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Reviewed by Donna Parrey for Readers' Favorite
Author Vince Wetzel demonstrates his love of baseball and his writing talent in his novel Lose Yourself. A prologue reveals rookie Brett Austen’s debut as a minor league baseball player and his contentious relationship with his demons. The next section begins nine years later and allows readers to gain insight into each of the six characters they’ll come to care about: Brett, who is now a major league player on the brink of a career-enhancing game; Dana Peck, a sports reporter balancing career ambitions with her mom’s health; Fred Stephens, an usher; Will Jenson, a high school sophomore with a crush; Derek Nguyen, a lemonade vendor, and Lizzie Hernandez, whose dad is dying. The narrative excites readers with pregame goings-on and an inning-by-inning escalation of everyone’s situations.
Get yourself a bag of peanuts and a cold beer, then sit back to enjoy the thrills, disappointments, drama, and joy of Vince Wetzel’s Lose Yourself. This baseball novel will simultaneously entertain you with an increasingly exciting baseball game and engage you in the lives of six people at the event. As readers get pulled into Brett Austen’s efforts to break an 80-year record, each inning brings tension, not just for the ballplayer, but in the lives of others: a phone call from a panicked parent in crisis; an unruly fan disrupting an usher’s last day; a gambler’s ups and downs watching sports action; a step-dad trying to build a relationship; and a family standing by at home with a dying dad while one family member is at the game with a mission in mind. Baseball fans will read with thumping hearts, inning by inning, just as they would attending such a game. And when it’s over, readers will want to stand and applaud Wetzel’s work.
