PLAYING HURT by Holly Schindler

Published 3/8/2011

Playing Hurt | Holly Schindler

Flux

Paperback | 312 pp.

Star basketball player Chelsea "Nitro" Keyes had the promise of a full ride to college—and everyone's admiration back home. Then she took a horrible fall during senior year. Now a metal plate holds her together and she feels like a stranger in her own family.
That summer, Chelsea's dad hires Clint, a nineteen-year-old ex-hockey player and "boot camp" trainer, to work with her at a northern Minnesota lake resort. As they grow close, Chelsea finds that Clint's haunted by his own tragedy. Will their romance end up hurting them all over again—or finally heal their heartbreak?

Brent’s opinion of the novel:
I became a Holly Schindler fan last summer, when her debut novel, A BLUE SO DARK, came out.  I thought it was emotional and dark, beautiful and twisted.  The MC felt so relatable, even though I’ve never, ever had to deal with a schizophrenic mother. 

Holly Schindler does that.  She makes you feel like the things happening in her novels are happening to you, whether you have anything in common with the characters or not.  She sucks you into her stories with ringing voice.  She did it with A BLUE SO DARK, and she did it again with her PLAYING HURT. 

Chelsea Keyes beasts it on the basketball court.  She’s a firecracker in her home town.  Until she’s injured on the court, and crippled from doing the thing she loves the most.  Scholarships, gone.  Her future, gone.  Happiness, in the trash. 

Chelsea isn’t only injured physically.  She is sad, all the time, and the sadness is so heavy that she can’t ever get away from it—not even when she’s with her boyfriend. Without basketball, she’s not the same sweat-covered, gleaming, radiant Chelsea.  Her parents think that sending her on a trip to a Minnesota lake resort will help bring her peace.  So they’re off.

At the resort, Chelsea meets her physical trainer, Clint, a college-aged workaholic trying to forget his own traumatic past with love and relationships.  The two of them click, both hurt, and both looking to heal.  Chelsea loves him more than she’s ever loved anything in her life… even basketball.   Clint feels the same two.  Even though he’s sworn to never date again.  And even though Chelsea has a boyfriend back home. 

I’ve never in my life played basketball, but when Chelsea was crippled from playing, I felt like something was being ripped from my heart.  Holly Schindler writes in a way that will make you feel Chelsea’s physical and emotional trauma.  I can’t even count on my fingers how many emotions this book had me zipping through.  Chelsea’s voice appealed to me.  She was vulnerable and hurt, because of her injury, but that didn’t keep her from being her firecracker self. 

The alternating points-of-view just made the book better.  Getting inside Clint’s head was like piecing together a puzzle.  I had to work to take the clues that Clint gave away about his past to find out what really happened to make him so distant and resistant to love. 

Then there’s the whole thing with Chelsea cheating on her at-home boyfriend, Gabe, with Clint.  Let me tell you: I absolutely hate cheaters (been there, done that).  But I couldn’t help but sympathize with Chelsea.  She knew she was cheating, but continued to do it.  This sounds bad, right?  But it’s not.  Chelsea’s relationship with Gabe just wasn’t right.  And Holly Schindler makes sure the reader knows that.  At the beginning of PLAYING HURT, we see Chelsea with Gabe.  And at the end, we see Chelsea with Clint.  We get a taste of both, and this makes us see the difference between being in a relationship and being in love.  Chelsea may have cheated on Gabe,  but at least she did it for all the right reasons.  She did it for love of Clint.

God.  How many times can I say it?  Holly Schindler knows how to write a perfect novel. 

Rating:  4.5 out of 5 stars