of 5]

This story brought back a lot of memories of when my son played baseball as a boy, and I could relate to many of the feelings Shannon, the main character, shares throughout. The politics, the stress you feel for your child when there's so much pressure on him to perform, the worries that he might get hurt. The book is well-written, and there were many humorous scenes. It took me a little while to connect with the characters, but when Shannon decides to suit up and catch for her son, Sam, that's when I started to warm up. I liked that she was flawed and was able to recognize the moments she felt herself turning into a fanatical baseball mom. I thought that the book probably could have been shorter, but overall, this would be an enjoyable read for any woman who's been a baseball mom. Or a soccer, football, or basketball mom, for that matter. :)