Get a Grip, Vivy Cohen! by Sarah Kapit
Release: February 25th 2020
Format: Hardcover
Publisher: Dial Books
Source: Amazon
Synopsis:
In this epistolary middle grade novel, Vivy Cohen won’t let autism stop her from playing baseball–not when she has a major-league pitcher as her pen pal.
Vivy Cohen wants to play baseball. Ever since her hero, Major League star pitcher VJ Capello, taught her how to throw a knuckleball at a family fun day for kids with autism, she’s been perfecting her pitch. And now she knows she’s ready to play on a real team. When her social skills teacher makes her write a letter to someone she knows, she writes to VJ and tells him everything about how much she wants to pitch, and how her mom says she can’t because she’s a girl and because she has autism. And then two amazing things happen: Vivy meets a Little League coach who invites her to join his team, the Flying Squirrels. And VJ starts writing back.
Get a Grip, Vivy Cohen Review:
Firstly, I love reading stories in epistolary format because it makes the characters closely connected to the reader. By reading the letters between VJ and Vivy, I immediately started to like both of them and could relate to what they were going through.
Mainly, I found the story-line to be unique about an autistic girl wanting to play baseball. Vivy is an adorable, fun and charming protagonist. I loved how positive she stays throughout and doesn’t pity herself for her shortcomings. There are some scenes where you don’t know how she is reacting in person, but you understand her feelings through her letters with VJ. Alex is a wonderful supporting character and really roots for Vivy and supports her like a true friend. Kyle is OK as an antagonist but we really don’t get to see much of him. In fact, all the supporting characters were very down to earth and fun to read.
Sarah Kapit has done a wonderful job in her debut novel! She has a very smooth style of writing and I enjoyed how charming she made the characters. Even though you want to hate Vivy’s mother for treating her like this, you can also understand her perspective of wanting to protect Vivy. Moreover, it was interesting how she made a character homosexual but did not steal the focus away from Vivy. Another thing which I liked was how the author doesn’t step away from the format even when Vivy is not sending the letters to VJ. It in heartwarming to see how she writes her feelings in email drafts and then deletes them in the end. I am not even a fan of baseball and I still liked reading the sports aspect of it!
Overall, this was an adorable middle grade novel, and I cannot wait to read the author’s future releases!
