Under the Lights by Abbi Glines

This is the second book in The Field Party series following a group of friends in smalltown Lawton, where a big part of life is focused on the Friday night football games. Each book in the series has different narrators though, so they can be read as standalones, even though they are continuations of the same group of friends in the smalltown Lawton, Alabama.

The Field Party series is light, fluffy and sweet, but still have more of a serious undertone than you might expect. The stories are all about high school, football, field parties, falling in love, but they also deal with difficult issues such as teen pregnancy and rape, sickness and loss of loved ones, absent parents, infidelity and mistakes that costs you everything, but they all leave you with hope in the end. The books are full of clichés and have a bit too much of the strong male hero that needs to be saved by the sweet, gentle girl, but I have to admit that I loved it! I binge-read all books in the series in just two days.

In this second book we follow the three friends Willa, Brady and Gunner.

Willa can’t erase the bad decisions of her past that led her down the path she’s on now. But she can fight for forgiveness from her family. And she can protect herself by refusing to let anyone else get close to her.

High school quarterback and town golden boy Brady used to be the best of friends with Willa, but that’s all changed now: her life choices have made her a different person from the girl he used to know.

Gunner used to be friends with Willa and Brady, too. He too is larger than life and a high school football star and doesn’t care about anyone except himself. But Willa is the exception…

This book was my least favorite in the series though and showed some of the more problematic sides of the books. Like how they all follow the same formula with the popular rich bad boy and the poor, broken and innocent girl, the slut-shaming and the division of all girls as either saints or sluts, the love triangle in this book that I really didn’t like. But still, I would definitely recommend this series to anyone looking for a nice, pleasant read, with a serious undertone, or for anyone wanting to get out of a reading slump.

Rating:
3 stars

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​Author info:
Abbi Glines