Set point, forty‑love to Austin Hardy’s intrusive thoughts. The Open Era by Edward Schmit is a wonderfully written queer lit novel that doubles as a sports romance book. Covering difficult topics such as mental health and anxiety, grief and familial loss, and finding one’s confidence beneath stadium spotlights and public judgment, Schmit serves and delivers an ace of a debut novel (I know these puns are bad, just let me roll with it). Humorous, relatable, and romantic when it wants to be, this book is incredibly wholesome and warm in all the right ways. A sports romance with actual sports content and a book of queer joy without feeling contrived or sanitized, The Open Era is a brilliantly written novel that I picked up and wouldn’t put down until I finished it. “Anxiety wrecks me almost daily. It makes me question everything. It makes me believe things that aren’t true. It makes me spiral. It knocks me out. Falling in love does all those things too. At this point it’s all the same.” Sporting one of the most beautiful and striking covers of the year, The Open Era was one of my most anticipated queer titles. While I don’t consider…
